Page 21 of Coast to Coast

Crew’s eyes grew wide, “Kiwi live with us?”

“How does that sound?” Tom asked.

“In my room?”

“No, buddy, she’s going to have a bedroom at my house and one with Mommy and Pops.”

“You stay tonight?” he asked me.

“Not tonight, but soon.”

“Otay.”

Crew ate most of his pasta but pushed the rest of the cucumbers around on his plate. “Come on, bud, almost done with your cucumbers. Then we all get ice cream.” He took a bite of the cucumber I had coated in ranch dressing and chewed slowly, swallowing as if I were feeding him a mud pie.

“Sorry, vegetables are a bit of a battle with him. Sam and I blame Kelsey, she’s a junk food junkie, and he takes after her with his taste buds. I’m not super strict with my diet, but Sam is. Kelsey tries to get him to eat healthy, but he naturally sways towards anything devoid of nutrients.”

“Eh, he’s got good genes. He should be all set. My sister Juno went through a stage where she would only eat canned ravioli. My mother tried to force her to eat healthy, balanced meals, and instead of giving in, she went on a hunger strike. Her doctor eventually told my mother that she needed to eat; Juno was tiny and couldn’t afford to lose weight. Canned ravioli was better than no food. He’ll be fine.”

“I guess deep down I understand that, but it’s too important to mess this up,” Tom said, offering me a window into his thoughts. Yes, parenting was a tremendous responsibility, but he internalized every bit of potential criticism and seemed to see even the smallest bumps as failures.

“Do you honestly think you can raise a kid without messing up something? My parents are some of the best parents out there, and they managed to screw up a ton. Ask them about when they left me alone with PJ when I was 16 and he and Juno were 18.”

“Do I even want to know what happened?” Tom asked.

“Have you seen the movie Project X? I thought, unplugging the security cameras so my father wouldn’t notice the activity in and out of my house. Turns out the issue was thelackof activity. He realized something was wrong when he got a notification that a package had been delivered, but the delivery truck never showed up in his notifications. Once he realized it and called me, I was in the middle of trying to get people to leave. The small gathering had exploded in size once one of my friends sent out a group message.”

“How did it end?”

“One of his friends came by to help me kick everyone out of the house. I was grounded for over a month, but the worst part was that I’d destroyed his trust. My point? No parent is perfect, and expecting that of yourself is unrealistic. Failing to get him to eat his vegetables is the universe telling you you have no control over the creatures you create. And you better get used to it.”

“So, I should throw in the towel?” he smirked. Dammit, were those dimples? I fucking loved dimples.

“Oh, God, no. Don’t ever let him see you sweat,” I joked.

Crew had choked down the rest of his cucumbers while we talked. I cleared the plates once we were all finished, doing my best to find my way around the kitchen and make myself useful. Tom wiped Crew’s face and lifted him out of his booster seat. “Bath, buddy. Then ice cream.”

Crew ran down the hallway towards the bathroom, and Tom reminded him to pick out some pajamas, following behind him.

“Do you want to help with his bath?” I asked. “I could meet you in there after I do the dishes.”

“You don’t need to do those; I didn’t invite you here to work.”

“In my family, the person who cooks never does the dishes. Go, start his bath, and I’ll be in there in a few minutes.”

I could hear Crew’s giggling and splashing from down the hall as I rinsed the dishes and loaded them into the dishwasher. I washed the pots and pans and stacked them on the drying rack. I hadn’t expected Tom to be so open with me; he seemed willing to share so much about himself. Was that normal with a nanny? Or was that so if I decided to fake date him, it would be believable?

I still hadn’t come to any decision on his proposition. I wanted to run it by Monica, but I didn’t think she could give an unbiased answer with her conflicting relationship with all of us. She had never shared enough details about Sam and Kelsey for me to know who they were, but she had talked in generalizations about her favorite clients. She also had been obsessed withgetting details perfect for a baby boy over the last year and a half. I don’t think I was making a considerable leap, assuming it was Crew. With that in mind, there was no way that she would want me to jeopardize that business relationship she had built.

Juno had asked if the fake dating would include real fucking. PJ exited the group chat after clarifying that there was no such thing as fake dating. It was just a way to delay the inevitable, but he’d heard the payoff at the end could be “explosive.”

Once I finished the dishes, I joined Crew and Tom in the cramped bathroom. They were finishing the bath, and I was just in time to catch Tom’s perfect bubble butt in my face as he bent to pick up his son. Crew covered the front of his shirt in bubbles and water as he squirmed.

“Here, let me take him to get his jammies on. Come on, buddy. Can you show me where you put your pajamas?”

Crew threw himself in my arms and pointed to his bedroom. I followed his directions to his room, and he squirmed out of my arms, his hooded towel splaying out behind him like a superhero cape. He pulled open the drawers and rifled through them until he found what he was looking for, “Dinos! Kiwi, help?”

I helped him pull the top over his head and looked around for diapers. When I grabbed a diaper, he shook his head aggressively. “No! No! No! Big boy pull-ups!”

---