by Trina Solet
He was starting to think that person didn't exist. What was it about Jeff that was so hard to replace? Ned couldn't put his finger on it, but he knew there was something unique about him, something no one else had.
Still he decided to tell Mina that he was looking for another babysitter. He couldn't avoid it since she needed to meet them.
"No. Jeff babysit," she said.
"But Jeff might be busy," Ned told her gently.
She shook her head.
"We need someone just in case," he tried to explain.
"No. Jeff," she said.
"I know you like Jeff," he started to say, but Mina nodded and looked at him so intently. Now all he wanted to do was reassure her. "We'll keep Jeff as long as he wants to work for us, OK?"
She seemed a little reassured by that, but the next day when Jeff came by the office to pick her up, she grabbed him by the hand possessively as soon as he walked through the door. Then later, when Jeff was done with his babysitting duties, she wouldn't let him leave. She hung on to his hand and he stood there helplessly as if this tiny child had overpowered this muscular young man.
"Don't, Jeff, babysit more," she pleaded with him.
"Hey, Mina, Jeff is busy. He has to go to classes and study, and he wants to have fun with his friends," Ned told her.
"I'll be friends," she said to Jeff earnestly.
"We are friends, really good friends," Jeff told her.
"Sorry about that. I think she's being clingy because I was telling her that I was looking for a replacement for you," Ned explained.
At his words, Jeff looked stricken.
"Only when you're busy," Ned reassured him and noticed Mina shaking her head while holding on to Jeff's hand like she was never going to let go.
"I understand," Jeff said but it didn't seem like he did.
Ned tried to explain himself again. "You're wonderful. I would never want to replace you, but you're looking for another job and I thought you wouldn't be here for the summer. Aren't you going home?"
"I'm not sure what I'm doing. I'm waiting to hear about a job. If I get it, I'll stay here and earn some money for next term. Until I find another job, I'd like to babysit Mina whenever I can," Jeff said. "But I know you need someone you can rely on."
"I haven't had any luck. I'm starting to think you might be irreplaceable. And Mina definitely thinks so. Since she's holding you prisoner, did you want to come over for dinner after your classes? I have lentils soaking," Ned said. "How can you say no to that?"
"How can I?" Jeff said looking slightly horrified by the mention of lentils, but then Mina worked her magic and he committed himself to dinner at their house.
Now Ned could look forward to spending more time with a guy who tempted him like no one else and who would be out of their lives too soon, leaving not one, but two broken hearts.
*
It was pretty weird to ricochet from talk of replacing him to inviting him to dinner. But as always, Jeff couldn't say no to either Ned or Mina. He couldn't believe how much he looked forward to spending time with both of them. He must have really missed being part of a family. He just had to be careful not to get used to it.
After he finished with his classes, he was back in their neighborhood once again. From down the block, he knew Ned's house by the familiar sight of that old tree. With its boughs like two outstretched arms, the tree dominated their front yard. Mina told him that the tree wanted a hug. The bushes growing around the bottom of the tree wouldn't let her give it a hug though.
Jeff went up the street almost wearing a smile. Cheerful and laid back, the neighborhood gave him a good feeling. Closer to Ned's house, he saw the purple flowers spilling over the wood fence while all around the evening light took on the warm, orange glow of the sunset.
Ned opened the front door to him before he could knock. "Mina was watching for you. When she started yelling your name and jumping up and down, I knew that I better open the door or she would burst."
Jeff saw that Mina wasn't jumping any more. She was pouting and looking at her dad accusingly.
"Oh, sorry. She wasn't doing that," Ned said. "She doesn't even care that you're here."
"Hi, Mina. Are you guys cooking something good?" Jeff said to her.
Now Mina nodded and smiled. Coming over to take Jeff's hand, she led him to the kitchen.
"I guess I'll find my own way," Ned said from behind them.
Once they were in the kitchen, Mina went over to the table and started arranging sliced vegetables in a baking pan. She did it very precisely, lining the vegetables in neat rows, and Ned praised her. Jeff watched him put the lentils to cook in the same orange pot he had used the last time.
"Yes, I do remember that I promised you lasagna," Ned told him. "But these guys were already soaking. It helps them cook faster."
"And Mina eats this stuff?" Jeff said as he looked over Ned's shoulder at what was going into the pot.
"She's learning to like them. We're both learning to like them," Ned said as he stirred and threw in some seasonings.
"They look like pebbles," Jeff said.
"They taste a tiny bit better than pebbles," Ned assured him. "When Mina is done, we'll roast up some vegetables and throw them in."
Once dinner was served, it turned out that Ned was right.
"Oh, they aren't bad," Jeff said.
"It must be a big shock that they're actually edible," Ned said.
"And what are you doing to them now?" Jeff asked appalled by seeing Ned drown his lentils in hot sauce.
"Hot sauce. Want some?" Ned offered with a mean smile.
Jeff recoiled and covered his bowl protectively.
Ned chuckled. Then seeing how Mina looked from him to Jeff, he asked her, "You want some?"
She covered her bowl protectively too.
After dinner, Jeff helped Ned clean up. To the naked eye it was just a few simple chores like clearing the table, loading the dishwasher, washing the big orange pot and the baking pan. But to Jeff it was a million tempting sensations.
Ned's wet hands touched him when he passed the pot to him to dry, and Jeff almost dropped it. He felt the heat of Ned's body when their arms pressed together briefly. Jeff wanted to hold Ned tight against him and feel the heat of his body burning him up. As he waited for the urge to pass, he held his breath. He focused on what Ned was saying to him.
His deep voice intimately lowered, he told Jeff how the first meal he ever cooked was for a date. "I never cooked a thing before, but I was a poor college student and didn't have the money to take him anywhere nice. So I invited him for a home cooked meal and tried my hand at some chicken and pasta. It was a disaster."
"Does that mean you didn't get laid?" Jeff asked him though he knew he shouldn't.
Ned opened his mouth like he was about to answer, then he thought better of it. "Never mind," he said, but from his smug expression Jeff could guess that he did.
Jeff fumed a little that this guy got to have his way with Ned when he couldn't. It was crazy that he was actually jealous of some guy from Ned's college days, but he was. Thinking of Ned with another man didn't help to cool him down. All he wanted to do was make Ned forget every guy he had ever been with.
Idly, Jeff wondered how many times and how many ways he might fuck him to get the job done. While he was planning his conquest of Ned's body and heart, Jeff kind of spaced out. Ned nudged him and looked at him questioningly.
"You work too hard," Ned told him.
"I'm fine," Jeff said and blushed under his concerned gaze. If he only knew what Jeff had been thinking.
"I can finish up. Grab something to drink and go watch cartoons with Mina," Ned told him. "But no beer."
"Shouldn't you be forbidding me to have wine not beer? Since you are a professor, I figured you'd be more refined," Jeff said.
"I've never been accused of being refined. I have beer and I have wine in the fridge, and I let my mood decide."
"But you're still not offering me a drink?
"
"Not till you're legal. All I'm saying is that I can be sophisticated if I..."
"Have to fake it," Jeff finished for him.
"If I choose," Ned said and he grinned at Jeff then quickly looked away. "You're ruining my professorly mystique, you know."
"Your... what?" Jeff asked and Ned grumbled into his beard.
Being with Ned was so weird and warm. Jeff could have grabbed him and kissed him and never looked back. But he didn't. Instead, he warned himself not to get caught up in this feeling. When Ned was so good to him, Jeff couldn't go grabbing for him. He couldn't lose his head like that no matter how much he wanted him.
Chapter 9
A few days later, Ned called him early in the morning. Jeff had been awake half the night after staying at Justin's. Around 4:00 am, Justin brought home a girl, and Jeff decided to let them have some privacy. That left him wandering the streets. Then he had the bad luck to get caught in the rain. Tired and miserable, he stayed in the doorway of a closed restaurant until morning came and the rain stopped. Soon after that he got the call from Ned.
It was good to hear Ned's voice, but he sounded kind of harried as he spoke. "Mina seems a little warm. I'm looking for the thermometer now so I can take her temperature." In the background, Jeff could hear him rifling through drawers. "Just in case she's coming down with something, I want to keep her at home. It's wet out and it might rain some more. So can you come over to the house to stay with her?"
"No problem," Jeff said though he was a little nervous at the thought that he might need to take care of a sick kid.
He arrived at Ned's house in time to see that Mina was pushing around the oatmeal in her bowl but not eating much of it.
"My tummy doesn't want," she explained.
"Maybe it's just a tummy ache. I found the thermometer," Ned said. He showed Jeff the thermometer and how to use it. "It's barely above normal, but I think it's better if she stays home."
Mina craned her neck to get a look at the readout on the thermometer. Ned showed it to her, but she only blinked at it.
"It's not too bad," Ned assured her. "You'll be fine. And Jeff is here."
That made her look up at him with a more cheerful face.
"See, you are cause for celebration," Ned said to him.
On his way out, he gave Jeff instructions. "Mina is seeing Dr. Floyd today at 2:00. If she feels OK, we'll go. Help her get ready, will you? After my last appointment, I'll only have time to pick her up. I was thinking she would already be on campus with me."
"I'll make sure she's ready," Jeff told him. "And I'll keep an eye on her temperature."
"Thank you. I'll be bugging you with texts nonstop."
"I don't mind," Jeff said with a smile, maybe too big a smile. He liked getting texts from Ned, even if it was just to check on Mina.
After Ned left, Jeff found it was weird to be at his house when he wasn't home. Jeff had the urge to sneak into his bedroom, have a look at his bed, maybe lie down in it. Good thing Mina was there to keep him in line. She had her own plans for him. Taking him by the hand, she showed him her room.
Her headboard was cut out in the shape of a big heart and her bedspread was covered in orange and purple elephants and tiny hearts. Her rug was a big orange fuzz ball. Jeff wanted to ask her if she named it, but then he noticed photos of her with her parents on her nightstand and also on the little desk.
They all looked so happy. Jeff took a close look at her dad. Silently he asked him if he knew what he stood to lose. He wanted to yell at him, "Look at what you have. Why would you risk losing that?"
He remembered being kind of mad at his own dad for dying, and he hadn't done anything to bring trouble on himself. All his dad did was go in for some surgery. At seventeen, Jeff had been almost an adult, and he still wanted to scream at his dad, "How could you leave me? It's too soon. I still need you."
For the rest of the morning, Mina was a little down, but she didn't get much worse than when he arrived. He was happy to report that to Ned. Then around 11:00, he got her to lie down for a nap. He didn't mean to fall asleep, but he nodded off a few times between texts from Ned. Once she woke up, Mina was hungry and that was a good sign. Jeff fed her a peanut butter sandwich and carrot sticks for lunch, and sent Ned a picture of her munching on them as proof that she was feeling better.
Since she was definitely feeling better, she would be going to her appointment with Dr. Floyd. Jeff planned to help her get ready, but Ned came home before he even got started.
"Are we late?" Jeff asked and looked at his phone worriedly.
"No, I'm early. My last student conference was a no show," Ned told him and watched as Mina ran over to him.
"Look who is feeling better," Ned said and scooped her up for a hug and a kiss.
That's when Jeff noticed her shoes. "Mina, why are you wearing mismatched shoes?" he asked. Both shoes were pink, but they were definitely not a pair.
Mina only shrugged, but Ned answered for her.
"Because she loses them," he said.
Walking into the living room, Ned set her down and got on the floor to look under the couch. He pulled out a bunch of different shoes and not one pair among them. He handed them to Jeff and got up. "There you go."
Jeff looked down at the random shoes. "How does this help me?" He shook his head then took Mina's hand. "Let's go find you a matching pair of shoes."
Ned followed them to her bedroom. Jeff headed to her closet, but Mina got down on the floor to look under her bed. More than one shoe was hiding there. Mina fished them out, but Jeff saw only one pair among them. While they both sat on the floor, he helped her put them on and wondered where the other shoes were hiding.
Ned had the answer. "Some are under my bed. Some are probably under the sofa in the den or wherever they can fit."
Jeff couldn't believe what he was hearing, but before he could say anything, Ned got a call. While Ned was busy on the phone, Jeff took Mina on a shoe hunt all over the house.
Their haul ended up in the middle of her bedroom. It all added up to a lot of shoes. Jeff wasn't sure it was normal for a little girl to have this many shoes, but how could he be sure? Treating it like it was a game, he and Mina paired them up. Eventually Ned came to get them, so he could take Mina to her appointment.
"That's a lot of shoes for one kid who will grow out of them in half a year." Jeff looked at Ned suspiciously. "Do you just buy her new shoes instead of looking for them?"
"Sometimes," Ned said, cringing guiltily.
"Please stop buying her shoes," Jeff said.
"But I'm increasing the chances of finding an actual pair. Do you know how many hours of my life I've spent looking for the other shoe? Now we can make that your job," he said and grinned at Jeff.
Jeff couldn't get over how Ned's eyes shone when he smiled. He could see every color in them and he just didn't want to look away.
"Is something on your mind?" Ned asked, startling him. "You looked kind of far away."
Jeff smiled to himself. "There's a guy I'm into, but he doesn't have a clue." He didn't know why he said that, but he had to let out some of what he was feeling.
"Give him a clue. Don't just pine for him. Ask him out," Ned said but suddenly his eyes were no longer cheerful. It was like their color had dimmed.
"He isn't interested," Jeff said just as Ned looked away from him.
"Is that a fact or a guess?" Ned asked, turning back to face him. "I find it hard to imagine that any guy, except a totally straight one, wouldn't be interested in you. Is that it? Is he straight? Did you fall for a straight guy?" Ned asked already starting to pity him.
"No, just a nice guy who'll never really see me or want to know how I feel about him," Jeff said letting a note of self-pity creep into his words.
"Who is this guy? I want a name. I want to know who can resist you," Ned joked.
Jeff almost told him, "You, for one." Pressing his lips together, he kept himself from saying another word. How close did he just c
ome to confessing his feelings to Ned and getting rejected? If he did that, would he ever get to spend another minute with Ned and Mina? He was so stupid to even think of risking it.
As they all walked out together, Ned offered him a ride. "We're taking the car. Can we drop you off anywhere?"
"No. I'll walk. I'm just going back to campus. I have two papers to research at the library." Actually that was only part of the reason Jeff was going there. He was almost done with his papers, but he wanted to catch some Z's and the library was one of the places where he could do that without drawing too much attention.
On his way up the library steps, Jeff spotted Mariah at one of the outdoor tables. Just like last time, there was a tower of books in front of her. Seeing that she was stretching her back and then pushing up her glasses to rub her eyes, Jeff went over to her.
"Looks like you could use a break," Jeff said.
"No snacks?" she said as soon as she saw it was him. She even craned her neck as if he might be hiding snacks somewhere on him.
"No, sorry. How come you sit out here instead of inside where it's air-conditioned?" Jeff asked her.
"Maybe I was hoping someone would bring me snacks, and they don't let you eat inside," she said pointedly.
"Sorry, maybe next time. Can I sit for a minute? I want to pick your brain about Mina," he told her.
"Is something going on with her?" she asked, starting to look worried.
"Nothing new. When we went to the bookstore, she got scared. She must have gotten scared in a crowd when you were watching her, right?" Jeff asked.
Mariah nodded. "Sure. She either hides or turns into a little statue. It used to be worse. When I first started babysitting her, she would hide from everybody. And if something scared her, she would just disappear inside herself. She would be miles away and wouldn't come back for a while. She's made major progress."
"It's horrible to think about all the bad things that happened to her," Jeff said. "It killed me when I heard it." It choked him up even now.
