Chapter Eleven
Chapter
Eleven
By the time Saturday night rolled around again, Daisy wasn’t
so sure.
“You haven’t heard from Uncle Li at all?” Devi asked,
sitting back and watching the kids as they ran around the big playroom like the
whirling dervishes of complete chaos they were.
Daisy always felt way more comfortable around them.
Six-year-olds were her peak people. She could spend all day with a bunch of
kids and come out of it feeling energized. So it was good she was on kid-care
duty this evening since she was worried about her father. He’d been gone for a
solid week. “Nope. Brody’s kept in touch with Nate and Steph, and I’m pretty
sure Da’s been calling Mom, but she’s trying to keep it from me. Probably so I
don’t feel bad. Have you heard anything?”
If her da needed backup, he would call the Taggarts,
especially Erin Taggart.
“Mom’s talked to him a couple of times, but I think she’s
mostly helping with research,” Devi admitted. “She asked if he needed her but
he says he and Brody have it handled. If it helps at all, I know he told her
he’s been rethinking his position.”
“About me? Yeah, I got that.”
Devi’s red hair shook. “I think he meant about Nate.”
Brianna walked in from the quiet room where the babies were
sleeping. “I finally got Lily down. I checked the sleeping bags for when we’re
brave enough to try to get the big kids to sleep. I swear, give me infants any
day of the week.”
“Nah, infants don’t do all the weird things kids do.” Daisy
genuinely enjoyed working with kids. Babies were cute, but they had nothing on
a truly weird six- to ten-year-old. Though she had to admit Michael and Vanessa
Malone’s daughter, Lily, was adorable. “They mostly sleep and eat. I find it
far more interesting to watch Rand and Slater try to build a fort out of random
objects they find. The girls are too smart to go in because they understand
physics and stuff. But I admire the boys for their optimism.”
Rand Hawthorne and Slater Murphy were constantly pushing the
envelope when it came to their architectural endeavors.
All in all, tonight they had nine kids they were watching,
though it was getting late and the babies and toddlers were all in bed.
Wrangling the older kids was always a fun time.
She wondered what Nate was thinking about. She also wondered
if he wanted kids. It was pretty early in the relationship to even consider a
family with him, but this was a part of being all in.
Was her sex drive starting to annoy him? He looked tired
this afternoon, and she’d caught him yawning. Was she asking too much of him?
Devi frowned. “Maybe I should go check on them.”
Daisy shrugged. “If it’s dangerous, Rani will come and get
us. Or she’ll fix it herself and pretend like the boys are doing a good job.”
“See, I tried to explain to her that’s she’s propping up the
patriarchy when she lets the boys think they’re smarter than they are but then
she smiles and starts talking about math and my brain goes fuzzy. Then I wonder
if I’m the one propping up the patriarchy,” Brianna admitted. “Weird kid.”
Rani was on the weird side but she was also pretty much a
genius. Rani was part of the Murphy clan, which consisted of two chaotic boys
and Rani, who was seven going on forty-year-old college professor.
Of course the actual college professor’s kid was currently
sleeping beside his cousin. Tate Hawthorne was four, and he wasn’t hard to get
down at all. He was a sweet kid who wanted a bedtime story. Luckily stories
worked on Diana Hawthorne, too.
Diana’s brother, however, was one of what Daisy liked to
call the wild boys, two of whom were approaching.
“Hey, Daisy, could you tell Slater our parents are at a game
night?” Rand was eight, the same age as his best friend. He was an adorable
moppet of a kid, with his mom’s eyes and dad’s jawline.
“Uh, we’re allowed at game night.” Slater Murphy looked like
a carbon copy of his dad.
Devi grimaced, and her voice went low. “This is what I
always fear when we work here. How did the others handle it when we asked?”
The talk. The moment when they stopped simply being thrilled
they’re at a fun night with their friends and wondered what the hell their
parents were doing.
And then they figure it out and the world becomes kind of
gross but also wonderful because hey, your parents are regular old people who
love you and make you grilled cheeses and also, one might like to tie the other
one up and spank her until she can’t see straight. It was actually beautiful
when she thought about it.
“Uh, it’s kind of a special game night,” Brianna began.
Daisy didn’t think it would work with these two. They needed
a more interesting explanation to glom on to.
Rand’s eyes narrowed as his young brain started working
through the problem. “Slater’s right. I would be allowed at a special game
night,” Rand insisted. “My parents let me play all the games. Even the hard
ones.”
“I told you what they’re doing,” Slater said in a whisper
that wasn’t all that quiet. But the kid was trying.
Unlike her besties, she knew this conversation was an
inevitability and one they could run with. She’d be more worried they’d figured
it out if she was dealing with the girls. What she’d learned was boys had
spectacular imaginations at this age. There were days when she thanked the
universe the twins hadn’t procreated yet. She’d learned the truth far too early
because Kala Taggart couldn’t let it all be a mystery. No. She had to figure
out how to get into the air ducts. There had been pictures Daisy couldn’t
unsee. She was pretty sure Slater hadn’t done anything close. “Oooo, what are
they doing, Slate?”
Slater looked around and then leaned in. “I think our
parents are in a secret society.”
Actually, he was pretty close. Daisy nodded. It was time for
a misdirect. She wished someone had misdirected her. “I think you’re right. Now
the question is are they good or evil.”
Rand gasped. “They would be good, of course.”
Daisy shrugged. “I don’t know. It could be fun to have
supervillains for parents.”
Supervillains at this age would be way easier for them to
deal with than normal, actual sexually active parents.
Rand seemed to think through the problem. “My mom does a lot
of stuff with a computer my dad says is ambiguous morally. I don’t know what
that means, but it could be supervillain stuff. Also, my dad’s watched The
Joker like fifty times.”
It meant Kyle Hawthorne needed to watch more movies, and
MaeBe Hawthorne was a badass hacker, though her talents were used for good.
However, the goal this evening was to stave off the inevitable moment when
these kids figured out their parents were total pervs. “See. There you go.
Tonight is secret society business. One day you’ll be a part of it, too. You
should probably get some rest. After all, there will be missions involved.”
Rand’s eyes lit up. “That’s so cool.”
Slater grinned. “We should practice. Let’s get the guys
together.”
The boys ran off.
Devi shook her head. “Great. Now they think their parents
are supervillains.”
Brianna sighed and sat down. “Well, it’s better than
knowing. I found out way too early what was going on. Of course I also kind of
grew up surrounded by sex positive stuff. That’s what happens when your mom’s
known for a series called Soldiers and Doms. I’m thinking about writing Amish
romance. It could be my rebellion.”
“Nope. Your mom would simply read it and tell you how proud
she is of you,” Daisy said with a sigh. The Dean-Miles clan wasn’t big on shame
of any kind. “And my da would say why can’t you be more like Brianna. Look,
she’s writing books about love without a penis in sight. Just a man and a woman
and a cornfield like God intended.”
“Well, the rest of us have spent all our lives hearing Uncle
Li say”—Devi went into a fairly serviceable Irish accent—“Thank the heavens
my Daisy would never do that.”
Daisy frowned. “It wasn’t like I encouraged him.”
“You didn’t exactly fess up either because let me tell you
every time he said it, you had done it,” Brianna countered. “So now you have to
deal with the fact that your father knows you’re as imperfect as the rest of
us. The question is, was it worth it.”
“Was he worth it?” Devi countered. “That’s the real heart of
the matter. You’ve been with Nate for over a week now. Are you getting bored?
Because you get bored easily.”
Bored? With the hottest man she’d ever met? With the
sweetest guy in the world? It was more like she was obsessed with the man. She
thought about him all day and dreamed about him at night. It was weirdly
exciting to do normal things with Nate. And having the moms around wasn’t as
awkward as she’d thought it would be. They had meals together and watched
movies, and the moms pretended they didn’t notice how often she dragged Nate
into a privacy room. The things they’d done in the princess castle… “No. I’m not
bored. We’ve been together pretty much twenty-four seven for over a week and I
miss him. I wonder what he’s doing.”
“He’s sitting in the other room watching a bank of security
cameras,” Brianna pointed out.
“Yes. He’s too far away.” She knew the fire would fade.
They’d pretty much gone at it three times a day. The sex was phenomenal, but it
was the soft times in between that made her know she was in love with him. Real
love. Real, never-look-at-another-man-again love.
“I never thought I would see the day when Daisy O’Donnell
got that look on her face for a man,” Devi said with wonder.
“I knew it would happen eventually.” Brianna stretched and
hid a yawn. “I like him. He’s nice to her and her friends. I wholeheartedly
approve and look forward to your wedding if we all survive.”
“Why wouldn’t we?” Daisy asked. Everyone was treating this
like some horrific, dangerous thing. Like a ball of violence rolling inevitably
her way. It was one dude who deserved every bit of prison time the law could
throw at him. “Da is handling it.”