Chapter 21
Twenty-One
DEAN
Five Days Later…
Bella has flour in her eyelashes, on her chin, and up both nostrils.
I don’t know how she managed it—she’s not even on crust duty; I put her on chopping veggies with her safety knife for a reason—but she’s having so much fun, I can’t bring myself to ask her which pizza she stuck her face into.
Any germs should be baked away in the oven, I guess, and mine and Clover’s pies are guaranteed to be sanitary.
Besides, the fun is the most important part of family pizza night.
Family pizza night…
We never had pizza night when their mom and I were together—the girls were both still too young—and Clover is just our friend, but she feels like family. Hell, it feels like she’s always been here with us. I honestly have a hard time remembering what we were like before.
Probably because I don’t want to remember.
I want to pretend that we’re already a done deal, which is stupid, but I can’t help it.
It’s impossible to keep my guard up when everything feels so right.
Ava and Bella at the table, laughing as they make a huge mess, the jazz in the background, the silly, easy conversation about the latest drama at preschool—it’s like something from a sitcom.
Or the end of a rom-com.
Or the beginning of a suspense movie, right before something terrible happens and the hero’s life is shattered into a million pieces as he hunts his family’s kidnappers across the desert with nothing but a Swiss Army knife and a belly full of rage…
“Daddy, come on.” Ava glances up from her crust, pulling me from my “the other shoe has to drop, sooner or later” thoughts. “You have to do your job. I’m about to need more cheese.”
I give her a quick salute. “Yes, ma’am. On it.”
“Okay, but I think you could go faster.” She sighs through her nose, the sigh of a girl who has carried this family long enough, and Clover snorts with laughter.
“She’s not here for your monkeyshine, mister.” She shoots an amused gaze at my cutting board, currently only half full of shredded mozzarella. “Let’s see some hustle, Kate.”
“Maybelline wrote a poem with that word!” Bella pipes up.
“She did,” Ava says, her brow furrowing for a beat before she quotes, “In the hustle and bustle of the dark, the bunny vampires play their part. The bayou shimmers and…” Her nose wrinkles. “Something about fireflies and crickets singing, but I forgot that part.”
“That’s still amazing, Ava,” Clover says, clearly impressed. “You have a great memory.”
“You do,” I agree, before following up with, “But I’m confused about the bunnies and vampires. Why are they hanging out? I thought bunnies were nice.”
“The bunnies are vampires, Daddy,” Ava says as if that should have been obvious.
“Like in that book, Bunnicula, that our teacher read at school. We told Maybelline about it, and she said it made her want to write a poem. So, she did! It’s so good, too.
It gives me the spooky chills just like Halloween, but not too scary. Just scary enough.”
Bella nods. “Yep. She’s super good at poetry.”
“She is,” Clover agrees. “But I can’t believe we didn’t realize we were living across the street from a two-time Louisiana poet laureate. I’m ashamed of us.”
“Maybelline’s a private woman,” I say, grateful that she’s decided to become less private with us. The girls love their new babysitter, and Maybelline loves having surrogate grandkids around. “I can respect that.”
“Still, we should have recognized her name,” Clover insists. “She must think we’re all illiterate.”
I grin. “Well, I’ve only read one book this year, so…”
Ava tuts at me. “Bad Daddy, you have to read faster.” She gives my cutting board another meaningful look, “Just like you need to do other things faster…”
Clover snorts again, and I hurry to finish shredding the chunk of cheese in my hand, making a mental note to ask Maybelline if she wants to pick the girls up from preschool, or if I should arrange for them to be dropped off by the bus when she takes over after-school care next week.
She couldn’t commit to evenings or overnights—she teaches college classes and poetry workshops at night—but knowing my afternoon sitter needs are covered by someone the girls love makes me feel so much better.
Now, I just need to find an overnight solution between now and the end of the week, when I go back to work, and my childcare situation will be sorted.
Then, I can concentrate on other, equally important things…like convincing Clover to move in with us for real.
Having her across the lawn is good, but having her next to me every morning?
Well, that sounds so fucking perfect, I have to fight the urge to lean over and steal a kiss right now.
But we’re still playing the “just friends” game in front of the kids, so I settle for admiring her ass as she loads the empty tomato sauce pan into the dishwasher.
“That’s better.” Ava nods her approval as I deliver a large handful of cheese to her pizza a moment later. “Just in time, Daddy. Good job.”
“Now me, Daddy,” Bella demands. “My mushrooms want cheese in their bowl. They want to go swimming in cheese before they lay down on my pizza and go night-night.”
Before I can explain that the mushrooms can’t swim in the cheese until it’s melted, and that has to happen in the oven, my phone buzzes on the counter. I glance down, expecting Elly, calling to confirm our playdate for tomorrow, but it’s…coach.
Coach Merwood never calls me. We text occasionally, but we don’t have a “ring-me-up-anytime” kind of relationship.
“Hey, quiet for a few minutes, girls, okay?” I ask, wiping my cheesy hands on a kitchen towel. “I need to take this. It’s work.”
“Okay!” Bella shouts only to be immediately shushed by Ava, who says, “Quiet quiet, not loud quiet.”
“Okay,” Bella repeats in a stage whisper that has me grinning despite the anxiety fluttering in my stomach as I answer the phone. “Hey, Coach. What’s up? Everything alright?”
“Good evening, Dean. Sorry to interrupt at dinnertime, but we’ve had an incident.
” Coach Merwood always sounds a little like a sea captain at the prow of a ship in bad weather, but tonight his voice is graver than usual.
“A rookie incident. No one’s dead or maimed, thank God, but turns out Reed never learned to ride a bicycle as a child. ”
“Wow. Okay.” My brow furrows as I do my best to connect those dots. “I’m guessing he decided to learn, and it didn’t go well?”
“It went to shit is where it went,” Merwood says, sounding so utterly disgusted, I have to fight a laugh.
“He decided it was a good idea to go from learning how to pedal without his training wheels to jumping hills on the dirt bike course. Now, his ankle’s broken in two places, and he’s out for the rest of the season. ”
I wince. “Ouch. Poor kid.”
“Poor, dumb kid,” Merwood corrects. “A kid with a nasty case of hubris.”
Hubris. Huh… I’m pretty sure that has something to do with Greek tragedy and getting too big for your britches, but I’m not one hundred percent certain.
Maybe Ava’s right.
Maybe I do need to make more time for reading.
But that time isn’t now, not with Coach telling me he needs me back on the ice for a road trip ASAP to fill in for our down-and-out rookie.
“Seven a.m. tomorrow? Okay. Um, well…” I pull in a deeper breath as my thoughts race.
“I don’t have the overnight childcare situation worked out yet, Coach.
I have weekdays covered, and a couple of leads on overnight care, but …
” I trail off as Clover waves her hands frantically between us. “Just a second, Coach.”
“I’ll watch them,” she whispers. “It’s fine.”
I frown, covering the speaker as I hiss, “No, I can’t take advantage of you like that. I’ve been talking to Elly about leaving the girls with her, just for the next few weeks, but Tasha does have a few emergency nannies who do—”
“Stop. You’re not taking advantage,” Clover says with a shake of her head. “I’m happy to stay with them. And I literally have nothing to do until my shift on Saturday night, it’s totally fine.”
“I’d be back by Friday morning,” I assure her. “Way before your shift.”
“Good, then we’re set.” She lifts a hand in a motion that says it’s sorted.
“Tell Coach you’re good to go. There’s no reason you should rush into having a stranger stay with the girls.
You should take your time and make sure you have the right person, so they feel safe and excited about nights when you’re away.
And in the meantime, I’ll be your go-to. No problem.”
Still not sure that’s the best choice for the health of our fledgling relationship—but knowing finding someone else by tomorrow would be a nightmare—I say, “Thank you. I really appreciate it.” Uncovering the speaker, I tell Coach, “Okay, I’ve got childcare covered.
My former nanny is going to fill in just this once. See you in the morning.”
“Good man,” Merwood says, relief in his gruff voice as he adds, “tell your nanny thank you from me, too.”
Smiling, I say, “Will do,” and end the call.
“Coach says thank you,” I tell Clover, before waving the girls away from the table.
“Go wash your hands and clean up for dinner, girls. The pizzas won’t take long to cook, and the salad is ready.
We need to go ahead and eat, so I’ll have time to pack after dinner. ”
“Okay, Daddy,” Ava says, sliding out of her chair. “Can I wash my hands in your bathroom? I like the new soap in there.”
“Sure,” I say.
“Me, too. Me, too!” Bella says, scampering after her sister. “I love that soap.”
“Help Bella wash her face, too, Ava, please,” I call after them. “She has flour all over.”
“I do not,” Bella shoots back.
“You do, too,” I say, raising my voice to be heard as their footsteps retreat down the hall. “And up your nose, as well, so blow your nose first with tissues before you wash.”
“I do not…” Bella trails off, giggles, then adds, “I do have flour up my nose! How’d that get there?”
Clover laughs, sliding the final pizza into the oven before calling back, “Magic, probably. That’s how I always get flour up my nose. Use one of the washcloths by the sink, okay? That will help get it all off.”
“Okay!” Bella and Ava both call back, followed by the softer murmur of conversation as they negotiate the best way to accomplish their task.
Before Clover, I wouldn’t have trusted them with something like this.
I would have done the washing and cleaning up for them, but they’re capable of more than I gave them credit for.
And being trusted with chores and the responsibility for taking care of themselves and their things makes them proud.
They’re so much more confident than they were before, and I’m so grateful.
Clover’s a top-notch nanny. She’s also the world’s best girlfriend, but that doesn’t mean she should be expected to take care of my kids for free.
“At least let me pay you,” I say as I tackle the mess the girls left behind.
“Nope, no way,” she says, her eyes narrowing as she faces me across the table, sweeping Ava’s leftover flour into an empty bowl. “Don’t even start with that crap.”
“It’s not crap. It’s the right thing to do. It’s not fair to ask you to do something for free that you were being paid a salary to do before you and I were a thing.”
“I’m still getting paid, Dean,” she says with a huff that makes it clear she thinks I’m being crazy. “You paid me two months’ severance in advance, remember? And I’m living in your apartment rent-free.”
“But that doesn’t—”
“Also, pretty sure you’ve paid for most of my groceries since I moved in. And that wasn’t even in our contract.”
I roll my eyes. “So what? It’s not like you eat that much. And you’ve helped cook dinner dozens of times, which wasn’t in your contract, either. None of that means you have to step in now, when the contract is no longer in place. Especially not for free.”
“I know, I don’t have to,” she says as she dumps the flour mess in the trash.
“I want to. I care about the girls, and I don’t want them to be rushed into an overnight with someone they don’t know or trust.” Her gaze softens.
“And I care about you. I want to help make your life easier when I can. It’s what people in a relationship do, you know? ”
I dump the smashed mushrooms and olive pits in the trash, too, and linger beside her. “You’re sure?”
“Pretty sure,” she says, arching a teasing brow. “I’ve never had a relationship like this before, so I can’t say from firsthand experience, but…” She shrugs a shoulder. “I mean, it feels pretty grown-up and healthy.”
“It does.” I wrap an arm around her waist. “I like being grown up and healthy with you.” I dip my head closer to hers as I murmur in a softer voice, “Especially the grown-up part.”
“Me, too.” She leans into me, her chin tilting up until I have no choice but to kiss her.
It’s a relatively sweet kiss, at least as far as our kisses go, lately.
We’re in a honeymoon phase, where the heat between us goes from zero to “so hot we have to rush into the closest room with a lock for a quickie” with a frequency that’s probably bad for my heart, but we both know there’s no time for that right now.
The girls will be back soon. It’s almost time for dinner.
Still, I can’t help stroking my tongue against hers, relishing the taste of her, and how perfect she feels pressed against me.
In a cozy sweatshirt and silky pajama pants, she’s especially huggable tonight, so soft and warm it seems a shame not to squeeze in time for a movie before the kids go to bed.
I’m about to suggest I pack fast now, while she gets the girls set up with dinner, so we can have couch cuddle time, when a gagging sound echoes through the kitchen.
Clover and I jump apart, but it’s too late.
We’ve been caught.