Chapter 5
Chapter Five
A week after the funeral and Bay felt like they were finally starting to find some sort of routine.
Maybe he was just getting used to the chaos.
Belle and Flynn had been back in school for four days now.
There were prepped meals in the fridge and freezer—really good meals at that.
The cleaners had come yesterday and had done an amazing job so he’d hired them to come in for a couple hours on Mondays and Thursdays.
He was actually getting work done. He’d been working from the formal dining room, but working from home for Covid had taught him he could do it.
And since it was working, he and Will had put their heads together and had bought everything he needed to turn the master into a bedroom and office for himself.
Which he was looking forward to because the dining table and chairs were not optimal and he was going to need more of Pete’s massages.
The only thing they were dragging on was the part-time nanny so Pete could have some days off.
So far, Pete had looked at all the applicants and refused to even interview any of them.
Bay told himself that the only person Pete was hurting for being so picky was himself—he didn’t get a break until they had one, so Bay was going to let it slide.
Merida threw a toy across the room and Bay checked his watch. Pete should be back from taking the kids to school any minute now. He couldn’t wait because the twenty minutes he was alone with the two babies every day were terrifying.
Merida gave him a long, slow look, her little face screwed up, bright red curls a mass of unruliness. “Play?”
“What?” He blinked at her.
“Play wif me.” She toddled over, grabbed the toy, and stuck it in his face.
“Oh.” How? But he didn’t say that out loud. He took the stuffed panda from her, looked at it. “Okay.” Then he threw it across the room like she had.
Her lips dropped open, and she cackled, the sound merry and bright, making the baby’s eyes fly open. He rolled over to blink at her and then started crawling for the toy.
“That’s my toy!” Merida cried, scrambling over to it.
The baby started to cry, and Bay panicked. He didn’t want any crying!
“Please don’t cry!”
Merida just rolled her eyes, walked over, grabbed another stuffy, and shoved it in the baby’s face.
That actually worked, Flynn double fisted the highland cow toy and shoved one leg into his mouth, sucking on it.
“Nicely done, Merida.”
The little girl beamed at him, pushed her hair out of her face, and then chunked the toy at him, hitting him square in the nose. Bang!
Okay, so she was going to be a softball player. He was going to get her a coach. Maybe he’d wait until she was three, but it was definitely in the cards.
He lobbed the toy back at her, making sure it didn’t go in her face, but hit her leg instead.
She clapped for him, laughing happily, and for the first time since he found out his brother died, he felt like he’d genuinely done something right; he’d handled something. He’d made that little girl laugh.
Instead of throwing it again. She brought the toy to him, pushed it in his face. “Kisses?”
Was she aware of just how germy this little panda was? Who knew how many times it had been chewed on or snotted on. He bit back his sigh and gave the panda a quick kiss. Then he kissed her cheek, too.
She flushed and squealed, then ran off waving her panda, heading back to climb up on the sofa and grab her blanket.
He met Little Flynn’s eyes, the baby still chewing on a cow leg. “Girls, huh?”
That earned him a baby wave, little Flynn’s fist opening and closing rapidly.
They were adorable kids, when they weren’t crying; then they were just scary.
And he supposed it was a good thing he thought they were good because they were his responsibility now.
He shook his head; if he went down that line of thought again, he might wind up crying, and he wasn’t going to do that because it wouldn’t help anyone.
Not him, not Pete, and definitely not these babies.
Speaking of Pete, where was he?
Like thinking about him had summoned him, the door flew open and Pete came walking in, hands full of bags and two big cups of coffee. “I brought fancy coffees and some pastries!”
Bay’s stomach growled. They’d had cereal for breakfast this morning—not at all his favorite, but pastries? Yum. He forgave Pete for being late back.
“I love you,” he said, holding his hand out for a coffee.
Pete chuckled. “You’re welcome. I wasn’t sure exactly what you liked, but I saw that you put yummy stuff in your coffee.
So I got you a mocha latte with an extra shot.
I also have a cinnamon dolce latte here with an extra shot.
If you would rather have it, I like both.
And then I got all sorts of different pastries plus a couple of little things for the kids to munch on so they could feel like they were being fancy too. ”
“Nice. The mocha latte sounds good—smart move, by the way, putting an extra shot in each. We need the caffeine infusion.” He accepted the coffee Pete handed over and hoped it wasn’t too hot, because he was going right in.
“Well, and I always worry that it’s too sweet without that little extra bounce. But yeah—” Pete grinned at him, shook his head, “The kids were well, Eric was excited to go back to school again today, Belle’s getting better—she was a little sad today, but the teacher says she’s doing well.”
“Good. I think the routine is good for them, eh?” It certainly had always kept him on an even keel. He did his best work when he had a routine going. It kept him sharp.
“Yeah, I mean…” Pete sat down next to him, opened up the box of pastries, and let him choose.
They smelled like heaven, and it felt amazing that Pete had thought of him.
“Part of me wants to just make life stop, but it can’t.
The best thing for these babies is to let life move forward and remember their parents and just do the best we can, right? ”
“You’re the expert, so I bow to your decision, but that sounds right to me, too. Hell, are these two even going to remember Tony and Cindy?” he asked, nodding at Merida and Flynn.
Pete shook his head. “No, not a chance. There’s a very slim chance that Eric will.
Belle will be the one that remembers, and even then, that’s gonna fade, and I’m afraid gonna become a problem.
It’s going to make her hurt and sad when she realizes that she can’t remember what her mom looked like and what her dad smelled like.
I’ve been talking to my friends who are therapists, and I’m going to do my best to make this easiest on them, but—” Pete grabbed a bear claw and started tearing it into bits.
“I can’t fix everything; this is just hard. ”
“You don’t have to fix everything, Pete.
That’s not your job. We’ll get them to therapists and shit.
Shit. Stuff! Stuff! I mean stuff. Damn it.
” He slapped his hand over his mouth at the last swear.
He was never going to remember not to do it, and the kids were going to have the pottiest mouths at school all because of him.
Pete stared at him for half a second, and then the laughter started, low and soft at first, and then it just seemed to bubble out of Pete’s mouth, getting louder and hard enough to shake the lean shoulders.
By the end, it was a little hysterical, but not too much so, and Bay assumed it was just a release of all the pent-up tension.
At least he wasn’t getting his hands slapped and reminded—for the eight hundredth time—not to swear.
He grabbed a dutchie. These were his favorites, but a lot of bakeries didn’t make them anymore.
“So do you have any plans for the weekend?” Pete asked, looking at him curiously.
“No, would you like the weekend off?” Because he would hate that. He wasn’t ready to have all four children by himself. He wasn’t ready to have two children by himself for twenty minutes, much less four for two days.
“Oh no, I just thought we might go to the park. Something fun, but not too much pressure. Just an outing.”
He nodded slowly. “I’ll make sure Will keeps my calendar clear.” Doing things with Pete would be easier, he thought, than having to do them on his own. And then he’d have done it. “Will has more candidates for a part-time nanny for us to look at.” But he really meant for Pete to look at.
Pete shrugged and kind of stole a look at him. “Not sure I’m comfortable with this yet. I mean, there’s so much change. I’m their one constant. I don’t know. I don’t think I could have days off and enjoy them. This is my family. More than my job.”
“So you’re saying we should stop looking for now?” Bay frowned. Pete was going to burn out. “You’re not going to be there for them if you have a breakdown from never taking any time off.”
Pete ate a bite of pastry, rocking a little in his chair. Then he looked at Bay, dead in the eyes, and said, “What would I do if I took time off? I’d worry about the kids. I’d think about the kids. I’d worry about you. I just want to be with my family. I just love knowing that I’m helping.”
“Okay. I’ll tell Will to stop looking. For now. If you change your mind, let me know, all right?”
“You have my word.” Pete glanced at him. “You’re not angry with me right?”
“Why would I be angry with you? You care about these kids in an enormous way. It’s amazing. Of course I’m not angry with you.”
In fact, he respected the hell out of Pete. In this whole process, Pete was being absolutely selfless.
“I honestly don’t know what I would do without you, let alone what the kids would do. We owe you a whole lot. Some time off being the least of it.”
“I love them. I was there when every one of them was born. I was the third person to hold them. It’s important.” Pete sighed softly. Then he peeked at Merida. “What are you doing, little girl? Do you want a bite of donut?”
She shook her head. “I watch tooners.”