Worth the Wait (Picking up the Pieces #4)

by Jessica Prince

  I gave a surprised laugh. “What?”

  “Seriously, I can watch them. I’m great with kids, and I’m my own boss so missing a day of work is nothing.”

  “Brett, that’s sweet, but I don’t think so. I mean, they don’t really know you and we only just agreed to be friends. Letting you babysit my two sick toddlers will send you screaming for the hills. Trust me, they’re a handful on the best days. When they’re sick, it’s a whole other story.”

  “It’ll be fine, trust me,” he told me with a sincere grin. “I know I only met Cameron and Callie for a few minutes the other day, but I have to tell you, you’re kids are kinda great, Kenz.”

  “Thanks,” I smiled sweetly at the beautiful compliment.

  “And Lizzy can totally vouch for me. I’ll take great care of them. I promise. And if it makes you feel better, I can stop by your place tonight and really introduce myself. Come on, beauty; it’s a win-win.”

  I sat, uncertain, for several seconds as I studied his expression. Everything in my gut told me he was completely sincere.

  “Okay,” I finally relented. “Come by tonight and if it goes well, you can babysit for me tomorrow.”

  “It’ll be great, beauty, you’ll see. I’m awesome with little rugrats.”

  “You have a lot of experience with kids?”

  “Well…” he paused before saying, “not really. But with my sparkling personality, I can win anyone over.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh, Lord. You’re in trouble.”

  “How you feeling, babies?” I asked my little ones after getting home from work and releasing the sitter for the night. Cam and Callie were both lying on the couch watching Bubble Guppies, each had their head at opposite ends with their tiny feet tangled together.

  “Better,” Callie told me. “I haven’t frowed up anymore.”

  “My tummy still hurts, Mommy,” Cameron said with a little pout.

  I reached up to brush a flop of brown hair off his forehead. “I know, sweetie. I got you some ginger ale to make your tummy feel better.” I handed him the cup so he could take a swallow. “Mommy has a friend coming over tonight to meet you guys. He wanted to introduce himself. He’s gonna stay with you tomorrow while I’m at work.”

  “Is he nice?” Callie asked seriously.

  “He’s very nice, honey pot. You’ll like him a lot.”

  Leaving them to watch TV, I headed into the kitchen. Cam and Callie still couldn’t really stomach much to eat, so I kept their dinner light and bland, letting them eat on the couch this one time.

  As I finished cleaning the kitchen, there was a knock at the front door. I wasn’t prepared for the way my heart lurched in my chest at just the thought of Brett, so I tried to push it to the back of my mind and went to let him in.

  As soon as I opened the front door, my mouth grew dry at the sight of him. His light blue, long-sleeved tee hugged all those delectable muscles, reminding me of how good his body felt against mine. His low-slung jeans did amazing things for his tall, toned legs, and his hair was a shade darker from being damp, like he’d just gotten out of the shower before coming over.

  “Hey there, beauty.”

  My gaze shot back to his face. The way his lips tipped and his eyes crinkled with humor told me I’d just been busted checking him out.

  “Uh…” I cleared my throat and tried to get my bearings. “Yeah, hi. Um, come on in.”

  I heard his quiet chuckle as he walked past me and into my apartment.

  I led Brett into the living room and grabbed the remote to put the TV on mute. “Hey, guys, I want you to meet my friend Brett.”

  “Yous the giant from the grocewy store,” Callie said as she stared up at his immense height.

  Brett smiled sweetly at the twins and squatted down so he could be eye to eye with them as they lay on the couch. “Yep, that’s me. Your mom told me you guys weren’t feeling well. I thought maybe these would help to cheer you up.”

  He lifted up a canvas bag, which in my disgraceful perusal of his body just moments earlier, I’d somehow missed. He reached in and pulled out a stuffed bunny wearing a princess dress and crown, handing it over to Callie before reaching back in and pulling out a superhero action figure for Cameron.

  I tried desperately not to melt as my kids’ sick little faces lit up at their new toys, but God, it was hard not to when the man was being so sweet to the two people who mattered most to me in the world.

  “Your mom also told me I could stay here with you tomorrow while she’s at work if you guys were cool with that.”

  “You want to babysit us?” Cameron asked.

  “Are you kidding?” Brett responded enthusiastically. “Heck yeah! You’re the coolest kids I’ve ever met! I’d love to get to spend the day with you guys.”

  Don’t melt, don’t melt, don’t melt.

  Christ, the man was killing me!

  “Will you bring cookies?”

  Brett looked down at Cameron and gave him a little wink. “Let’s see how your tummy feels tomorrow, little buddy. If you’re feeling better, we’ll play it by ear. Sound good?”

  Brett held his fist up, and like it was the most natural thing in the world, Cameron bumped it with his own. It was so damn cute to see that I totally let the whole cookie thing slide.

  Brett stuck around for a few more minutes before finally telling the kids to get some rest and he’d see them in the morning. I walked him to the door and stepped out into the breezeway with him, leaving it opened a crack so I could hear just in case one of the kids needed me.

  “You didn’t have to bring them presents, but thank you. It was sweet and they loved them.”

  “No problem.” His deep, gravelly voice dropped low as he stepped in close to me. “Like I said, I really like your kids. Tomorrow will be fine, you’ll see.”

  “I can’t begin to pay you back for this—”

  He pressed his finger to my lips to stop me.

  “Nothing to pay back, beauty. I’m happy to help. Now, go get some sleep. You’ve had a long day.”

  The gentle press of his lips to my forehead caused me to sigh and lean into him. But before I could do anything I’d later regret, Brett pulled away, shooting me a wink and that beautiful smile of his before turning and walking away.

  There was the teeniest, tiniest, just slightest possibility that I might not have known just what I was getting myself into with my offer to babysit for Kenzie. When I arrived at her apartment and watched her flitting around like an anxious hummingbird, quickly rattling off a long-ass list of rules and emergency contacts, and the phone number for poison control, I’d ignorantly thought to myself yeah, I got this as I took in the two angelic creatures quietly sitting at the kitchen table, eating their breakfast.

  I’d pushed Kenzie out the door with a “You have nothing to worry about,” feeling overly confident that the twins were always so polite and serene.

  Yeah, not so fucking much.

  Things had started out so perfectly. We’d watched some whacked-out movie about talking Legos or some such shit—side note, if I had to hear that yellow fucker singing about how everything is awesome one more damn time, I was gonna lose my shit. The kids were feeling better by lunch time so I decided to stray from their premade meal of bland and tasteless that Kenzie left in the fridge and ordered a pizza. Watching their hazel eyes, so much like their mom’s, light up like I’d just told them I was Santa was probably one of the best feelings I’d ever had. Of course, the whole pizza thing went down after I’d had a very long, very thorough talk with them about the importance of the buddy code—which was the term I’d come up with for keeping a secret because I was brilliant like that. Buddy code specifically stated that Cameron and Callie could each get one slice of pizza for lunch if they promised it would stay between us. What Kenzie didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her, and it was just pizza after all. No red-blooded American kid could truly thrive without pizza. That was in a manual somewhere for sure.

  About thirty minutes a
fter lunch, Cameron upchucked like he was dispelling every ounce of fluid from his body. Seriously, I’d never in my life seen anything like it. And if I was being honest, I gave that poison control number some serious thought. Luckily, after that nightmare, he seemed to be all right. Once the puke show was over, it was naptime. And it couldn’t have come sooner because I was wiped. I could only host so many tea parties—Callie’s idea—or be an evil ninja—Cameron’s idea…okay, my idea—and deal with a truckload of puke without needing a breather.

  I tucked the kids into their tiny beds and made my way back into the living room, remote in hand, totally prepared to watch something that wouldn’t make my balls shrivel up into my stomach. Princess Elsa was hot and all, but I couldn’t help but want to strangle the icy wench after the eleventy-billionth “Let it go”. Woman, we get it!

  Flipping through the channels, there wasn’t really anything on that caught my attention. Not one who handles boredom all that well, I started wandering around the tiny apartment, straightening things up as I went. I tried to put the toys back into the plastic bins that lined one of the living room walls, but no manner of stacking would keep the overflow of stuffed animals and action figures from toppling back onto the floor. The twins really needed some place to stash their loot; those bins just weren’t cutting it.

  Giving up on that project, I wandered aimlessly, inspecting everything closely, really trying to get a feel for Kenzie. The apartment was homey, but all of the furniture appeared to be second-hand. The kitchen table was scuffed and scratched on more of the surface than not. The mismatched chairs had wobbly legs. The couch, while comfortable, had definitely seen better days; the fabric was so worn and threadbare in some spots, it was just one plop away from tearing open. The one thing that stood out the most as I walked the space was that everything that belonged to the twins appeared to be brand new. They had new toys, boxes of crayons, coloring books, clothes, racecars, doll houses. You name it, these kids had it. And no way was any of it second-hand.

  That spoke volumes about the woman who’d grabbed my interest and refused to let go. She was a proud woman who busted her ass for what she had, and it was clear that any extra she found herself with, she used on her children. I didn’t know what happened in her past, but I had no doubt that everything she did, she did with those kids’ best interests at heart. Strong didn’t even begin to properly describe Mackenzie Webster.

  I was pulled from my musings by a high-pitched scream followed by a splash. Rushing down the hall, I felt like my heart was about to beat right out of my chest. Fear gripped my lungs in a tight hold, not allowing any air in or out. As I skidded to a halt in the bathroom doorway, what I saw confirmed one thing.

  I was so screwed.

  “What the hell do you expect us to do?” Trevor asked in astonishment as Luke and Jeremy stood back with their hands over their mouth, trying their hardest not to laugh.

  “I don’t know!” I shouted before releasing a string of colorful expletives.

  “Uuuuummmm, you said bunches of bad words,” Cameron spoke from his place on top of the toilet. Well, to be accurate, it was more like inside the toilet.

  I leaned in and ruffled his hair. “Hey bud, you remember about the buddy code, right?” He gave me an exuberant nod. “Yeah, why don’t we put my bad words under the buddy code, yeah? We won’t tell your mommy that I accidentally cussed, and I’ll work really hard not to do it anymore. Deal?” I reached my hand out and he grabbed on with his little one to give it an enthusiastic shake.

  “Deal.”

  “Can we gets a cookie for not telling?” Callie asked from beside me.

  “You bet!”

  “Yay!” both kids cheered like nothing was wrong in the world while, internally, I was freaking the ever-loving hell out.

  “Hey, ladybug. Can you go look in the fridge and see if your mommy has any butter?”

  Callie looked up at me with bright eyes and said, “Mommy said buttews bad for you. We gots mawgwin.”

  That’ll work.

  “Margarine’s perfect, sweetie. Will you go get that for me?” She bolted from the bathroom and took off down the hall as I released a breath and turned back to Cameron. “All right, buddy. How’d you even get your foot stuck in the toilet anyway?”

  “I was tryin’ to flush myself.”

  I stood there, momentarily speechless before asking, “Why would you…you know what? Doesn’t matter. Let’s just try and get you out, okay?”

  “Yup.” He popped the “p” and stood casually like he had all the time in the world.

  “What are you planning on doing? Greasing him up like a pig?”

  I shot a scowl at Jeremy. “What are you even doing here? I don’t remember calling you for help.”

  “You didn’t,” he grinned. “You called Trevor. Trevor called Luke. Luke called me. No way in hell I was missing this shit.”

  “Dats a bad word,” Cameron scolded.

  “Yeah, Jeremy. That’s a bad word. Watch your damn mouth.”

  “GOT IT!” Callie screeched about a million decibels higher than necessary as she shot into the bathroom with a tub of Parkay in her hands.

  “Thank you, ladybug. Why don’t you take Jeremy here and go show him your tea party set? He was just telling me how much he wanted to have a princess tea party.”

  “Yay! Come on, come on, Jewmy!” He scowled at me over his shoulder as Callie pulled him out the door, and I couldn’t resist the opportunity to shoot him the finger as I watched him go.

  “All right, bud,” I said, turning back to Cameron, still hanging out, one foot stuck in the toilet like it was just any other day. “This is what we’re gonna do. I’m gonna reach in and try to get your foot unstuck while Trevor here gently pulls on your leg.” I turned back to Trevor and narrowed my eyes. “You hear that, Trevor? Gently.”

  “Yeah, I think I got it. Remind me real quick, who was it that got a kid’s foot stuck in the toilet while babysitting? Ah! That’s right, that’d be you, d-i-c-k-w-a-d.”

  The bastard actually had the nerve to spell it out.

  “Yeah, well, I’m still gonna kick your a-s-s when this is over, l-i-m-p-d-i-c-k. Can we just do this, please?”

  Popping the top off the margarine, I shoved my hand in and got a huge glob before reaching into the toilet bowl and trying as best I could to coat his ankle so we could finagle him out.

  “Okay, Trevor, you pull his leg. Luke, see if you can lift him up. On the count of three. One, two—”

  “What’s going on?”

  Son of a bitch!

  Walking into my apartment after a long day of uncontrollably worrying about both my kids’ and Brett’s welfare, the last thing I expected to see was Jeremy sitting in one of the tiny plastic chairs of Callie’s tea party table, wearing a princess crown on his head as he sipped pretend tea out of a cup with his pinky poking straight up in the air.

  “Uh, hi?”

  “Mommy!” Callie shrieked. “Brett and Jewmy played princess tea party with me today!”

  “Good deal, honey pot. Where’s your brother?”

  “Bathroom,” Jeremy answered as he dabbed the corners of his mouth with a napkin like he was some member of high society. I guessed the man really liked his tea parties.

  I heard commotion coming from the bathroom as I walked down the hall, and what I saw froze me on site. Brett was crouched down with both hands in the toilet bowl while Trevor had a hold of one of my son’s legs and Luke was pulling him from under his arms. And was that…? Why was my butter in the bathroom?

  “On the count of three. One, two—”

  “What’s going on?” At the sound of my voice, three pairs of grownup eyes swung to me, all with different levels of oh, shit, so busted reflected back at me.

  “Mommy!” Cameron let out a delighted shout. “I twied to flush myself again!”

  I couldn’t hold back my laugh at Brett’s exclamation of, “Again!”

  Oh, this was just too damn funny. “Brett, did you
try to butter up my son?”

  “Technically,” Trevor answered, “it’s margarine, so there’s that…”

  “Beauty, this isn’t what it looks like,” Brett flustered.

  “Really? Because it looks like you got my kid stuck in the toilet, then tried to baste him,” I managed to get out between hysterical giggles.

  “So it’s exactly what it looks like,” Luke laughed.

  Finally taking pity on the poor guy, I walked over to Cameron. “All right, bub. Turn your foot so your toes are at the front.” He did as told and his little foot popped right out. When I turned back to the hulking men crowding in my cramped bathroom, Trevor and Luke looked like they were trying their damnedest to keep from laughing while Brett looked like he was about to have an aneurysm.

  “Not our first rodeo,” I told him with a laugh. “Or our third.”

  “Mommy, guess what!” Cameron asked excitedly as he hopped up and down on the bathroom floor, flushing incident long forgotten.

  “What, pumpkin?”

  “Brett’s da best babysitter ever! He gave us pizza and watched movies with us and we haves a buddy code dats like a secret where we don’t tell you when he says bad words by accident! But I can’t tell you cuz its buddy code! OH! And I frowed up…like a whoooooole bunches.”

  I heard Brett grumble, “Kinda defeating the purpose of buddy code there, little man,” before Cameron took off into the living room to go play with his sister.

  Luke slapped Brett on the shoulder, telling him, “We’re out, man. Don’t need to be witness to whatever she’s about to do to you.” Then he was gone.

  Trevor did the sign of the cross on Brett before bailing out and seconds later, I heard the front door open and close.

  “Kenz, I’m so damn sorry…” Brett started, but I held my hand up to stop him.

  “I’m gonna go in order here, so try and keep up. First, no more buddy code, okay? I didn’t expect your first foray into babysitting to be a perfect ten, especially with those two, but you can’t teach them to keep secrets from me. Not even if it’s obvious they can’t keep their mouths shut to save their lives.” He gave me an ashamed nod. “Second, if something happens like, oh say, my son trying to flush himself down the toilet and getting stuck, all you have to do is call me. Odds are I’ll know how to get him out of whatever he got himself into, so there won’t be a need to butter him up like a Thanksgiving turkey. Also, I get you were trying to win cool points, but heads up, any dairy after a stomach virus is a definite no no. But I’m pretty certain you learned that lesson the hard way.”