Chapter 5 #2
“Tooners.” Bay chuckled. “I can figure that one out. What kind of cartoons do you let her watch?”
“She likes Babar and Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood.
She’s also very into PAW Patrol. And of course she’s seen Brave.
She’s seen it since the day she was born.
” Pete chuckled. “She’s allowed to watch cartoons in the mornings for about an hour.
It gives me a chance to just relax, plan lunch, plan activities, and get the baby changed. ”
“Good to know. We played fling the stuffed toy this morning. I think she was pleased.” Bay shrugged. He was doing the best he could.
“Oh, excellent. That’s one of her favorite games.” Pete leaned forward and grinned at him, warm eyes dancing with mischief. “Did you kiss the panda?”
“Shut up.” He took a bite of his dutchie. Damn, it was good.
“That’s true love right there. She let you kiss her panda. Sometimes she didn’t even let Tony kiss the panda.”
“Really?” That made him unexpectedly warm inside. “Well. Flynn chewed on a highland cow stuffie.”
“Flynn is still in a very oral stage of his life.” Pete looked over at the baby, who was now sound asleep lying on top of the cow. “I guess I should probably wake him up. Otherwise, he won’t want to take a nap this afternoon.”
“Can’t you just let him have his nap right now?”
“I could.” Pete leaned forward like he was telling a secret. “But if they can both take a nap at the same time, then I can take a nap.”
“Ah.” He grinned. “You know, being a Manny is a lot like being Chief Executive.”
“Is it? Do you have to wipe a lot of butts?”
Bay stared at Pete, utterly shocked for about half a minute.
Just about the time that Pete started looking nervous, he cracked up loud enough that the baby woke up and started crying.
“Oops. Sorry, Flynn.” And also Pete, because Pete was the one who had to go and deal with Flynn.
“I just meant there’s a lot of moving parts and the trick of it is to get everything going the way you want it.”
“I know what you meant. I was just teasing.” Pete bounced the baby and handed him a rattle.
“Ah. I didn’t get that.” He gave Pete a wink.
“It’ll take a little while before we get our cues together.” Pete’s smile was warm, gentle.
“I think we’ve got time.” Flynn wasn’t even one yet; they had years.
“Yeah…” Pete let his eyes go wide. “Lots of that.”
“Still don’t want me to bring in another nanny?”
“No. Not yet. Maybe later when you’re traveling or I need a vacation, but the kids don’t need anything new.”
“I don’t do vacations,” Bay admitted.
“No? I would have thought that you could have gone to the beach and the mountains and Paris for romantic dinners.” Pete actually looked surprised.
“Well, you need a partner for romantic dinners,” he noted dryly. “And I’ve been pretty damned focused on the business.” Maybe too focused. He could have come to visit Tony far more often than he had, but he’d always been in the middle of some deal.
“So, what do you do exactly? It seems that it’s very exciting, and that you do a very good job at it.”
Ah, exciting? He wasn’t sure about that. Busy? Yes. Stressful, absolutely. All-encompassing, totally. Exciting? Rarely.
But it made him feel pretty good that Pete thought he was exciting. Interesting.
“I buy and sell companies. Pick ’em up while they’re down, revamp, refurbish, sell them while they’re back on the top.” And he was damned good at it.
“Wow,” Pete chuckled softly. “You must think that I’m the most boring person ever. I just watch other people’s children.”
Shit, Pete did more than watch other people’s children. He cared for these kids, loved them, and helped to raise them.
“You’re turning babies into people who are going to go out into the world. Sounds pretty important to me.” He made money, Pete shaped people. Not to mention, there was no way he could do what Pete did. This week had proved that.
As far as he was concerned, Pete was kind of a little miracle worker.
A hot, gentle, sexy little miracle worker.
He was going to go to hell for thinking things like that. But he was just a man after all, and there was no question Pete was hot.
“These are good doughnuts,” he said so that he wouldn’t say any of the hot and sexy stuff out loud.
“I thought we deserved a treat. I try not to indulge too much, but I do love a sweet fried bread.” Pete leaned close as he said that, his chest warm against Bay’s arms.
Merida came down off the sofa and padded over. “Me too?”
“Of course. I told you I got you some little ones.” He handed her a little donut hole that was un-iced.
Such a smart son of a bitch.
“Such a cute doughnut for a cute girl.” Bay gave her a smile. He was pretty sure they were friends now.
“Sank you.” She blushed and wiggled happily, then ran off with her donut to plop back down in front of the TV.
“Oh, someone’s very happy with you!” Pete winked at him, and he had to fight not to roll his eyes, but he was pleased.
“I’m glad at least one of them is.”
Pete shook his head, gave him a little shrug. “I think you’re doing great with them, especially considering the situation, which is at best just okay, right?”
“Yeah. I just feel so awkward. I don’t deal with kids.
Like at all. And I don’t know how to talk to them or comfort them or anything.
” He shrugged, too. It was what it was and they’d either work it out or they wouldn’t, and he’d be paying for therapy for a hundred years to fix whatever he screwed up.
“You haven’t had eight years of practice like I have. I’ve had those years and a degree. And sometimes I still get it wrong.” Pete offered him a wry grin. “Sometimes, all you can do is all you can do, right?”
“Yeah, you’re not wrong. I’m just not used to not being on top of everything, you know?” He was on the top of his game at work. And the boss at that.
“I do. And I promise to try to keep on top of everything for us as best I can.”
Pete was genuinely the sweetest guy that he’d ever met. It was strange.
Maybe he should get Will to pick him up a gift card or something. No, that seemed impersonal and weird.
Honestly, the guy probably needed a break more than anything, but that was something he couldn’t give Pete. Especially if the man refused to let him hire a part-time nanny.
He finshed his dutchie and debated grabbing another one. He needed to buy some gym equipment. “Hey, if I bought a home gym, we could put it in the basement, eh? I think there’s room.”
“Of course there is. There’s a room behind where the media room was going to be.
That was going to be Tony’s man cave. I don’t see why it couldn’t be a gym.
There’s a bathroom down there and everything.
A shower even. I think that he intends it—” Pete sighed.
“I think he intended it to be one of the kids’ bedrooms when they were teenagers. ”
He wasn’t sure how he felt about taking over Tony’s man cave. It seemed… disrespectful somehow. “Maybe you and I can look at the plans and see if we want to go ahead as planned or if we want to make any changes.”
Pete nodded, smiled over, the expression more than a little sad. “I know that everything will have to change. I understand. Every time we do anything new, it’s going to be hard for a while, I think. That’s okay, right? You just feel it and move on.”
“I think it’ll help if we make things our own.” Of course that was easy for him to say. He hadn’t been a part of Tony and Cindy’s lives the way Pete had. It would help him feel more at home here, but would it actually help Pete? “If you’d rather not…”
“We’re going to have to. We have to create a family. It’s obviously what they wanted from us.”
“All right. Then if you’ve got the plans we can go through them and decide what we want to do—for us and for the kids.”
“Sounds perfect. I feel a little stuck, you know?”
“Then we can get you unstuck. That’s kind of what I do, in a weird way.”
Pete chuckled softly. “Okay. I can handle weirdness. I’m a nanny.”
“I thought that meant you could handle snot and vomit,” he teased.
“And that’s not weird?”
He never would have guessed that Pete was funny.
He threw his head back and laughed, tickled. And if there was a tinge of hysteria to the laughter, he was going to ignore it.
The laughter eased. Pete grabbed the rest of his bear claw. “So, do you have a lot of work today? Would you like to have lunch with us, or are you going to be out? I haven’t quite learned your schedule yet. Although I have to say, Will is super helpful with that. He’s really easy to talk to.”
“He’s amazing. When I shook his hand after his job interview was over, he held onto mine, looked me in the eye and told me that he knew he was already at the bottom of the list because of his age, but fifty was not old and he planned to live another hundred years, not to mention if I gave him a chance I’d wonder why I ever even hesitated for a second.
” Bay smiled, remembering the fierceness on the man’s face.
“He told me not to mistake his lack of work experience in the last twenty years as a weakness, and he’d be willing to work for two weeks—with pay, he knew how much his time was worth and he was not doing a free trial—without signing anything to prove he was the man for the job.
There was something about the look in his eyes and the firmness of his handshake.
I told him he had a week to impress me. I knew in two days that I would never find anyone better. ”
“That’s exceptional.” Pete shook his head. “I mean, really for both of you. For him for being so brave and you for paying attention. For trusting your instincts and having good ones. That’s very good.”
“Yeah. His partner, who’d been the breadwinner, got sick.
Like badly sick, and he had to take over being the moneymaker on top of caregiver.
His amazing organizational skills came in handy on both work and home fronts.
And it was a long slog, but I’m happy to say Paul recovered.
” Bay pondered Pete’s question about his schedule.
“On the whole, I plan to be here, so I’d love to be included in lunch.
I have to admit that there are days where if Will didn’t set lunch in front of me, I wouldn’t remember to eat.
And if I’m on a call, just wave at me and make eating motions or something so I know it’s that time and I’ll come down soon as I can.
” He knew he could get tunnel vision when it came to work.
“I think that’s great! Gives me a reason to make a lunch that’s something beyond hot dogs or chicken fingers and fries. Right? I try to get the little ones to have nutrition, but,” Pete shrugged. “Sometimes it’s a challenge, sometimes it’s not. They love fruit.”
“Well, I’m not a picky eater. Although I might balk at hot dogs and chicken fingers everyday,” he admitted.
In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a hot dog.
“I’m also happy to get something delivered anytime you don’t have the time to make lunch.
Or if you just don’t feel like doing it.
” Pete had a lot on his plate. At least they now had their dinners made for them thanks to Will’s organizing it.
“Thanks. I’m thinking about turkey subs today, and there’s spaghetti and meatballs tonight. The garlic bread looks amazing.”
“Love a good garlic bread. So do the kids tear apart the subs and eat bits, or do they get their baby mouths around the whole sub?” He was curious about that because so far, meals had been a mess when it came to Flynn and Merida.
“Flynn will probably have a piece of cheese, some banana, and some crackers. Merida will have a sandwich—no crust—cut into four pieces, with a little bit of mayonnaise and cheese. No turkey. You and I will get subs.”
“Does Merida not like turkey? Or are the kids veggie or something?” Bay shook his head. He knew it wasn’t that, unless they were making hot dogs and chicken fingers without meat these days. He was also pretty sure he should already know this by now.
“Merida just likes a cheese sandwich. She’ll eat turkey, but she tends to take it out of her sandwich and eat it with her fingers. With the mayonnaise, it’s slimy, and cheese is just easier.” Pete rolled his eyes. “Stupid, but true.”
Bay chuckled at that. “So lots of things I might be putting all these big reasons for are actually just to make life easier.”
“When you have four kids, about ninety-five percent of the world is making life easier on somebody.”
“I will have to remember that.” He glanced at his watch. “Oh Shi-taki, I have to get to work. You know where to find me if you need me.”
“I do. I hope you have the best day. I’ll call you for lunch. Mustard or mayonnaise?”
Both sounded good. “Yes, please.” He gave Pete a wink and headed upstairs to get to work.