Chapter 7
Bailey was bringing out two glasses of wine to the porch. Gwen was already out there and she grabbed her glass eagerly. "I would think you can drink plenty on the job," Bailey said to her.
She had dropped by the beach house before her shift at work, and now she grinned at him. "The hotel has a policy against it," she said. "But I'm cool with that. Customers are always trying to buy us drinks. This way we have an official reason to refuse."
Bailey went and got two boxes of juice too for Joey and the little neighbor girl.
They had only moved into the beach house a day ago and Joey had already made a friend.
Now the two of them were arguing if the small plane and the hang gliders they saw passing overhead could see them waving. "They can see us," Joey insisted.
"They aren't waving back," Louise pointed out,
"They have to hold on. They can't wave." Joey then turned to Bailey. "Right, Daddy?"
"You're both right," Bailey told the kids.
"Wow, that's some high level diplomacy," Gwen said while the kids both looked at him like he was crazy. She was drinking her wine and eyeing the porch and the work Matt had done to fix it up and painting it.
"Matt did a good job," Bailey told her.
"And now he's going to be your live-in manny," Gwen said with a raised eyebrow. Matt was busy with jobs he had already committed to so he wasn't moved in yet.
"You object?" Bailey asked.
"You don't need my permission," she said with a shrug but Bailey kept pressing her.
"But you think it's a bad idea."
"Honestly, I know that Matt really wanted to give me and Tom the place to ourselves. He might have rushed into this a little bit," she said.
"So is it that you don't trust me to be a good employer?" Bailey asked her but didn't go into what that might mean.
"It's not you," she assured Bailey with a smile. Then she waved it all away. "I'm sure it will all work out."
That didn't tell him anything, but he didn't want to push her. This was about her brother and maybe she didn't want to overshare. It did make him wonder if there was something he was missing other than the obvious, that he shouldn't have hired someone he was attracted to.
"Now you're worried," Gwen noticed.
"I can't help it," he said.
"Don't get tied into knots about this. You're both good guys," she told him.
"So there isn't some fatal flaw in this arrangement?" he asked her.
"Maybe that you're both too nice?" she said with a shrug.
Bailey stared at her. "I can live with that."
He didn't think he was that nice though, but Matt might be. A little later Matt texted to ask if they needed anything, if he could do any shopping for them or anything else.
"I'd love to have a barbecue," Bailey texted him back. He wasn't serious though.
Matt's reply was, "Done."
"What?" Bailey said out loud and Gwen turned to look at him questioningly. "I told Matt I wanted to have barbecue and he said, 'Done'. I was joking."
"How is that a joke?" she wondered.
"I mentioned to him that there is no grill here. It got rusted and hauled away with the trash," Bailey told her. He was already texting Matt to find out what he meant by that one word text.
"I'm picking up some BBQ to thank you for hiring me," Matt said.
"He's treating us to barbecue. I guess I have to be careful what I ask for or he'll make it happen," Bailey said.
"Yeah. You have your own personal genie now," Gwen said. "This is one of the things I was worried about. Matt jumps in with both feet. When he sees a way forward, he just shoots straight for it."
"Like the way he went after this job as the manny," Bailey said.
"Who knows what he might go after next," Gwen said and gave him a significant look that he didn't actually understand. He was about to ask her if she meant that Matt might quit to go after some other job, but he then noticed that Louise's parents were calling her.
As she went off with them, Joey ran over with important news, "Louise said she made a big sandcastle with her dad. We have to make one too and we have to make ours bigger."
"How big was theirs?" Bailey asked.
"I don't know," Joey said but he didn't seem to realize that might be an issue.
Instead of pointing out the flaw in his plan, Bailey asked Gwen about dinner. "So it seems we have barbecue coming. Do you have time to eat with us before you have to go to work?"
"I'll see when it's getting here," Gwen said and got on her phone. "I'm also telling Matt to slow the hell down."
"Will he listen?" Bailey wondered.
"Nah," she said then she winked at Joey who was looking up at them.
"What got your interest? Maybe the mention of barbecue?" Bailey asked.
"She said 'Matt'. Is he gonna come over?" Joey wondered.
"Yes, with barbecue," Bailey told him. "Let's get some more chairs out here. It will have to be chairs from the kitchen that don't belong outside."
"Will we get in trouble?" Joey asked and Bailey laughed.
"Big trouble," Gwen told him, but Joey could tell right away that she was joking.
That did make Bailey realize he would have to do some shopping and not just for extra folding chairs. The house was furnished but he wanted a few new things.
When Matt arrived with the barbecue, Bailey pointed at the kitchen chairs they had to bring out so they could eat on the porch. "That's why I'll have to do some shopping, as well as the grill we don't have so we can make our own barbecue."
"I'll go with you," Matt volunteered. "I can help you carry stuff."
Bailey almost told him he planned to do it online, but since Matt offered to go with him, he couldn't quite get the words out. He just accepted. "Sure. Sounds good."
Joey started listing all the things he might buy so Bailey was thinking that he and Matt should do the shopping while he was at his swimming lesson. Or did he just want to spend some time alone with Matt? He just couldn't trust any decision he made when it came to him.