"Uh…" Carl said in an attempt to stall while he performed an in-depth analysis of the facts.

The facts right now, as always, added up to Annie being very pretty. Distractingly so—for him at least. He'd never been the type to prize looks more highly than brains, but if he had, he imagined he'd still have ended up spending the past twenty three years with her. Right now, however, these facts were making it tough for him to really focus and evaluate anything objectively.

He switched gears, mentally riffling through their shared calendar. She'd gotten a haircut last week, so that wasn't it. She wasn't the type to go for manicures or whatever, so that wasn't it, and there wasn't anything on the calendar at all that might be related to this, so that definitely wasn't going to help anyway.

Rebecca's comments about work came back to him, but was that really something Annie would do? He looked more carefully. Her face did seem like maybe there were a few less lines here and there, but…

She smiled shyly at him, reminding him of the smile she'd given him at the end of their second date when she'd asked if he wanted to see where she lived with a very similar smile—though in retrospect, while the shyness she'd shown at the time had been endearing, her actions once they'd entered her apartment that night had been something else entirely.

He was getting distracted yet again. The only thing he could think of to describe a difference, which may or may not have even existed, would be to say that she looked somehow more 'youthful' or more 'energetic', but that was the sort of questionable, hard-to-define thing that could be explained by her having the same feeling as him about how great today was.

A quick scan of the rest of her didn't show anything of note other than the rest of her, which was always of note to Carl, even if it didn't seem to be specifically relevant right now—though obviously he was still going to do a very thorough check just—

"Carl?"

He looked back up to his wife's pretty eyes and shrugged. "You seem less tired?" he tried.

Annie's brows drew down, and her expression turned to one of suspicion. After a few seconds, she tilted her head. "You mean I look the same to you?" she asked, sounding slightly confused.

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Carl was feeling like there was a landmine he'd stepped on somewhere, but it was too late for him to double back and try another path forward. In times like these, he'd found what was best was to double down. "Why? Did you change something?"

Another few seconds passed, during which there were shouts of excitement from the den—though nothing that pinged his Dad Sense.

"You don't think I look…prettier?" she asked.

This was firmly on familiar ground for Carl now. While Annie wasn't particularly vain, he'd caught her a number of times poking at some of the lines on her face in the bathroom mirror with an expression of dismay, and she was always embarrassed on those occasions when she'd spotted him watching her. Everyone got older, but she seemed to take it especially hard some days. On those occasions, he did he absolute best to reassure her, even if he never seemed to be able to figure out exactly the right thing to say.

He reached out and took her nearest hand in his, beginning to massage the palm. "Annie, in another twenty years, I'll still look at you the same way I do now," he said in a soft, but firm voice, conveying his absolute conviction that this was definitely the case, because obviously it was.

The hand massaging went on for a short while longer until she squeezed his hand back and gave him a dazzling smile. "You're sweet," she murmured.

"NOOOOOOoooooooooooo!" shrieked Bobby in a tone that was probably more suited for someone actually in trouble and not just playing freaking games in the next room ruining a moment her parents were trying to h—

"I've gained the lead!" Mina crowed.

"Not for long," Sammy said.

"Look at you two lovebirds," Rebecca said as she entered the kitchen, putting the proverbial nail in the coffin of the moment that had sort of almost but not quite happened.

Annie's smile became annoyed, likely as she had a very similar thought, because they were definitely on the same wavelength right now.

"Did you know," Carl said, feeling like it was the perfect time for this after how thoroughly their moment had just been interrupted, even if it would be a little petty, "that Rebecca decided to take Sammy car shopping today during basketball practice?"

Annie gave his hand one more quick squeeze before she pulled away and deepened her annoyed expression into a frown. "Becca…"

"What, I can't spend time with my niece?" Rebecca said, bringing her chin up defiantly as she stared her sister down.

Carl sighed. It was a great day, sure, but that didn't mean there weren't a few things that couldn't still be improved on.