The Baby Package

by Sarah J. Brooks

  “Girls, come and eat,” I heard my father yell from the bottom of the stairs.

  “Wow, that brings back memories,” Lilli said.

  “It’s good to have you over here again,” I said as we made our way down the stairs to the kitchen.

  My parents were sitting next to each other on one side of the table and had made up some seats for us on the other side. It was nice to be back home having dinner with my parents, and having Lilli there made it a little less boring.

  “So, Anna, how’s work going? Any news?”

  “Nothing much going on, Dad. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be looking for.”

  “You know, anything that might make things difficult for our employees? Definitely, let me know if they are planning on letting anyone else go again. That was horrible.”

  “The only thing I’ve been working on is the spreadsheet and the invoices. Did Jason talk to you about those?”

  “Yeah, but just briefly. They are all worried that we weren’t making a profit on a few projects. But we have made tons of money. Nothing to worry about there. It pisses me off that they think I really didn’t know what was going on with the finances. I’m the damn financial officer at the company. I know every little detail about every sale. If they had a question, they should have just asked me instead of having you put together that damned spreadsheet.”

  By the time my father was done with his rant, his face was bright red, and he looked like he was going to have a stroke. I just nodded my head in agreement and didn’t argue with him, though. He was clearly not in the mood to talk about what was going on at work.

  “So, Lilli, why don’t you tell us about this boyfriend of yours,” my mother said in her effort to change the subject.

  “Devin is one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met, and man is he a good dad. It’s been really exciting being with him. I feel like some sort of a movie star since we are always on his private jet.”

  “Oh, wow, he’s got serious money. I don’t think I knew that,” my mom said as she ate her salad. “Good for you darling—you deserve a nice rich guy.”

  I wasn’t exactly sure what my mom meant by that. Who deserves a rich guy? It seemed odd to say since Lilli’s family had plenty of money, and she’d grown up without a worry at all. But maybe my mom was just thinking about how Lilli’s ex-boyfriend had dumped her, and she had to move back home with her parents. My mom was notorious for remembering small pieces of information from a long time ago and then trying to make them relevant for the current moment.

  For the rest of dinner, I basically made small talk with my family while trying not to talk at all about work. Lilli was the best sidekick I could have asked for that night. She was great at reading the stress on my father’s face and always came up with some interesting question to distract him. By the time she was leaving, I was ready to go as well.

  “I’m going to head home too,” I said as I walked Lilli to the door and said a quick goodbye. “I’ll see you later. Call me and warn me when you are coming into town the next time.”

  “I will,” Lilli said. “It was nice seeing you, Mr. and Mrs. Cook. Thanks for a great meal. Goodnight.”

  My parents waved goodbye to Lilli, and my mom gave her a big hug before finally letting her leave. It really was like she was part of our family, and I could have used a sister around my house full of men. I think that was why my mom bonded so much with Lilli and even a few of my other friends—she was just as desperate as I was for more female energy in our house.

  “Honey, you can just stay here,” she told me. “It’s so late; you don’t want to be driving all the way back to your apartment.”

  “It’s okay, Mom. I can drive in the dark.” I laughed. “Plus, I’ve got to get up early for work, and I don’t have any work clothes here. They are all at my apartment.”

  I grabbed a small bag of things I’d packed up from my room that I wanted to bring back to my apartment, and I gave my parents a quick hug. As much as I loved visiting them, I did need to get home. I was a professional with a job, and I had to get to work on time the next morning.

  “You’re leaving with only that on?” my father grumbled as I stood in the doorway.

  “Dad, it’s a sun dress. Pretty normal attire for the summer,” I teased. “If it were up to you, I’d be wearing a turtleneck sweater and long pants every day of my life.”

  “Damn right you would,” he said as he gave me another hug. “You keep an eye on the business deals and don’t do any of the stupid busy work. Just call me if he needs something. Okay?”

  “Okay, Dad. Love you,” I said and started to make my way out before he went on another rant about the whole business stuff. “Love you too, Mom.”

  I was close to my car when I noticed something moving out of the corner of my eye and looked up to see Jason standing in the window of his living room. He was on the phone and waved at me to come there, but then he disappeared from the window.

  I threw my bag into my car and then went over to see what he needed. Nothing about the way he had motioned to me seemed like he wanted me there for something sexy or erotic. And as I approached his house, he appeared in the front doorway while he was still on the phone.

  “No, I understand, Rosie, sorry for calling you. See you tomorrow,” Jason said and hung up his cell phone. “Hey, what are you doing here?”

  “Well, I was visiting my parents.” I smiled and pointed to my house.

  Jason seemed really distracted as Clyde was screaming in the background and ran up to him banging on a play drum he had been carrying around. Clyde was covered in some sort of mess that was probably his dinner and looked like he was in a desperate need of a bath. It was the first time I’d seen Jason looking so frantic.

  “What’s going on here?” I teased as I knelt down to Clyde’s level. “Are you giving Daddy a hard time tonight?”

  “We were playing rock band,” Clyde said as he proceeded to bang on his drum. “Come back and play with me.”

  “Okay, just a second,” Jason said as he looked at his phone like he was waiting for some sort of message. “Are you busy right now?”

  “I was just heading home. Why?”

  “I’ve got to fax over these papers, and I forgot them at the office. Zelda tried looking for them and couldn’t find them. I just need to go in and grab them really quick and get them sent off. I totally spaced it today. Could you stay with Clyde for just an hour or so?”

  “I’m not really good with kids,” I said but then saw the desperation on Jason’s face. “But I suppose I could manage to give him a bath and read him a book for bed.”

  “Oh, you are a lifesaver! I’ll come back in an hour. Maybe two at the most, depending on the traffic,” Jason said as he grabbed his keys and kissed Clyde quickly. “I’ll be back in a few minutes, buddy. Anna is going to stay with you, okay. Take a bath and get ready for bed.”

  “Okay, Dad,” Clyde said as he didn’t look up at all from the drums.

  “Thank you so much,” Jason said and kissed me on the cheek as he ran to his car.

  I shut the door behind me as I stepped into Jason’s house and quickly sent an excited text off to Lilli and Patrick.

  ANNA: I’m in Jason’s house! Basically, I’m just his babysitter, but this has to be a first step, right?

  PATRICK: LMAO the naughty babysitter.

  LILLI: Get Clyde to bed before Jason comes home!

  “Clyde, let’s go get you cleaned up,” I said with excitement as I grabbed his little hand and led him to the bathroom.

  Chapter 9

  Jason

  Anna was like an angel in her tiny floral dress as I’d desperately been trying to find someone to watch Clyde for me. She looked so disappointed when I asked her over and then asked her to help out with Clyde, and I felt awful as I pulled away from the house. The problem was I also felt awful for dropping the ball on the faxes I was supposed to get sent out for Kevin. I’d absentmindedly filled them out and then totally forgot about them. />
  As much as I would have loved to spend some time talking with Anna, work had to come first. I’d done perfectly at prioritizing and staying away from Anna over the last few weeks. But if I talked to her once, I simply couldn’t stop, and before I knew it, I was distracted for the whole day.

  While speeding down the freeway, I heard sirens from behind me and instantly knew I was the one getting pulled over. I hadn’t been paying attention to the speed limit at all and was going over 80 mph as I let my foot off the gas and moved over to the side of the road.

  My day was just getting worse and worse, so of course, I was about to get a speeding ticket. The officer was rather pleasant with me as I put my window down and accommodated his request for the proper documentation.

  “License, insurance, and registration please,” he said as he looked around my vehicle.

  “Sorry officer,” I said as I handed him the documents.

  “Where are you going in such a hurry on a Monday night?”

  “Just had to run into the office, and I grabbed my neighbor to babysit. No excuses, though, I noticed when your lights came on that I was speeding.”

  “It will be just one minute,” the officer said and took my paperwork with him back to his vehicle.

  It took all the willpower I had not to pull my phone out and text Zelda and inform her that I was still on my way. She had been at the office for well over an hour and was probably getting pretty agitated with me by that point. It was after ten o’clock at night, and I was exhausted.

  Five minutes later, the officer returned to my car and handed me all my paperwork back. He didn’t have a ticket in his hand though and instead started writing on his pad of paper there in front of me.

  “I’m giving you an official warning ticket. I appreciate you being honest and admitting to speeding. Let’s take your time, though. You’ll be really late if you end up in a car accident.”

  “Thank you, Officer,” I said as calmly as I could. “I appreciate it.”

  “Have a good evening.”

  It wasn’t like a speeding ticket would have been financially straining on me or anything like that, but it was still nice not to get a ticket. I pulled back into the traffic slowly and made sure to use my blinker as I finished the drive to work and hurried into the building.

  “I’m so sorry Zelda, thank you for staying.”

  “I’ve looked all over your office. I can’t fathom how you could have lost the papers between five o’clock and when I showed up to look?”

  “Hmm, I thought I left them on my desk,” I said as I rummaged through everything. “Sorry, I was a bit distracted today. Nothing seemed to be going the way I wanted it to.”

  “Yeah, having a beautiful blonde woman as your assistant will do that to you.” Zelda laughed.

  “What? I didn’t notice,” I lied.

  “The office has been talking about you guys since the moment she started working here. Have you asked her out yet?”

  “No, I’m her boss,” I protested—even though I desperately wanted to take Anna out on a date and had some more perverted ideas as well.

  “Jason, it’s the twenty-first century. I’m pretty sure office romances are the only way we meet people. And she’s just working here for three months. I think that no-dating-the-boss thing is more for people whose jobs would depend on their boss and that interaction.”

  “I can’t date an employee. HR would kill me,” I laughed, although I did like how Zelda was thinking.

  “I’m just saying, you two have some serious chemistry. You should consider giving it a try. Maybe you’d be less distracted.” Zelda laughed as she pulled a stack of papers out of my recycling bin. “I think I found your fax.”

  “Shit, I recycled it? Wow, I was distracted.”

  “Let’s get this going so I can go home. And I’m coming into work late tomorrow,” Zelda said as she pulled up the number to the insurance company that we had to fax the forms to.

  “You’re the best, Zelda, thanks so much. I probably wouldn’t have bothered to look in the recycling bin. I better get back home; Anna is babysitting.”

  A look of total shock flashed across Zelda’s face as she froze in place. I realized that no one really knew that Anna lived right next to me. They probably didn’t even know that Edward lived next to me. It probably seemed really weird that I had Anna over at my house babysitting my son.

  “So, you are sleeping with her!” Zelda exclaimed with a huge smile on her face. “I knew it.”

  “No, no, no. Her father lives next to me. She was leaving the house, and I needed a sitter—that’s it.”

  “Wait a minute. Anna lives right next to you? Wow, this is getting really good. And you have her in your house right now babysitting for you? I feel like this is the start of a Lifetime television movie.”

  “Stop, it’s not like that at all.”

  “Not yet,” she said as she raised her eyebrows at me and winked.

  “Okay, okay. I’m going home to get Clyde to bed and get some sleep. Let’s not mention that Anna is at my house babysitting for me, okay?”

  “Sure thing. I can keep a secret. I bet you didn’t know Fed and Mary were sleeping together… shit… forget that.”

  “Well, try a little harder with my secret please,” I said as the two of us flipped the lights off and made our way out of the building.

  I wasn’t about to leave her there by herself that late at night. Even though we were in a relatively safe neighborhood, it was still creepy to be there at night. I didn’t even like going in early in the morning before the sun rose.

  “See you around noon tomorrow,” Zelda joked as she got into her car.

  “That’s fine with me. You deserve to sleep in. Thanks again.”

  Zelda drove off, and I grabbed my phone to look through the messages before driving home. The last thing I needed was to get pulled over again on the drive back to my house. There was one picture from Anna, and it was of Clyde in his pajamas and tucked into his bed.

  ANNA: I’m awesome!

  JASON: Impressive. On my way back now.

  It was truly impressive that Anna had already finished Clyde’s bath and got him into bed. I doubted she would have been able to get the bath done before I returned home. And it was not because I didn’t believe she had the skills, but because Clyde was notoriously naughty when new people watched him. He liked to push the envelope and see what he could get away with. One poor lady actually had Clyde staying up until midnight because Clyde convinced her I let him stay up that late on Fridays. Of course, it wasn’t the truth, and he got in trouble when I got home, but it was pretty impressive that he had managed to convince the poor girl.

  I took my time driving back home because I was so relieved that Anna had been able to handle Clyde. He’d probably be waiting up for me to read him a story and tuck him in again, but that didn’t matter. It was nice to have part of the process done.

  When I walked in the front door, Anna was sitting on the couch with her legs pulled up to her chest and a book in her hand. The tiny dress she had on just barely covered her ass, and she was shivering as she had her arms wrapped around her legs and holding onto the book.

  “Sorry, it always gets cold in here if the thermostat isn’t adjusted after the sun goes down,” I said and grabbed her a blanket from the trunk behind the couch. “I’ll just go tuck Clyde in, just a second.”

  “No, no, no… he just fell asleep.”

  “Actually asleep?”

  “Yeah, we were cuddling, and he conked out,” Anna said with a prideful smile.

  “Okay, I’ll just look in quietly and make sure.”

  It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Anna; it was that I didn’t trust Clyde. He liked to pretend sleep to get babysitters out of his room, and then when I’d come home he was full of energy again. But sure enough, as I opened his door I could see that Clyde was one hundred percent sound asleep. His little hands were thrown up over his head, and his mouth was wide open as he dreamt peacefully.


  I closed the door and made my way back into the living room where Anna was standing and grabbing her things. My gut pulled and twisted as she moved closer to the door to leave.

  “Do you want something to drink?” I asked randomly.

  “No, I better get going. I’ve got to get up early in the morning.” She smiled. “Did everything work out all right with what you had to do?”

  “Yeah, thanks to Zelda. She’s a lifesaver.”

  I walked over to the front door and placed my hand on the doorknob. A part of me wanted to hold the door shut and not let her leave, while the other part of me was purely intending on opening the door for her politely.

  “Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Anna said, and I politely opened the door for her.

  “See you tomorrow,” I replied and leaned in and gave her a hug. “Thanks again for saving me tonight.”

  Hugging wasn’t something I normally did. It certainly wasn’t something I did with my babysitters, and it probably wasn’t something Anna had expected. But her arms wrapped around me, and I took in her sweet, delicious scent as I let go of the door and wrapped both of my arms around her too.

  Our bodies pressed together long enough that we had passed the arbitrary time that this hug could have been platonic and were moving into a much scarier realm. It took all the self-control I could muster not to let my hands slide down the back of her dress and to her ass which I suspected was partially exposed by how her arms were draped around my neck.

  “Nothing like having a crush on a guy and turning into his babysitter.” Anna laughed as she tried to make light of our situation. “Clyde was really good for me, though.”

  “He must like you,” I replied as my lips moved closer to her neck, and I hovered near millimeters from kissing her delicate skin. “Did you say crush?” I asked and pushed her away a little.

  She was smiling up at me and then looked away almost instantly. I knew she had a crush on me, but hell I had a crush on her as well. There was no denying I’d had plenty of delicious thoughts about her. But the term implied that Anna felt like this was a one-sided thing like maybe I didn’t have the same feelings as she was having.