Chapter 9 #2
He put his hand on Pete’s arm. “This isn’t about you making me uncomfortable, it’s about me making you uncomfortable.
This is your home. You should feel safe here, happy.
” He took a deep breath. “And you have my word too. And I guess I want to help whereever I can. I’m assuming none of this stuff takes place at exactly the same time?
So it’s not like you have to be at two places at once?
” Because then he could just tag along to everything and help where he could.
He’d been an ass for nearly a week. Maybe this would help make up for it.
Besides, aside from thinking he should be there for the kids, he was actually starting to enjoy being with them.
He loved his Merida reading time before bed.
Now this field trip thing on Monday had him nervous as hell, but he wanted to be there for Belle and maybe he’d wind up enjoying that too.
“The big thing is that the library and t-ball are at the same time on the same day. Usually, I ask one of the other parents—one of the parents—to watch him while I do the library, because it’s harder with Merida. She can’t be left alone even for a second.”
“I can take whichever one you’d prefer I do.” He and Merida had a growing bond. On the other hand, it might be a good way to find some common ground if he went to Eric’s t-ball game. “I’d be happy to do either.”
“Why don’t you take Merida and Belle to the library? Flynn and I can go to watch Eric’s game since I never get to go see him. We can swap next weekend, but weekends are busy.”
“Oh, swapping sounds good. The best of both worlds. Now about this field trip thing…”
“Does it help to know that Janet Reardon is going to watch Merida and Flynn, and I’m going to be on the same field trip with Eric’s class?”
Relief flooded through him. “Yeah, that helps a lot. Can you give me an idea of what’s going to be expected of me?”
“There’ll be Belle and two other third-graders.
You don’t lose them—most everyone will be together in a pile all the time, right?
The whole class, all the parents, everybody together.
” Pete grinned. “Except for lunchtime. And lunchtime you’ll have to be in charge of making sure that your three kids eat their sack lunches, get back in line, and don’t get lost. Same with things like bathroom breaks.
There’ll be a lot of group scenarios, but if there’s an emergency, you’re the parent.
If there is a bee sting, that’s you. So like I said, you’ll have Belle and two other third-graders.
Now since it’s a zoo, there’ll probably be some kind of an activity.
Find the most predators. Find six red animals.
Who knows? But you’ll be in charge of making sure they do that. ”
“Huh. Okay.” Three kids sounded so much better than a whole class. “I think I can handle that.” How hard could looking after three girls be?
“I’m sure you’re going to be fine. You run a whole company.”
“I do. But kids are far scarier than grown-ups.”
Pete chuckled, but he nodded. “Fair enough.”
“Shall we take our pie to the living room and watch a movie or something?” He really wanted them to get back to what passed for normal for them. He missed it. He missed Pete.
“Sure, I can watch a movie. I don’t guarantee I won’t fall asleep halfway through. If I do, just leave me there on the couch. I’ll be fine.” Pete winked at him. “God knows I’ve slept there before.”
“Haven’t you been sleeping well?” Bay asked. He really did wish Pete would let him hire a part-time nanny so the guy could take a break now and then.
“Oh, I’m all right. I’ve been sleeping some, but if the kids get up in the middle of the night, and if they all do it once for something and they all pick a different time to do it, that means that I’m waking up four times.” And Pete shrugged. “That’s how this works, I guess.”
“Is that how it worked when Tony and Cindy were here?” Because he didn’t believe for a second that they were the kind of people who would make the nanny do all the heavy lifting.
Pete shook his head, “No, of course not. I mean, there were lots of times that we split the kids up if I didn’t have any other plans, or where they would want to do things just themselves, and I got the weekend to just sleep or I didn’t have to do any nighttime things because, well, they enjoyed parenting. ”
“Well, then, I think we should take turns doing the overnight things.” How bad could it be? A water here, a diaper change there, right?
Pete blinked up at him. “Really? You mean it?”
“Yep. I do.” He nodded. He could do this. He fucking hoped he could, anyway. “It’s only fair.”
“Well, it would be nice to get just one night’s sleep, that’s for sure. Just like 8 hours in a row…”
“I didn’t know it was that bad or I would have offered earlier.” Would he have, though? It had taken him a while to get comfortable with the kids. Still, he knew he’d offered, more than once, to get a night nanny, or a weekend nanny, so that Pete could have some actual time off.
“It’s not bad. I swear. I’m just tired tonight, you know?”
“Well, if you can’t remember the last time you had a full night’s sleep without interuption, that’s not good. I’ll take tonight and I will do my best not to have to wake you for help.” He wasn’t promising, though. Because he really had no idea what to expect.
“You should be fine. Besides, we’re supposed to be watching a movie. Movie first, then night.” Pete plopped down and handed him the remote. “Your turn to pick. I picked the disastrous Lord of the Rings movie.”
“I don’t think it was the movie that was disastrous,” Bay murmured drily. He took the remote, though, and turned on Netflix, scrolling through the movies. “Stop me if you see something you like.”
They ended on a some goofy comedy, and true to Pete’s word, he was asleep twenty minutes into the film, one hand curled under his chin, the other propping himself up on the couch.
Bay found himself watching Pete sleeping more than the movie. He was cute in a sexy way. And one of the nicest people Bay had ever met. Keeping those thoughts to himself was going to be trouble, he could tell. But he would do it, because they all needed Pete more than he needed to get laid.