by Jody Holford
Since the Jedi-mind-trick/Zen strategy was not working, he stepped through the door of their shared room. A bomb of clothing and toys had exploded and eviscerated the floor.
He kept his eyes on them. “Stop!”
Gracie and Beth froze, almost comically, their respective hands still latched onto either side of a small, cloth rag doll with reggae hair, a stitched-on face, and a blue dress.
Grace looked like she wanted to rip it apart, and Beth’s eyes were full of unshed tears. Elliot stomped over a pile of dresses and skirts, sidestepped a hairbrush and thrust out his hand, palm up.
“Give it.”
Both girls launched to their feet still holding the damn doll.
“Daddy, I had it first, and it’s my turn to sleep with it,” Beth said.
Grace gave a useless tug. “You slept with it in the car yesterday.”
“That doesn’t count,” Beth said. Her eyes were pleading with Elliot.
“Give it,” he said, his tone even and calm, even though inside he felt like this room looked: an utter disaster. It hadn’t even been two nights yet.
The girls sighed in unison and handed it to him. He squeezed it and brought it closer for inspection while they stared at him. It wasn’t their best doll, not by a long shot. It had woolen strands for hair, a cloth dress that was ripped, two real buttons, a mini pocket, and what looked like painted-on shoes.
“Where’d we get her?” Elliot asked, holding the doll up to face them.
“Aunt Shelly gave it to us,” Grace said. She looked down at the pile of clothes under her feet, then back up.
Elliot tried not to frown on the outside. “One doll for the two of you?”
“Yes,” Beth said, her lip trembling. “She said one day we’ll probably share boys so we could start practicing with a doll.”
“Jesus Christ,” Elliot muttered, unfortunately aloud.
Both girls’ eyes went wide. Shit. He was so tired that even if he didn’t have twins, he’d probably see two of them. He was lucky he wasn’t seeing four. Alex had given him today off, thankfully, but he hadn’t slept much the night before. Every time he’d closed his eyes, he saw Kate’s sweet smile. When he did catch a bit of dreamtime, his mind was filled with horrible visions of forgetting to fill the girls’ stockings or put their Christmas presents under the tree. The girls continued to stare and it wasn’t their fault he was tired. They were too, and he needed to cover his tracks and shift the mood.
“Nothing. It’s His birthday,” Elliot said.
“Huh?” Beth narrowed her eyes at him. She wasn’t buying his story, and he obviously hadn’t needed the cover.
Elliot turned, doll in hand, and waved them out of the room. “Come on. We’re forgetting the meaning of Christmas. You’re in there fighting, giving me and this doll a headache, and we should be getting ready to put the tree up.”
In the kitchen, he pointed to their spots at the table. Doll forgotten, they both started in on their spaghetti. Well, Elliot wouldn’t really call it spaghetti since neither of them were willing to try the sauce he’d made. He served his own plate and brought it to the table.
Beth slurped up a noodle. “When’s Kate going to be here?”
Kate. He’d hoped to clean his house at least a bit before she arrived. Not that she hadn’t been there before but it’d be nice to look mildly competent in front of her. It wasn’t like he was trying to impress her. Hell, they were just friends and he needed to be interested in a woman the way he needed another knee to the groin
Gracie picked up her milk. “Daddy!”
“Uh. Sorry. She should be here soon. I hope you two can help with the tree,” Elliot said, shaking his head with a mock look of concern.
“Why wouldn’t we?” Beth asked.
“You can’t help with the tree when your room looks like that,” he said.
Both girls opened their mouths and looked at each other, then back at him.
Like they’d timed it, they both said, “We’ll clean it.”
Elliot smiled. “Okay, then. Finish up and go do it.”
They chatted non-stop, faster than Elliot could keep up with, so he let his mind wander. Gina had texted approximately eight dozen times, and he was ready to change his number. Most of them read I’m sorry. Are you mad? No, he wasn’t fucking mad because it wasn’t high school. He was tired. The weary kind of tired that he knew meant he was actually, legitimately done with her bullshit. They’d been on this ride for far too long, and he hadn’t liked it much after the first few tries. It was time to step all the way off, and though he hadn’t wanted to go this particular route, he needed a lawyer.
The knock pulled him from his thoughts. On the way to the door, he loosened his jaw, which had gone tight at the thought of Gina.
Kate was bundled adorably, a scarf and hood hiding most of her face. Her gloved hands were in a prayer-like position, her fingers against her lips. She was bouncing on the balls of her feet and it made him laugh.
“Cold?”
She stomped her feet on his front steps, shook herself, and stepped in. He closed the door, inhaling the freshness of the snow and the subtle scent of vanilla that came with Kate.
“I’m pretty sure my lips are frozen,” she said, pulling off her gloves.
Elliot pictured warming her perfect lips with his own. She yanked the scarf from around her face and neck like it was attacking her and his eyes zeroed in her mouth, apparently for too long.
“Elliot?”
She was looking at him with her flushed face and full lips, and his heart wouldn’t calm the hell down. What was wrong with him? This was Kate. They were friends. Had been friends for a long time.
She poked his shoulder with one finger. “Elliot…phone home.”
His eyes snapped up to see humor lighting her eyes. “Sorry. Lost my train of thought.”
“Oh, I thought you were trying to figure out the movie reference.”
When she shrugged out of her coat, he took it and hung it up in the entryway closet. And because he needed to prove to himself that he was just overtired and not falling for Kate, he gave her shoulder a brotherly shove. But the spark that sailed up his arm from the contact, zapping his heart, did not feel brotherly.
“It was one movie. I could top you any time with trivia.”
She walked ahead of him into the kitchen, like she’d been there a dozen times before, and he followed her easy laughter.
“You’re on. You’ll lose, but you’re on.”
Before he could reply, or admit to himself that the competitive tone of her voice turned him on, the girls came running in.
“Kate!” Beth and Grace both latched onto her waist, arms flying around her.
Kate giggled along with the girls’ enthusiasm as she squeezed them tight.
“Hey! My favorite twins,” she said.
Both of his daughters giggled wildly, like Kate was funnier than all of their favorite shows and Elliot’s heart clutched hard. He inhaled sharply.
Kate looked over her shoulder at him, her blue eyes sparkling. “You okay?”
Elliot waited for the pinching feeling to subside before nodding. “I’m good. Should we get started? I pulled out my decorations.”
“Daddy, you don’t have that many,” Beth said, releasing Kate.
“Fear not, little one. I’ve brought treasures from the Aarons house,” Kate said, bending down to tap Beth’s nose.
When she straightened, she looked at Elliot and tilted her head. “Said treasures are in my car. When I told my mom you didn’t have much, she went a little crazy packing up stuff she doesn’t really use.”
Elliot didn’t know whether to smile or groan. The Aarons did nothing halfway. By the time he’d dragged in the two huge plastic bins from Kate’s family, she and the girls had settled in the living room. Christmas music played from Kate’s phone through his docking station, filling the room, and Elliot, with a festive spirit. He’d put the artificial tree together earlier, standing it in one corner
of the living room.
Elliot stood in the large rounded archway that separated the living room from the kitchen and watched as Kate sat cross-legged, holding the doll of discord in her hands.
“This would actually be a pretty easy doll to make. I could do that and then you’d have two, but would you still fight over this one?” Kate asked.
Beth and Grace stared at each other a moment and Elliot smiled at their ability to communicate without talking. Kate looked over their heads and grinned, and a spark of desire burst through him so unexpectedly it stole his breath.
“We’d share them both and wouldn’t fight,” Beth said.
Kate nodded. “Okay. I’ll make you another.”
Elliot didn’t know what made him happier, or more surprised, that she understood why they needed one each or that she was willing to take the time to do something so sweet for his girls.
As they unpacked Christmas ornaments, ribbons, and other tree trimmings, Kate told the girls stories of her family’s holidays. The girls spent more time playing with the mini nativity set they’d found than they did helping with the tree. While he and Kate worked together to string lights, Elliot settled into a quiet kind of contentment he wasn’t familiar with.
He plugged the lights into the power bar. “How was the family reunion?”
Kate shrugged. It didn’t suit her. She was usually confident and sure where her family was concerned, but at the moment, she looked more lost in thought than he’d been.
“Everyone was there and I thought, wow, they all got together for brunch to welcome me home.”
Elliot waited, but she stared intently at a shiny cylindrical-shaped ornament she held.
“That’s nice,” he said.
Her eyes met his for only a second before she busied herself with hanging the decoration.
“Except it turns out that Char, Luke, and their girls are actually staying with my parents. They were doing a kitchen remodel and some pipes burst.”
“Right. I think Alex said something about that. I forgot. Still, I’m sure they were all happy to be there when you got home.”
Beth and Grace curled up on the couch with a couple of books they found in one of the bins. Elliot smiled over at them before returning his focus to Kate.
“Yeah. It was nice, but not what I expected. I just felt…out of the loop, you know? It made me think of how hard I was on Lucy when she came home a couple years ago and tried to just jump back into all of our lives. I gave her a hard time and now I’m in the same spot.” She gave a sad laugh that made Elliot’s chest ache. “Only with nowhere to stay.”
Elliot froze in the act of picking up a weird looking Santa ornament. “What?”
“Char’s family is using up the rooms at my parents’ place and they had to move a bunch of their stuff so they’re storing it at Lucy and Alex’s.”
She shrugged again. Elliot hung the Santa at the back of the tree where it would dance in the window. He walked around to stand beside her.
“You can crash here,” he said.
She looked up at him and his heart pinched again at the melancholy he saw in the depth of her eyes. “That’s sweet, but I need a place to live, not crash. I mean, I didn’t want to stay with my parents anyway. But I thought I would for a few days at least.”
Her smile came back like it had never been hiding and she patted his chest with one hand, right over his heart.
“Don’t worry. After a couple nights on my parents’ couch, I need a real bed. I’ve got some friends I can stay with. That’s the good thing about coming home, right?”
She turned back to the decorations lying on the table and picked up another.
Kate looked over at the girls. “You girls going to help us?”
Beth yawned and Grace snuggled into the corner of the couch. “In a minute,” Beth said. Gracie’s eyes were half closed. Elliot knew he’d be carrying them both to bed.
With the hum of Christmas music setting the tone, Kate and Elliot finished decorating the tree using a combination of his ornaments and ones from her family. It was peaceful and Elliot realized he’d never felt the sense of calm with another woman that he did in Kate’s presence. Growing up, his parents had been anything but calm and the holidays were no different than any other day. Doing something so traditional with Kate, to whom such activities clearly mattered, made it feel almost sentimental. He enjoyed being with her. The girls liked, no, they loved her the way kids do so freely. And she needed a place to stay. He watched her as they worked, trying not to be obvious about looking at her and probably failing if the number of times she scrunched her face quizzically at him was anything to go by.
He told himself that his attraction wouldn’t get in the way of the idea he was about to bring up. In fact, if she said yes, it would put her firmly in the “no fly” zone. Kate tucked away the ornaments they didn’t use, setting the lid on the container and snapping it closed. Elliot turned just as she stretched, her shirt riding up enough that he could see the smooth skin of her stomach. His fingers actually tingled—itched—with the desire to touch her and that was not the only part of his body she stirred.
Don’t do it. It was probably a bad idea all around. But it was also one that would solve both of their pressing problems. And bring up a ton of others.
The girls had fallen asleep, and Kate was watching them wistfully. Elliot stepped closer to her and wondered if he’d imagined the tremor that went through her body when he came near.
“Stay,” he said. Idiot. Fucking idiot. Alex is going to kick your ass.
Kate frowned. “What?”
Taking her hand, he pulled her through his now-very-festive living room and into the kitchen. She didn’t pull her hand away, even when he turned her so they were facing. His chest was too crowded with emotions he couldn’t name to remember to let it go. So he held tight, their fingers linking.
“I need someone to watch the girls. You need a place to live. If you stay, it fixes both of those things,” he said.
Out loud, the idea didn’t sound half as crazy as it felt. Maybe that was because, logistically, it was a good idea. Emotionally and physically, it might turn him inside out.
“Elliot, what are you talking about? You want me to babysit your kids?”
Her tone was just shy of insulted and he pulled his hand from hers and took a step away. When he turned back, she had one dark eyebrow arched. God, the woman had a killer face. It sucked him in, made his suggestion seem the height of stupid. He wanted to trace the curve of her jaw with his fingers and let his lips follow the path. He squeezed his eyes shut for a second; just a second to pull himself together.
“Okay. Listen, I was looking at the cost of care for the girls. It’s crazy. But I can’t give up my job, obviously. I work different shifts, which doesn’t match up with regular daycare hours, even if what we need is mostly after-school care. You have things you want to do that don’t require a nine-to-five position, right?”
Kate leaned against the counter, her eyebrows and the rest of her more relaxed. “Okay. That’s true.”
She hadn’t said no. He kept going. “You can do what you need to do around my hours. I’ll pay you to care for the girls and you’ll have a place to live. I won’t have to worry when I have night shifts or early morning shifts and you won’t have to worry about finding a place.”
Pacing his kitchen, he realized the idea was solid. Daycare was expensive. He was worried about finding a place where the girls could go at the crack of dawn and stay through the night. He had a hard enough time leaving them with their mother. Leaving them with a stranger could weigh him down so heavily, he might be distracted at work. Elliot wanted the girls and he wanted them full time. He was about to fight for them and that meant he had to show he was doing everything he could to give them the best life possible.
“Elliot, are you serious?”
He closed the distance between them. “I am. If you think about it, it’s a really good solution for both of us.”
&n
bsp; Kate pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and Elliot’s stomach tightened uncomfortably. He ignored it, mostly.
“I can’t let you pay me to watch your kids.”
“Why not?”
Now she paced. “Because they’re your kids. We’re friends. We help each other out.”
“Sure, if I needed you to watch them for a night. But this is different. I have to have someone come here to make it work with my schedule. I want someone I can trust. Someone I like and get along with, who won’t drive me crazy. Someone who cares about the girls and is great with them. I’m going to have to pay to have someone regardless but I don’t want them with just anyone.”
When she went for a third lap of pacing his kitchen, he grabbed her arm and pulled her closer. She looked down to where his hand encircled her wrist. He let go quickly, like he’d touched fire.
“Elliot, this is crazy.”
“Maybe. But tell me what would work out better for both of us.”
Kate’s expression softened and the air in Elliot’s lungs felt stale. She stared at him, and he forgot to breathe.
“It’s a bad idea,” she said.
“Kate. It’s a great idea.” Now that he’d said it aloud, he wanted her. No. He wanted her to say yes.
“I don’t know that it could be long term,” she said.
His heart leapt, jumped like a diver from the high board. “Even if it’s temporary, it’ll be better than what they’re used to and give us both a chance to straighten our lives out a little.”
“You do need some straightening out,” she said, poking him in the stomach.
He grabbed her finger, closing his hand around her smaller one. “Who better than one of the Aarons girls to help me get my life organized?”
She did the thing with her lips and teeth again, and Elliot nearly groaned. He would not convince her by drooling over her, and if she was going to live in his house, he’d have to get over the attraction that seemed amplified in the quiet darkness of the kitchen.
“Elliot, on paper, this sounds ideal. But I really don’t know that it’s a good idea.”