A Bundle of Mannies

by Lorelei M. Hart

  The only kind thing to do for the baby who lay under my heart was to put them up for adoption. To dads who would delight in their child and be able to give them everything. But how? My hand went to my belly and my eyes swam with tears.

  Judson dropped to his knees beside me. “Edwin? Is something wrong? Do you want me to call the doctor?”

  “N-no.” I sniffed back the tears. “I was just thinking of the ba-baby.”

  He patted my leg and moved to sit in the leather chair next to mine. “Yeah, I remember when Iliana was pregnant. It’s an exciting time but pretty emotional, huh?”

  “Sure is.” I couldn’t tell him where my head was at. He was my boss and it wasn’t his problem.

  “Anyway, I just came in to check on everything, but I see you don’t need me here.” He leaned back and watched as the kids appeared in one doorway after the next. “They’re having fun, aren’t they?”

  “They sure are.”

  “I should get back to work.” He sighed and stood up. “It’s so peaceful here.”

  “Can’t you stay a few minutes? Maybe have a cold drink?”

  Chapter Ten

  Judson

  Could I stay? Sure. But should I? That was an entirely different matter. I hadn’t been on the road in a while, and spending the extra time getting things set up just right was a really good idea, except Edwin—something told me he needed me to stay. I’d said Iliana had been emotional, and she had been—fine, she’d been hostile, but growing two babies when you weren’t really wanting to be a parent could do that to you. But with Edwin? With Edwin his emotions were different.

  I couldn’t quite tell if they were sad or quite what, but if he needed me to sit and listen or distract or what have you, who was I to argue.

  “I wouldn’t say no to a fifteen-minute break.” I plopped down beside him, regretting my choice of seat when I could no longer see his eyes. Maybe that was for the best. I was already sporting a semi just by proximity, looking at him would only exacerbate the issue.

  “I can’t imagine how tired you are going to be after the show? I’m dead just from the traveling.” He took a sip of his cola. I wanted to ask if it was okay for the baby, but that was so not my business. And really Iliana did so much I disagreed with while pregnant, and the boys are wonderful—most of the time. Healthwise they were anyway.

  “There is something about live music that just invigorates you.” And the next morning is hell due to the lack of sleep, but I left that part out. He wouldn’t be the one up all night anyway. He would be nestled into the bus or hotel. Or at least that was the plan. And he’d only have my boys then, Rich would be around for their kids, so much easier duty—once they were asleep.

  “Are you a musician, too?” He turned his chair slightly, and I copied his motions. We both could now see each other’s faces and the kids off in the distance.

  “Nope. Just sound.” I’d tried. Lord, how I tried. I took classes of all kinds growing up and was miserable at all of them. But I had an ear and found a way to make music a permanent part of my world. “Trust me, you do not want to hear me sing.” I half laughed as I realized the twins would have their special day soon enough, and I always belted out “Birthday” complete with air guitar as I woke them up in the morning. “And, unfortunately, you will be subjected to it when the boys have their birthday in a couple of months, but no, just sound.”

  “I’m impressed they play live.” He set his cola on the side table. I wasn’t sad. Something had me so protective over both he and his little bundle. I tried to not read too much into it. “The last couple of concerts I’ve been too had all been prerecorded and really...it felt like a rip-off.” I’d be pissed off, too. People go to concerts to hear live music not canned crap.

  “That’s how the guys feel, too, which means some nights are better than others.” And nine times out of ten, they were the only ones who thought the not-great shows were not great and the worse times were the venue’s fault with messed up electricity or acoustics.

  “Speaking of nights, if you want or need your alpha to meet up with us at a stop or two, I can make it work.” His nose wrinkled a tiny bit as I asked my asshole of a question wrapped in an offer I didn’t want him to take me up on.

  “I don’t have an alpha.” He finally broke the silence I planted there, his hand falling to his belly. “It’s just me—just us.”

  “Oh, I...I shouldn’t have asked.” Understatement of the fucking year.

  “How were you to know?” He half shrugged.

  “I was fishing.” I confessed my asshole ways. “I wanted to know if you were taken and all that.” I officially sucked.

  “Well.” He turned the chair so he was facing me fully. “If that’s the case, here’s the rest of it.” I turned my chair, too. If he was willing to give me the entire story, the least I could do was listen intently.

  “I went on a date with a guy I thought was nice. We hit it off and things happened.”

  I focused on not showing my feelings on that, feelings far too closely resembling jealousy for my liking. He is the manny. He is the manny. He is not for you.

  “Afterward, he made a rude comment about my performance not being what he thought it would be, given my—given my dancing—and left. Ghosted me.”

  My jaw dropped. What a fucking asshole. I suddenly looked less horrible even though I still was the prick who brought things up under the guise of helping him.

  “Thank goddess. A few months later, I discovered the condom didn’t work, and here we are.”

  “I didn’t mean to push.”

  “Remarkably, I feel a ton better telling you, especially since you didn’t look like you were about to call Manny to get my replacement.” Holy crap. He’d been worried about that? Like I had room to judge.

  “What? No, of course not.” I reached out and then snapped my hand back. He was the manny, not someone I should be touching, even in comfort. Not this kind of comfort anyway. “We have all made bad choices when it comes to relations, shall we say.”

  “Says the man who has his shit together.” Did he honestly think that? My life was so very much not put together. “I do appreciate the sentiment though.”

  “My shit is not together,” I blurted. It was the antithesis of it. “Iliana, the boys’ mother—was a fucking groupie using me to get in with the big bands, going so far as to get knocked up to guarantee I let her stay.” His eyes widened. “Sad thing is, unlike your situation, I thought I loved her. I was such a fool.”

  “Not a fool.” His hand came out to mine, giving it a squeeze, the warmth of his hand better than I could’ve dreamed. This omega was trouble. “Look at those amazing boys.”

  “Your baby is going to be just as amazing.”

  “He already is.” He squeezed my hand again.

  It was official. I was looking for trouble. Trouble named Edwin. I just needed to wait until after the tour, when he was no longer my employee and no longer needed me. We had to be on equal footing. I could wait that long.

  Probably.

  Maybe.

  I was good and fucked.

  Chapter Eleven

  Edwin

  I picked up my drink and grimaced. “I’m not supposed to have caffeine. But every now and then I screw up and do it anyway, usually by accident.”

  Judson jumped up. “Let me get you a water or juice? Something decaf?”

  I waved him off. “I’m good for the moment. I have been drinking enough water to float an aircraft carrier. Apparently it’s good for the baby, but pop is my one sin in life. I don’t smoke or do drugs or sneak ice cream late at night.”

  “You don’t?” he asked, getting up and bringing me a bottle of chilled fizzy water and a glass adorned with a wedge of lime despite what I said. “Maybe you’ll like this better than plain flat water.” After handing it to me, he twisted the cap on one of his own and took a sip. “I was going to invite you to a late-night ice cream binge at one of our stops...oh well.”

  “This i
s way better. Thank you.” I could feel the corners of my lips rise in a grin. “I didn’t say I wasn’t human. I just don’t think eating ice cream alone reflects good character.” Most stilted phrase ever, but I felt as awkward as it emerged. “I mean...it’s a joke...like drinking alone?”

  He winked and sat again. “I got it. It just wasn’t that funny.”

  “No...I suppose not.” Because the only reason anyone might like me was my ability to shimmy around a pole with my junk exposed or on a good night barely covered.

  He leaned toward me and spoke low enough I had to lean in to hear. “Does that mean we have a date for ice cream, then? Late one night?” His breath brushed my cheek, warm and sweet as if he’d been sucking a mint or something before he came in.

  “I’d love that,” I whispered in the same quiet tone. Somehow it seemed like the right way to speak just now, the glass-fronted VIP box closing us off from the kids zooming around and around on this level and the crews working on the stage and seating below. Intimate. Like it might be on a late-night ice cream date in a hotel suite. “But if I don’t have the children, you will, and the tutor is not an all-night guy.”

  “You leave that to me.” He lifted the bottle as if to drink more then lowered it to the table at his side and raised his hand to cup my cheek. While I held my breath, he turned me to face him and pressed the softest of kisses to my lips. Drawing back, he held my gaze for a long moment then stood. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

  “I’m glad you did.” So glad.

  Taking a deep breath, he turned for the door. “They should be bringing the kids’ dinner service any minute so they can eat in peace and head for the bus before the real craziness starts. I’ll see you after the show.”

  I lifted a hand and waved. “Till later.”

  He stepped out the door but then leaned back in. “What flavor?”

  “Huh?”

  “What flavor ice cream do you like best?”

  “Oh. Vanilla.” Which should show him just how boring I was.

  “Me, too. But with toppings.” He looked as though he was going to say something else, but just then the kids came to a screeching stop behind him and in the chaos of their entry followed by the concierge and the servers with their meal, my boss, the alpha I had no business wanting, disappeared into the bowels of the stadium to work. As the children ate and squabbled over who rode faster, who rode no hands longer—so glad I’d missed that—and what biking would be like at the next stop, I kept one eye on them and one on what went on down below. Wherever Judson had gone, I saw no sign of him on the stage or anywhere else our bird’s-eye view allowed us.

  I felt the slightest bit cheated at having to leave before the show, as if I was one of the children myself, but just as he had his job to do, I had mine. And one look at my sweaty, sticky charges who wore more of their pudding and whipped cream dessert than they’d managed to get inside them had me asking the concierge if there were any facilities that he could, without too much trouble, open for them to shower. The tiny ones on the bus were hard to maneuver in for even these people, and I had reservations about using so much of the water when everyone would want to rinse off after a sweaty, fun rock concert.

  “Of course, sir. If you’d all like to hop in my cart, we’ll take the bikes to the bus, allow you to gather your pajamas and other necessities, and hie to the locker room of the local hockey team where you may shower to your hearts’ content.” As the bikes were loaded on the trailer someone had reattached to the cart, and Mr. Reeve made a quick call on his cell to have maintenance go to far too much trouble for us, I hustled the five tired, cranky kids into the cart and climbed in after them.

  They fell asleep on the way, and I left them in the cart while I grabbed pj’s and shampoo, soap and towels, and after considering the difficulty of separate showers for boys and girls, added bathing suits. The bikes were unloaded and stowed by BJ who stayed with her bus. We zoomed to another underground area where a single lit corridor led us to a gargantuan locker area. I would have loved to just let them sleep, but smells really amplified in a closed environment and these kids had the stank.

  So I woke them up and ushered them into the dressing rooms where I handed them their bathing suits and that made showering into swimming, or so they claimed. After a half hour of frolicking around, coming to me occasionally for a handful of shampoo or liquid soap, we turned off the many showerheads and returned to the bus.

  Unfortunately, at that point they were wound up, and it took a round of milk and cookies and a guilty-pleasure extra hour of screen time—a South Pole documentary, so educational—before I was able to get them into bed and tucked in.

  They were so wiped out, even the returning band and crew did not wake them up, nor did the bus rumbling out of the garage and onto the highway for our next stop.

  Chapter Twelve

  Judson

  It wasn’t even really a kiss. I mean it was...lips touched, but at the same time...ugh. What had I been thinking? And now, three days later, it was all I could think about. Even with the business a tour entailed, especially when we were first getting our groove, I still found the time to daydream about the feel of his lips on mine for that nanosecond.

  “I was wondering if you had a moment.” Fleur, our tutor startled me from my thoughts, which was probably for the best since I was about to go find Edwin and let him know I had figured out a way for us to have our ice cream date at the next venue, and doing so with a hard-on probably wasn’t the best approach. Or maybe it was. Heck, I didn’t know. I hadn’t dated in far too long to even come close to remember what to do and not ruin all things.

  “Sure.” I tilted my head to the chair across from me. She held a bundle of papers in her arms, and I already knew what was coming—Jagger struggles with reading. I’d heard it every year in some form or another from he didn’t recognize his letters to his sight words were not up to par. It still sucked. Every parent wants their kid not to struggle, but all the same, it wasn’t new. “And I know what you’re going to say.” The poor thing was shaking. Was I that intimidating a dad?

  “So people have talked to you about Jagger before.” She placed the folder in front of me.

  “They have.”

  “And yet you have chosen to do nothing so his brother isn’t left behind?” Whoa, what the fuck did that mean?

  I took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. She was a professional, and an amazing one from all accounts I’d heard from Freddie and everything Edwin and the boys had told me. Surely she wasn’t—heck, I couldn’t decipher what she was saying, so focused on the accusatory beginning that pushed my guilt button with dead-on precision.

  “Come again?” I snapped, and she wrung her hands, so I brought it down a notch. “Are you here about his reading struggles?”

  “No.” She scrunched up her face as if I’d discussed something distasteful like poop. “And his struggles aren’t really struggles as much as his brain is somewhere else—probably. We’ll get to that.”

  “Maybe you should start from the beginning.” Because no part of this was making sense to me.

  “Jagger is—I believe—gifted, his strength in mathematics.”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “He is very good at math class.” It helped to offset the letters sent home telling us how difficult he found reading and similar subjects. It was nice that he had something to excel at so easily.

  “I don’t think you understand what I am saying.” She opened the folder and tapped on the paper near where she had placed the grade. “Here. Look at this.”

  “He got 100 percent.” And he’d probably get a ton more before the tour ended. And a ton of not one hundreds on some of the other subjects.

  “He did,” she agreed. “And this should not have been his assignment. I accidentally gave him JR’s.” JR was a couple of years older, but in elementary school I doubted that made a huge difference. “But that got me thinking.” She flipped the paper over. “Here.”

  “Is that—al
gebra?” And not the A + 3 = 5 thing, either. Make your head spin I wasn’t sure I could do it algebra. Holy crap.

  “It is, and I didn’t assist him at all. They are technically done completely wrong if you ask most math teachers, but he got all the answers in his head, and they were all correct except the word problems because...reading.”

  “Then, maybe focus on his reading.” Math was great and all, but reading was essential for everything as well or, more accurately, more so.

  “I’d like, with your permission, to do both—focus on his reading, sure but also foster his growth in mathematics.”

  “Sure?” I wasn’t altogether sure why she was asking. It wasn’t as if he’d need a new teacher or anything. She tutored five kids where they were at. That was her job.

  “That means his brother might feel left out.” And suddenly her earlier comment made sense.

  “Or happy for him?” Because twins were not like most siblings from what I saw. Jagger never got upset that reading came easily for Bowie, and Bowie never cared that Jagger never had to practice flashcards for adding facts. They were always proud of each other, and I hoped that would never change.

  “That, too,” she agreed, gathering up the papers and standing as to leave. “One more thing—I think maybe Jagger should have his eyes checked again. He was squinting during the science test.”

  “Tell me, what are the boys wearing today?” I asked, pretty sure I had a guess.

  “Actually, come to think of it, they both had on the same shirt—the Otter Space one with the otter wearing a space helmet.”

  “Trust me, his eyes are fine with the glasses he has.” It was both of their behaviors that were not fine. Little stinkers. “Have a good day, Fleur. I need to go find my boys.”

  “They are on the bus playing Monopoly—again.” She rolled her eyes, all professionalism out the window. I couldn’t help but laugh.