Chapter Four Barrett #2
I stood from the couch and walked over to the sliding glass door that overlooked the backyard.
Without permission from my brain, my eyes flicked over to the house to the right.
Lights blazed from just about every window, just like they had the other night.
An unfamiliar sensation churned through my stomach, and I turned away.
Because we had an early game today, we were home just before dusk.
Now the sky had darkened, and the neighbors’ twinkling Christmas lights flickered through the trees.
We didn’t even have a tree up at our house yet.
Too busy. Always too busy. Working my ass off at a job I loved, to make sure my children had everything they wanted in life—but stretched so fucking thin I could hardly take the time to enjoy it.
The sound of footsteps descending the stairs pulled me back to the present. “Mom, I’m gonna go talk to the kids. Text me if you book flights.”
“Love you, Barrett.”
My eyes closed. “Love you too,” I said gruffly.
The kids whispered urgently to each other, and when I turned around, Maggie was connecting her school laptop to the TV screen in the family room.
“Hey,” I said gently, not wanting to run them off now that she was finally willing to talk to me again. “What have you two been doing up there?”
Bryce cleared his throat, shuffling some note cards in his hand. My eyebrow rose at the way he’d slicked his hair back like mine. “Working on something,” he said. His skinny chest puffed out. “We have a presentation for you.”
“Do you?”
Maggie was in one of her best dresses, a pleasant smile fixed on her face, but her eyes looked a little manic. “Won’t you please take a seat, Father?”
“‘Father’?” I repeated under my breath. “What do you two want?” Just before the screen flickered to life, I sighed. “Maggie, if this is about getting a dog again, you know we are not in a position to have something that requires that much responsibility. Someday—”
“It’s not,” she rushed to interrupt. “It’s not about a pet, I promise.”
I glanced at Bryce, and he beamed. It did nothing to quell my suspicion. I took a seat on the couch and gestured for them to continue. “Let’s hear it.”
They stood together at the front of the room, whispering something I couldn’t hear. Bryce showed her something on his note cards, and she nodded.
Maggie pressed the button on the remote and the TV flared to life. The title made me raise my eyebrows.
The Foolproof post-school plan to make Dad’s life as easy as possible!
by Bryce and Maggie King
(we are listed in alphabetical order even though I, Maggie, did most of the work)
“Foolproof, huh?” I asked.
Bryce nodded, then cleared his throat. “It’s estimated that as many as fifteen million kids in America are left unsupervised in the hours between when school lets out and when their parents return home from work,” he read, voice a touch robotic.
“The gap in after-school care is a m-major crisis, as most programs focus on elementary-age kids and have strict ele-eligibility requirements.”
I covered my mouth with one hand, hiding the beginnings of a smile, while Maggie mouthed the words along with him as he read.
She took the stack of cards. “According to a research study at Princeton, the key to successful after-school care for middle school–age kids”—she gestured between herself and her brother—“is strong interpersonal relationships”—her eyes flicked up to mine—“a focus on the kids’ individual interests, and excellent group management by supportive, friendly adults. ”
Sitting back against the couch cushions, I let my hand drop, and the sight of my begrudging smile bolstered both of them. Bryce took the cards from his sister and told her to flip to the next slide. But before she did, they both gave me a breathless, questioning look.
“I’m listening,” I said gently. Knowing Maggie, she’d have a program outlined for the front office at work, along with a preliminary budget and a place at the team facilities where this program would be taking place.
She’d probably try to rope the players into being group leaders or something, under the guise that it would help them on the field too.
The first slide included their school pictures, and underneath, a bullet-point list of what they were most interested in.
Maggie rattled off her list in a rushed exhale. “I like dogs, kittens, music, drawing, and nice, friendly people who let me do crafts and could maybe teach me how to bake.”
My left eyebrow quirked at the specificity.
Bryce stepped forward. “I like dogs, playing soccer, watching sports, and nice, friendly people who also like dogs and are super fun to play with and don’t yell at us for talking.”
My brows flattened.
Maggie gave me a nervous look. “In light of our interests, we’ve done extensive research on our proposal.” Briefly, she rolled her lips between her teeth, then pressed the button to go to the next slide.
Lily’s picture was right in the center. Her hair was down around her shoulders—so much hair—and she stared straight into the camera with a tiny smile playing around her lips, which was an expression I’d definitely not seen on her the other day.
That woman would only smile at me if I were on fire.
“Absolutely not,” I said.
“Dad,” they both said.
“You said you’d listen,” Maggie continued.
“Yeah, you promised,” Bryce said.
I folded my hands in my lap and prayed for patience. “Where did you get that picture?”
Maggie and Bryce shared a look. “The internet?” Bryce answered.
“Where on the internet?”
Maggie straightened her shoulders. “Her social media. She’s not very active. She hardly posts anything. But no one can hide online, Dad.”
I dropped my chin to my chest and tried to keep breathing. “All right. Keep going.”
“Lily Townsend is twenty-eight years old, never been married, no kids, and comes highly recommended,” she said.
My head snapped up. “From who?”
“Scott and Patty,” Bryce answered. “We have text messages of them giving her a glowing recommendation.” He elbowed his sister.
The next slide was screenshots of their texts with our neighbors, and I read the exchange with a growing sense of despair.
They loved her. Said she’d be phenomenal at taking care of them.
She was smart and polite. Even though she kept to herself, they absolutely fell in love with her when they met her in Phoenix on their winter visit last year.
She was house-sitting for someone there, and the rest, it seemed, was history.
“Lily loves to bake, and you know I’ve been wanting to learn.” My daughter clasped her hands together over her chest. “It would be educational, Dad.”
I closed my eyes. “That’s a stretch, and not nearly enough to convince me it’s safe to let her watch you. We don’t know her.”
“You didn’t know Jill when you hired her, either, and she was horrible.”
My eyes opened, landing unerringly on my son. “She came highly recommended from her agency, and they have a thorough vetting process.”
The kids looked at each other meaningfully, which honestly, never boded well.
The next slide had me leaning forward. “Maggie,” I said in a warning tone. “Where did you get that?”
“Well, it’s not hard to run a background check on someone,” she hedged. “She doesn’t have a criminal record. Not even a parking ticket, Dad.”
I pinched my eyes shut. “Kids, I appreciate how much work you put into this—”
“Dad, please,” Bryce begged. “We really like her. She didn’t treat us like little kids or try to play stupid games.
And she’s next door until Mr. Scott and Mrs. Patty get home in February.
It’s not a forever thing, you can find someone else; but until we’re on Christmas break and Grandma and Grandpa can come, this could work.
Then you’re in the offseason and you’re always home when we get off the bus.
This is a good compromise, and—and you know what, um, John F. Kennedy said about compromise, right?”
“I can’t say that I do.”
“Compromise does not mean cowardice,” he told me. “I learned it when I did that project last month.”
Slowly, I sat back again, watching incredulously as Maggie’s eyes filled with tears that she tried to blink away and Bryce’s cheeks pinked with his vigorous defense of their idea.
“We can stay over there until you’re home,” Maggie said in a trembling voice. “She was nice, and she didn’t make us feel like bad kids. Half the people we’ve hired always remind us how much trouble we’re always getting in.”
Her eyes. God, the way she was looking at me cut me straight through to my ribs.
“Please, Dad,” Bryce whispered, clearly trying his hardest not to get emotional. “It’s just for a couple weeks. When you’re done with the season, we won’t need her help—but you’re gone so much. We just want to like the person who’s taking care of us.”
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cried. When I even came close. When they were born, maybe?
But the sight of them begging me for this had a lump building dangerously in my throat.
“Will you just . . . just talk to her?” Maggie asked. “Please?”
There was no other answer for these two, who held my heart in their hands and didn’t even realize it. “Yeah, I’ll talk to her,” I managed in an uneven voice.
They were on me in the next heartbeat, laughing and whooping, and I wrapped my arms tight around them, pressing my face into the tops of their heads.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Maggie gushed.
Bryce squeezed me tight, the kind of hug I hadn’t gotten from him in so long. “Thank you, Dad.”
I swallowed around the lump and forced it down, forced it somewhere safer. “She may not say yes,” I reminded them gently. “But I will ask.”
Maggie lifted her head, happy tears making her eyes sparkle. “Right now? Then we don’t have to come to the office tomorrow after school. Bridget said she was going to put us to work, and I don’t know if she was serious, but I don’t really want to find out.”
I exhaled. “Yeah, I can go ask her right now. But that means you’ve got to let me up.”
They jumped off the couch, still whooping in glee. “She’s totally going to say yes,” Bryce said. “I just know it.”
I ran a hand through my hair and straightened my game-day Henley—the black long-sleeve I favored for home games, though it usually stayed hidden underneath my coat. “All right, all right. I’ll, uh, I’ll go now.”
My kids couldn’t be happier. But as I walked through the front door and stared across the expanse separating my yard from the one temporarily serving as hers, my face flattened.
Knowing my luck, she’d see it was me and slam the door in my face. Again.
“Be nice to the neighbor,” I said under my breath, and exhaled heavily as I strode toward the house. “I’d love to hear your advice now, Bridget.”
Music was audible again as I approached the front door; the recognizable strains of old Christmas songs had me sighing.
Get a fucking tree for your kids, I chastised myself. No wonder they were seeking out someone else’s company. I swiped a hand over my mouth, took a deep, fortifying breath, and pressed the doorbell.
“Just a second,” her voice called through the door, punctuated by the dog’s gruff, growly attempt at a bark. The furry face appeared in one of the windows flanking the door, and I swear that animal glared at me.
The door opened, and the sight of her polite smile made me blink, but the moment she saw that it was me, the smile disappeared like someone flipped a light switch.
“Oh, it’s you.” Her arms immediately crossed over her chest. She wore all black—leggings molded to her long legs, a slinky shirt clinging to her torso, and a fuzzy Santa hat on the top of her head. “What do you want?”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that I wanted to be anywhere in the continental United States than right there, but I didn’t think it was wise. Her dark eyes were heavily lashed, but her face—high cheekbones and a delicate jawline—was free of makeup.
Underneath her collarbone, I saw that flash of ink again, but given the amount of cleavage on display in the deep V of her shirt, I kept my eyes right on hers.
Something about her was disconcerting enough that I almost spun on my heel and marched right back home. The thought of my kids was the only thing that kept me in place.
I exhaled slowly, dredging up the words even though they were the last thing I wanted to say. “I’d appreciate if we could have a moment to talk.” I licked my lips and kept my face even, despite the anxious coil growing tighter and tighter in my chest. “I have a proposition for you.”