by Trina Solet
"Kitties," Mina said.
"They have two cats. Sorry I forgot to mention them," Ned said. As he unlocked the front door, he told Jeff, "Most of the time I like Mina to be on campus with me, but there might be times when you'll need to babysit her here."
"Does she go to preschool or kindergarten?" Jeff asked while Mina ran into the house and disappeared down the hall and into the bathroom.
"She'll start next year. I thought it was too soon since she doesn't handle crowds so well. She might be OK if it's just kids, but I wanted to keep her nearby where I can come in for the rescue. Mina does see a child psychologist twice a week, so she's learning some coping techniques. We call it playtime with Dr. Floyd. Mina's aunt found Dr. Floyd. She speaks Russian, though she isn't fluent. It still helps."
"Did you have to go to Russia to adopt Mina?" Jeff asked as Ned showed him around the house.
"No. She came here to live with her aunt, professor Ludmila Gregoriev, Luda. She was a really good friend of mine. Luda taught Eastern European history at Anderson College before she died. Just a few months before Luda went into a hospice, Mina was sent to live with her. Mina's father had to send her away to keep her safe. He didn't know Luda was ill. He stayed behind in Russia. Soon after, he was killed as part of some sort of mob reprisal."
Jeff looked shocked to hear this. "At least Mina was OK," he said in a tight voice.
"She was safe with her aunt, but unfortunately Luda couldn't take care of her for long. There was no other family to take Mina. I was thinking about adopting so I stepped up."
They heard Mina's running feet coming their way, so they left off there. Mina came to a stop in front of them and held up her hands.
"You washed your hands? Good job," Ned told her.
"We make dinner," Mina said to Jeff. Ned was still amazed that she was so friendly with him.
"You must be a good cook," Jeff said to her.
"I'm little chef. Professor is big chef," she said the word "chef" the same way she said Jeff's name. Taking big steps, she led the way into the kitchen.
"Let me know what I can do to help out," Jeff offered.
For now Ned had no idea. He could hardly think. His brain was taking a slight detour as he fantasized about having a guy in his life – a hot, young boyfriend who came over at the end of the day to help him cook dinner. That would be something, but he really shouldn't be using Jeff as a prop in his daydreams.
It wasn't easy to rein in his imagination when Jeff was like a fantasy come to life. With Jeff in the kitchen, Ned was feeling just how narrow that space was and just how well built Jeff happened to be. Ned had to suppress a groan as he thought about what it would be like to get his hands on a guy like Jeff, to grope him all over, to knead those muscles. OK, he had to stop that or there would be no dinner tonight.
Finally coming to his senses, Ned realized what the first order of business was. "First, help me figure out what to make," he told Jeff. Then he started pulling assorted vegetables from the fridge.
Jeff looked over what he was setting up on the counter. "All I see are vegetables."
"Oh, it's going to be vegetarian, I forgot to tell you," Ned informed him too late and hoped he wouldn't be disappointed.
"That's fine," Jeff said unenthusiastically.
"We'll do lasagna. Even a vegetarian lasagna can't miss," Ned said and went looking for what he needed. As he poked around in the top cupboards, he explained. "Luda was a vegetarian. She wanted Mina to be one too. In honor of her memory, I became a vegetarian to keep Mina company."
"That's nice," Jeff said then he frowned at what Mina was doing.
Ned saw that Mina had practically crawled inside one of the cupboards on the bottom. She came out hugging a big, orange pot.
"That's her favorite pot. I guess we're cooking with it," he told Jeff. "I'll make you lasagna some other time. I couldn't find lasagna noodles anyway. We might not have any. I'm not sure we have pasta sauce either."
Jeff looked over at the shopping list stuck on the fridge with a pen on a string hanging right next to it, then back at Ned. The shopping list didn't have a single thing written on it.
"Is that a hint?" Ned asked. "You must really want that lasagna. I'm kind of bad with shopping lists."
Sitting on the floor with the big pot on her lap, Mina nodded in agreement. "Bad," she said to confirm it. "No cereal," she added sadly.
Ned hung his head in shame. "I might have forgotten to buy cereal once or twice, and milk," he admitted. Then he eyed Jeff. "When you're babysitting Mina, you might go shopping for me too. I'll pay extra for that of course."
"I'd be happy to," Jeff agreed. Mina also looked happy at the prospect of going shopping, but Ned didn't want him to feel obligated to do extra work.
"I don't want to load you down with chores, so if I ask for something and you don't want to do it, just let me know. The main thing is just to take care of Mina," he told Jeff.
"It's no problem. I like to keep busy. It will give us something to do other than raid vending machines."
"You're right. Real shopping will be more constructive." Ned grinned at him, then he had to tell himself to look away and get to cooking. It was really hard to focus on anything else with Jeff around.
Ned always felt so smug for not lusting after his students. Jeff was ruining his perfect track record. Of course he wasn't his student, but he was definitely more trouble than Ned could handle. If he didn't have dinner to keep him busy and if Mina wasn't there, Ned was sure he would have done something to embarrass himself.
*
Standing in Ned's kitchen, with the professor smiling at him, Jeff felt so weird. Being in a stranger's kitchen should have been awkward or something, but that wasn't what he was feeling. Jeff felt both comfortable and also a little bit on edge because of Ned. There was something about him that drew Jeff in, that made him want to see more of his body and feel his beard rub against his face as he kissed him.
He wasn't sure about his food though. The way Ned cooked was pretty chaotic. As he would start chopping one thing, he would walk away from it and go to get Mina involved in something, often something that didn't need to be done. At the moment, Mina's job was to check over the little seashell shaped pasta that was going in the soup. She was making sure there were no broken ones.
Mina was very serious about this task, and whenever she found a broken pasta shell, she looked almost angry at it as she set it aside. "Broken," she would announce.
"Good job," Ned would tell her while forgetting to peel one of the carrots.
"I'll peel that for you," Jeff told him, taking it away before Ned started slicing it. When he did that, his hand brushed Ned's. It gave him a little bit of a jolt. His heart jumped in his chest and he made sure not to look at Ned and focused on cleaning that carrot instead.
"I guess I forgot that one," Ned said and got ready to start on the celery.
"I think you forgot about the onions too," Jeff told him.
"No. I already chopped them. They're cooking," Ned told him and pointed at the orange pot on the stove.
"I know. What I'm saying is I think they are going to burn," Jeff told him.
"Don't burn," Mina said just before her father said the same thing.
"Don't burn," Ned told the onions as he mixed them then took them off the hot burner. "I put them on too soon. I only started cooking when I started taking care of Mina. Luda wasn't in any shape to cook for her and she really wanted to. So I decided to try my hand at it. You can see how it's going," Ned said with a shrug.
"You're kind of proving true that whole absentminded professor thing," Jeff told him.
"Only when I cook. The rest of the time I'm on top of things, mostly," he said then he smiled at Mina who was still busy inspecting the tiny pasta shells.
While Ned was busy telling Mina what a good job she was doing, Jeff stared at him. The absentminded professor label didn't really fit him. Jeff didn't think any label did, except maybe "adoring dad". As for the rest, the
sexy professor definitely made Jeff's heart beat faster as he gazed at him too long to try and figure him out.
Chapter 6
Working in the kitchen with him, Jeff found that Ned treated him with an easy familiarity, as if they had known each other for a long time. That was the furthest thing from the truth considering how much there was to find out. For one thing, Jeff wondered what Ned's life was like before Mina. She seemed to be his whole world right now, but did he have boyfriends before that? Did he use his professorly charms to screw around?
Why the hell was Jeff zeroing in on his sex life? But what else was he supposed to wonder about – which books he read? No. What Jeff wanted to know first and foremost was what did he look like naked.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jeff checked him out. He noted the flexing of his arms under the rolled up sleeves of his shirt. He was in shape. His slacks showed off his ass, but what little Jeff could see of his body only made him want to see more. How hairy were his legs? His chest? And of course Jeff was dying to kiss him.
Jeff never thought a guy in his thirties would do it for him. But right now, he was obsessed both with seeing more of Ned and getting his hands on him. Maybe it was just the novelty of finding himself attracted to someone who was so different from the guys he hung out with. Yeah, that must be what had him going like this.
"Smells good, right? Right?" Ned said and he lifted the lid off the pot with the vegetables in it. The question was for both Jeff and Mina. From her seat at the kitchen table, Mina raised her arms straight up as a signal to Ned to come and get her. Ned picked her up and held her to look into the pot.
"Is good," she said.
"Smells good from here," Jeff agreed.
Once the vegetables had been cooking for a while in the broth, it was time to get the pasta in there. Mina presented the bowl with the ones she inspected and they went into the soup. Then both Mina and Ned bent their heads over the broken pasta shells that she had set aside. They considered them gravely.
"What do we do with them?" Ned asked, but he looked at Mina like he already knew what her answer would be.
Jeff figured they would just be thrown away, but Mina sighed, then she said, "In a pot."
"In the pot they go," Ned said. He scooped them up and they went in the soup too.
Jeff had to laugh. "After all that work?"
"It would be mean to leave them out just because they're a little broken," Ned explained.
"Mean," Mina agreed.
"Yeah, that makes perfect sense," Jeff said.
Ned liked to keep Mina happy and busy with little tasks. She helped Jeff set the table and announced when the buns were done toasting even though the toaster did that when it dinged. When dinner was brought to the table, it was her job to carry the most important thing – the ladle.
They all sat down at the table right off the kitchen. Ned opened the glass doors so fresh air and the sound of birds chirping could come in from the back yard. Looking out there, Jeff saw mostly grass with some plants around the fence. Off to one side there was a plastic, pink and purple dollhouse.
"It's nice here," he told Ned.
"I got this house when it was still just me. I took it only because it was close to the college. It was a little too big for me, but it was too well located to pass up. But then it turned out to be perfect for Mina too," he looked over at her and smiled adoringly.
Jeff could see that this house was just right for a kid, and not just the back yard, which looked perfect for running around in. The place was cozy, not too big but with enough room for Mina to spread her toys everywhere. The kitchen was narrow, on the other side of an island from the dining area. The narrow space was nice for staying close. If he dared, Jeff could have been brushing up against Ned the entire time they were making dinner.
The whole place invited closeness. When he had caught sight of the living room earlier, Jeff noticed newspapers and books left lying around in there as well as toys. The furniture looked comfortable, just right for piling into. There was nothing formal about the place. It was easy to be there, like being with Ned.
The two of them even spent time together after dinner. The dishwasher was going. Mina was in the living room watching a cartoon with her toys. They were lined up next to her at the foot of the couch where she was sitting, and she spoke to them in Russian.
"All toys speak Russian, or maybe they just pretend to," Ned said as he and Jeff went to hang out in the kitchen, leaning by the open, sliding glass doors.
A breeze was blowing in and Ned was telling him the plan for that week. "I hope you'll be able to babysit a good number of hours this week. My History of Economics class had a killer test." He grinned evilly as he said that and Jeff gave him a sideways look. "I'm expecting more than my usual number of students lobbying for better grades. That will suck up all my office hours. I don't know why they waste their time. I've never changed a grade in my whole time teaching." He kind of sounded like he was bragging.
"You know you're talking to a student, right?" Jeff reminded him. "I might not be on your side."
Ned trained his hazel eyes on him with a challenging glare. "Have you ever gone to a professor to argue about your grade?" He acted like he already knew the answer.
Well, he had him there. "No," Jeff admitted.
"So you are on my side," Ned crowed.
Since they were alone in the kitchen and Mina was occupied in the living room, Jeff took the opportunity to find out more about Mina's background. He didn't know how much time they would have, so he dived right into the heavy stuff. "What happened back in Russia, is that why Mina is afraid of crowds?" Jeff asked.
"That's right. Mina's father was a small time criminal in Russia. He got involved with the wrong people. He was killed after Mina was sent away. But her mother..." Ned stopped and took a deep breath. "At first neither I nor Luda knew exactly what happened to her, only that she had been killed. When Mina arrived, she was so withdrawn already. Then Luda had to tell her that her father was gone too. It was too much. It took Mina a long time to start to recover, but even then, if she was surrounded by too many people, she would have a setback. To find out what caused this, Luda called some people she knew in Russia and looked into it. She found out how Mina's mother died. Mina and her mother were together at the time. They were at a train station. At that point, they were probably going into hiding. Someone came right up behind Mina's mother and shot her. Mina was right there. People were all around her. There was a lot of panic and confusion. Afterward, Mina was found hiding under a bench."
"Damn," Jeff said under his breath.
"Mina didn't actually see it happen. It was too crowded. Once the shot went off, there were a lot of people running and screaming. It must have been a nightmare for her." Ned gritted his teeth, and Jeff could see him fighting for control.
Jeff wasn't sure if he wanted to punch a wall or cry thinking of Mina, even younger than she was now, having to go through that.
Ned took a shaky breath then he continued speaking. "Mina's father knew he was done for, especially after Mina's mother was killed. He sent Mina out of the country to his sister here in the states. That was just before he was killed. Luda didn't know what was going on with him and he didn't know she was sick. Once her brother turned to crime, Luda cut off all ties with him. Since Mina's father and Luda were estranged, he didn't know she was in the last stages of breast cancer. Mina hardly got to know her before she died. My little Mina had so many losses to deal with." Ned looked pale and drawn after telling him all that. Jeff could see that he shared Mina's pain.
"I can't even..." Jeff just shook his head. For a small child to suffer so much, it broke Jeff's heart. "She's doing great," Jeff realized. "She's an amazing kid." He was in awe of her and Ned too. Jeff just stared at him in wonder.
Ned smiled sadly. "She is. She's incredible." His voice was only a choked whisper and there were tears in his eyes, but there was also love, love that was bigger than anything.
A little later
, Jeff left Ned's place with so many conflicting emotions inside him. The unexpected attraction to Ned, the warm feeling of spending time with him and Mina, and the sorrow after hearing about poor little Mina's life of troubles and loss.
Ned seemed like the perfect antidote to that, the perfect dad for her. And he was good to Jeff too, not only paying him generously but making him feel welcome in his house. Since being away from home, Jeff had missed the feeling that being at Ned's house gave him. It wasn't the house. The feeling came from Ned.
Walking the streets, Jeff wasn't sure where to go once he was out of the little suburb where Ned's house was located. When he applied for jobs, he gave his old apartment as his address. If any mail came in his name, his former roommates passed it on to him. But now that he was leaving Ned's, Jeff didn't have anywhere to go.
He texted his friend and former roommate, Marco, to see where he was hanging out. Sitting around at some college bar was better than wandering the streets, and sometimes Jeff found a place to crash that way. Tonight Marco and some of his other friends were at Cuckoo Clock. The bar had a whole creepy, clock theme going on. Jeff had no idea why anyone would want to hang out there. He suspected it was the creepiness that attracted them.
When Jeff came through the doors, he squinted into the dim interior of the bar and looked around for some familiar faces. Standing up from his chair, Marco waved him over to a table that was already crowded and noisy. Two girls were shaking their heads in unison while Justin talked about the deeper meaning of something.
Jeff was already tuning him out. When Justin was drunk, everything had deep, cultural meaning that blew his mind. He once went on for hours about how Cornflakes defined the American psyche.
There were a few other people there that Jeff knew casually. The others were too involved in their discussions to be introduced. After he had a Coke in front of him, he gave Marco all his news.