Chapter 7 #3
“No standing on the back of the couch!” Lilac yelled at him, smiling with glee, obviously enjoying her role of sibling monitor. She turned to Beckett while pointing to her brother, and yelled with authority, “Papa said we could get hurt and that we should never stand on the back of the couch!”
Beckett held up both hands in surrender, overwhelmed by the chaos.
Not even five minutes into this gig, and it was a goddamned circus.
He just fucking knew this was a bad idea!
Normally, he’d wash his hands of the chaos under the guise of ‘not my circus, not my monkey,’ but unfortunately, Gill’s kids very much were his monkey.
“Stop!” Nathan yelled at his sister, stomping his feet and nearly falling off the back of the couch. He caught his balance against the wall behind the couch and stood up straight again, crossing his arms over his chest with a mutinous glare.
“Alright, that’s it,” Beckett announced angrily, having had enough of this fucking nonsense. “Nathan get off the couch right now or you’ll get no popcorn, and it will be straight off to bed.”
The little boy seemed to take his measure of Beckett, trying to determine if he was bluffing or not.
“I’ll count down from three, and God help you if you ain’t down off the stupid couch by then,” he added, holding up three fingers in warning.
Nathan stared back defiantly, clearly willing to call Beckett’s bluff.
“Three——” Beckett waited him out. Nathan didn’t budge. “Two—” still no movement from him. “One——” Nathan jutted out his chin, staring Beckett down with a calm that was unquestionably just like Gill’s.
“Alright, that’s it, losers get boogers,” he said, stomping his way to the couch and snatching him up quickly. Nathan cried out in terror as he was swung backwards and over Beckett’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
“No!” Nathan yelled, pounding his little fists against Beckett’s back in protest. “Put. Me. Down!” he shouted angrily as he kept hitting Beckett.
“Where are y’all’s bedrooms?” Beckett asked Lilac, who was staring at him with her mouth hanging open in astonishment. Apparently, she’d suddenly lost her ability to speak as she pointed mutely up the stairs.
“You got these two?” Beckett asked Hayes, pointing towards Lilac and Jameson.
“Yes, I think so—” Hayes said hesitantly, wondering about Beckett’s methods of parenting.
“Great!” he responded, before leaving them behind and heading up the stairs towards the kids’ bedrooms.
“It’s not—fairrrrr——” Nathan wailed. He was crying now, clearly unravelling. “Jameson always——” he hiccupped, struggling to catch his breath, “gets me in trouble!”
Beckett listened but didn’t reply, merely bit back his smile.
How many times had he yelled or debated the same kinds of things with his own parents when he was annoyed or fed up with one of his older siblings?
Hell, he felt for the kid, he really did.
There was no worse feeling in the world than the sheer frustration of trying to talk and finding yourself incapable of it because you were hiccupping from tears born of pent up frustration.
The triplets had two separate bedrooms. One for Lilac, and one for the boys.
Beckett veered left into the boys’ room, shut the door, set Nathan back on his feet, and turned on the overhead light.
The room was split down the middle when it came to decor.
One side of the room was decorated in a sports theme, with posters of hockey and soccer players on the walls, and the duvet cover showed a colorful collection of sports equipment.
As soon as Nathan’s feet hit the floor, he stomped his way over to the other side, which featured a galactic theme.
The duvet cover was patterned with a night sky filled with stars, planets, and galaxies.
The bookcase next to his bed was filled with astronomy books and he even had a telescope by the window.
Beckett briefly wondered if he’d outgrow his fascination with the night sky before he found a different use for that telescope.
“It’s not fair!” Nathan repeated, for the hundredth time. Kicking the foot of his bed, he didn’t wince or complain about hurting himself. He just plopped down on the mattress, crossed his arms over his chest, and stared at the floor, refusing to look at Beckett.
“Sucks to be you,” Beckett acknowledged with a quick shrug. “You made your choice, now it’s sleepy time.”
“Jameson never gets into trouble!” Nathan shouted indignantly, eyes red-rimmed from crying. “I’m always getting punished because he won’t shut up.”
Beckett knew that wasn’t the case since he’d been there the night that Jameson had gotten severely scolded for giving their dog a haircut, but he kept that to himself.
“Don’t say shut up,” Beckett corrected him instead, because it sounded like the right thing to do.
“You said it,” Nathan said, scowling.
“I’m an adult.”
Nathan merely growled at that and went back to sulking.
With a sigh, Beckett gave in his inclination to talk this out with Nathan and walked over to sit down on the end of the bed.
He’d been a kid once, too, and had suffered his fair share of slings and arrows because of sibling rivalries, which always sucked, so he was on painfully familiar ground talking with Nathan about his problems.
“Listen—I have two brothers and a sister. I know what it’s like with siblings—they make you want to punch them out of existence.”
Nathan looked up at him then, sniffling and chuckling like Beckett had said something he shouldn’t have. “You punched your siblings?” he asked, clearly amused.
“Well, not oft—” but then he caught himself. “No. Never. Violence is—eh—never the solution, and all that,” he advised, backpedalling quickly. “What I’m saying is, I know sometimes it feels unfair. But you hit Jameson, and that’s a big no-no.”
“He deserved it,” Nathan responded, unrepentant.
“Doesn’t matter if he did or didn’t,” Beckett said, shaking his head. “You don’t hit people. Never.”
“Never?” Nathan asked, scrutinizing Beckett’s face as if looking for a way to call him out on his bullshit.
“Never,” Beckett said, unwilling to admit there were notable exceptions.
Mostly because Beckett didn’t know how to say “well, except for dimwitted assholes, people who are threatening you on planes, and any other scenario where it feels like it would be easier if they just—weren’t around anymore” in a way a kid would understand.
“Besides, Hayes and I gave you a chance to apologize, and you didn’t take it, so—” he shrugged, and gestured around the room. “You made your bed, now you gotta lie in it.”
“What?” Nathan asked, baffled by the expression.
“It’s an expression. Means when you fuck up, you have to live with the consequences of your fuck up.”
“That’s two dollars in the swear jar,” Nathan informed him with a smug grin.
“Yeah, yeah—I’ll ask the tooth fairy to lend me a few dollars. Now get to bed,” Beckett said, as he got to his feet. He crossed his arms over his chest and waited patiently for his directive to be followed.
Nathan pulled back the covers and slid between the sheets. He grabbed the planet-shaped plushy from the end of his bed and cuddled it as he turned to lie on his side.
“Can I still have pancakes in the morning?” Nathan asked, and those ridiculously long eyelashes were working overtime again.
Beckett chuckled and nodded. “With sprinkles and everything. Night, Nathan!”
Seeing a nightlight plugged into the wall near the door, he switched it on and a soft blue light illuminated the room. Beckett flipped off the overhead light, and immediately noticed a constellation of stars glowing on the ceiling.
“Night,” Nathan replied, setting his glasses on the nightstand with a loud sigh of contentment.
With that, Beckett left the room and headed back downstairs.
“Everything alright?” Hayes asked as Beckett turned the corner of the living room.
Beckett stopped abruptly, rendered temporarily speechless as he took in the tableau before him.
While not entirely sure about what he was looking at, he was dead certain, however, that this needed to be recorded for posterity.
He reached for his phone in his back pocket and snapped a few dozen pictures while Hayes frowned menacingly.
Good thing their guns were locked in Gill’s safe.
“I thought you were only doing nails,” Beckett commented mildly.
“Doesn’t he look pretty?” Lilac asked, as she continued to generously apply makeup—holy hell, was that blush?—to Hayes’ cheeks.
“I mean—he’s—” Beckett was at a loss to describe the impressive makeover job.
Hayes growled low in his throat and stared coldly at his partner.
Lilac had not only painted Hayes’ nails an alarmingly bright shade of purple—she’d also applied—although that might be too generous a verb—matching eyeshadow to his eyelids and all the way up to his thick black brows.
She’d also applied ruby red lipstick that matched the blush she was so very generously dusting over his cheeks.
Add in the poodle still curled in his lap, and Hayes presented quite the tableau.
“Nancy—you’ve never looked better,” Beckett cooed, choking back laughter. He was fairly bursting from holding back his guffaws, but he really didn’t want to hurt Lilac’s feelings.
“You’re next,” Hayes assured him, his gaze pointed and glinting dangerously.
“I don’t wear makeup,” Beckett replied quickly, shaking his head and holding up both hands defensively.
“Why not?” Jameson asked from the couch. He looked perfectly relaxed and content now that he had the couch all to himself.
“Because I’m a boy,” Beckett stated emphatically.
“Boys can wear makeup,” Lilac retorted confidently, and yeah, Beckett supposed he’d walked right into that one.
“Sure they can, but this one doesn’t,” he said, pointing at himself.
“Daddy says boys who are afraid to wear makeup have fragile maniculativity,” Lilac argued. Her artwork completed, she turned towards Beckett with arms crossed defiantly, mimicking Nathan’s earlier stance on the couch.