by Cathy Quinn
Ignoring her, Copernicus started washing his face. But he hadn’t counted on the chimps, who could easily reach him. Aphelion lumbered past Linda and snatched Copernicus off the shelf by the scruff of the neck. Robert stepped closer as Linda gasped in horror. “Don’t worry. Aphelion is gentle, she’s just curious. I won’t let her harm the kitten.”
“You'd better,” she croaked. “If something happens to that cat, Chris will make sure the very same thing happens to us, and I don’t know about you, but personally I don’t fancy ending my life as a monkey’s dessert.”
Copernicus obviously wasn’t sure what to make of this small and furry humanoid that was rubbing his belly. He kept his claws retracted but his ears were flattened and his little body tense in an I-don’t-trust-you-one-bit posture. Aphelion, on the other hand, was ecstatic with her new toy. She hugged him, held him like a baby and made cooing noises. The humans watched as she headed for the remains of Mount Diaperest in the corner and grabbed a diaper.
“She’d not going to... No.” Linda watched, fascinated. Aphelion unfolded the diaper and firmly wrapped it around the kitten’s middle. As she pressed one piece of tape down between his ears and another one on his hind leg, Copernicus had enough. With a loud hiss he escaped and still dragging the diaper, shot across the room, climbed the curtains up to the open window and scampered down outside.
There he sat down and started washing his paw like a respectable kitten who did not have a diaper still stuck to his behind.
Linda sank to the floor laughing, clutching her middle as tears spurted from her eyes. “This is great, Bob.” she managed to hiccup between wheezes. “No more dirty diapers for you and me. We train Aphelion for that. Maybe Perihelion will handle the food issue. He can teach them to hold a banana with their toes.”
Robert grinned. “Shall we join Copernicus outside? I’d like to set up the video cameras in the front yard. This room is too small to get decent footage.”
They’d been standing outside for a while, watching the children and the chimps play hide and seek with the poor cat, when Linda noticed Robert looking at her. She winked at him. “You just can’t keep your eyes off me, can you?”
He just smiled. “I guess I can’t.”
“I know,” she said airily, even as her heart started punching hard into her ribcage, simply because he had moved towards her and imprisoned her against the wall. “I tend to do that to men.”
Again she thought he might kiss her. He hesitated, then slid his hand around the nape of her neck and leaned closer. She glanced quickly over his shoulder to see if everybody was out of trouble, then allowed her eyes to flutter closed in anticipation.
And then he did kiss her.
On the nose. Cute, she had to admit as her eyes opened again, but unsatisfying, even if she was sure his tongue had flicked its tip.
Robert turned his head to check on kids, chimps and cat before returning his attention to her.
“Hi,” she said softly when his green-blue gaze was finally burning her up again. “That was an interesting kiss.”
“This isn’t a good idea,” he said wretchedly. “You know, if we do kiss, we’ll have to take turns making sure our eyes open and on the kids.”
She groaned. “How romantic. I’m beginning to see why the honeymoon comes before the children.”
His lips touched her forehead, then one cheek and then her nose again. “Are you game?”
“I’m game.” He was quite irresistible. For a moment she forgot how to breathe because his thumb was caressing her earlobe, and although his body hardly touching hers, she felt as if the air was being squeezed out of her lungs. “I’ll take the first shift. Eyes wide open, guaranteed.”
Despite her promise to keep watch, her eyes drifted almost shut when the warmth of his lips was just a breath away, but movement behind him made her snap them wide open again. She stiffened, stared over his shoulder, then ducked under his arm and ran.
“Not again,” she heard him groan behind her back. She cursed as she ran towards the gate.
Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. The red three-wheel bike was rolling straight towards the open gate, a laughing Alex pedaling. Behind him, a grinning chimpanzee was holding on to his shoulders and enjoying the ride, while the other chimp was hanging onto the gate, looking very happy to have opened it.
Moving faster than she'd ever done in her life, which was saying a lot considering some of the blind dates she’d fled from, Linda ran.
She opened her eyes and blinked. There were seven faces staring down at her, four mouths busily sucking on pacifiers of varying colors and two that looked somewhat unhuman, but the seventh mouth seemed available. And terribly familiar. She squinted. Yep, she was pretty certain she’d seen that one before. She might even have kissed it at some point. She wasn’t sure, but she might have. And if she hadn’t, that deficiency could probably be rectified in the future.
She smiled experimentally up at the seven faces. Statistics said some of them had to be friends and not foes.
“Are you okay?” the familiar mouth asked, and reality rushed back in, bringing along several gatecrashers, including an insistent headache and aches in quite a few other places. There was this throbbing in both legs and she tried to move her legs. No effect.
“I can’t move my legs,” she squeaked and felt her heart begin to pound in fear. Robert looked down at her legs, then lifted half the platoon of toddlers and one chimp off them.
“Oh.” She tried again to move, and succeeded this time. When not weighted down by several dozen pounds of hyperactive toddlers, her legs were working. Hurting, but working. “I’m fine, then.” She blinked. “Was I run over by a chimp on tricycle or was that something I saw at the circus?”
“It really happened. What’s more, we’ve got it on tape.”
“Oh.” She stared at his lips and licked her own. “We didn’t kiss, did we?”
His mouth twisted wryly. “Nope. You ran away. Again.”
“That’s what I thought,” Linda muttered. “Sorry.”
He chuckled. “Well, don’t let it happen again, young lady.” He helped her to her feet and she clung to him, while her head got used to having to wait for oxygen to be pumped up there.
“So.” She allowed him to continue hold her up, even if it wasn’t strictly necessary anymore. It was his own fault for smelling so nice and feeling so warm and strong against her in this weakened state. Yep. Entirely his own fault. “Everyone is okay?”
“Everyone but you.” He was holding her around the waist with one hand while the other hand was in her hair, moving slowly and carefully on her scalp. She was blissfully enjoying the massage when he stopped, only to yank her eyelids up to her forehead and peer inside.
“Hey! What are you doing? A soul excavation?”
“Just checking your pupils. You might have a concussion. I can’t find any bumps on your head, but you seemed to lose consciousness for a moment there.”
So much for a sensual massage. On the other hand, if his first-aid felt that good, she couldn’t wait to find out what the real stuff was like. “I’m fine. I just had the air knocked out of me. My head is fine, but I’ll probably have bruises just about everywhere else.” Those magic hands really would come in handy when it came to healing some of those places. With a discreet sigh, she stepped away from him. “I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.” She fixed her ponytail, checked the position of all children and chimps, and tried to get things back to normal. “Life goes on. There’s lots to do. We need to get George from the lab tonight. He’ll be much happier with us. Then tomorrow we really should do something for Nora and your dad to celebrate their engagement. We could go to a restaurant. I know one that serves decent food and doesn’t hate children.”
“Go to a restaurant? With Nora, Dad and four 15 month old babies?”
“Yep. Why not?”
“Look, Blondie. You may have unlimited energy, but I don’t.
I’ve got four babies, two chimpanzees and you on my hands. I don’t need a neurotic rat and two besotted geriatrics added to the list.”
“And me? I’m on the list of your problems?” If ever there was a hands-on-hips time, this was it. “So I’m just adding to your misery, am I?”
“Yes, you are,” he growled, stepping closer. “You are definitely trouble. You’re driving me crazy. When you’re around I can’t think straight because I want to grab you by that ponytail and drag you to a cave somewhere where we won’t be disturbed for a century while I do all sorts of depraved things to your ankles.”
“Oh, wow.” She stared at him, thrilled at the raw hunger in his voice. “Finally. I was beginning to despair I’d ever see this side of you again.”
Robert groaned. “If only we were ever alone...”
She shuddered deliciously at the thought. “Amen.”
They stared at each other. “You know,” Robert murmured, his voice ragged. “You look just like Aphelion when she’s desperate for chocolate and it’s just out of reach.”
Linda tried to remember how to breathe. “I was going to say that you look just like Perihelion when Aphelion is on the other side of the bars, but your analogy will do. I am pretty crazy about chocolate.”
He moved closer. His hand touched her hip, then ran up her back, leaving goose bumps in its wake. Then he wrapped her ponytail around his hand and she promised herself she’d give him five seconds to make his move. If he didn’t, she’d be all over him herself. Feminine coyness had its time and place, but this was not it. She reached towards his face and stroked his cheekbones with her thumbs. His expression was taut, his eyes blazing, but he still wasn’t moving.
His five seconds were up. She grabbed his head between her hands, pushed her fingers through his hair and pulled him towards her.
A hand grabbed her ankle, but it wasn’t Robert’s.
“Iiiida?”
Whimpering in frustration, Linda let go of Robert’s head. For just a second she rested her forehead against his chest before reluctantly stepping back. What would it take to get one tiny kiss? Just one? Just a sample? Just... She groaned.
Robert looked down at David then at her. He tightened his grasp on her ponytail, clenched his jaw and looked generally miserable in a muscled-tensed, heart-pounding, hormones-raging kind of way. “Do you think we’ll ever, ever be alone?”
The anguished despair in his voice had her collapsing against his chest in giggles. “Hold that thought, Bob.”
Hold it they did. All the way through returning the chimps to the university, playing with the kids, through dinner and diapers, getting everybody into their pajamas, reading bedtime stories and the battle with getting all four to go to sleep. Every time one surrendered, another one popped to his or her feet, wide awake and ready to party.
By the time the house was silent, they were too tired to even think about a shared shower or anything else.
Robert kicked some toys to the side and dropped down in the sofa beside Linda. He slid sideways until his head was on her shoulder. “Okay. And now we begin the fun part of the evening: one ear fixed to the baby monitor.” He sighed. “After today your eggs must be doomed, right?”
Linda introspected. “Darn. No.” She frowned in annoyance. “That biological clock thing must really strong since the Quad isn’t silencing it. Oh, well, there is time yet. So, are you going to go get George now? I can’t believe you forgot him when you returned the chimps.”
He didn’t move.
“Bob? You were going to get George from the lab, remember?”
A groan. He turned his head and nuzzled her shoulder. “Please don’t make me. He’ll be fine.”
“Bob!” She pushed him off her shoulder. “Don’t fall asleep on me. You need to go get George. I would do it myself, but I’d probably get arrested for burglary. So get going.”
His arm snaked around her waist and his nose burrowed into her shoulder. “Don’t wanna.”
She rolled her eyes. “Those are cute as Alexander’s first words, but won’t get you off the hook. You promised.”
“You like George better than you like me, don’t you?” he muttered into her shoulder. “You wouldn’t make him go get me just because I looked unhappy, would you? No, you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t send an exhausted George out into the cold and the darkness, but you kick me out there without a second thought. All because you like George better.”
Linda giggled and touched his cheek, which only resulted in him nuzzling her palm in a most distracting way. “Bob, are you okay? You sound a bit delirious.”
“I am delirious. I’m jealous of a mouse. That’s as good a definition of delirium as any.”
“You have no reason to be jealous of George.”
“I don’t? Which one of us gets all the kisses?”
Still giggling, she put her arm around him and he used the opportunity to snuggle closer, reminding her of sleepy David in his pajamas and pacifier. “You’ll get yours, Bob. And you owe me one since that day I fled from your lab. We’ll just take all the kisses we miss out on and save up for a big one. Sounds good?”
“No. I want more than one. I want a whole bunch. A whole bunch of big ones.”
Linda covered her mouth for a moment as she tried to stop laughing at his petulant tone. “Stop it, Bob. You don’t want to know how I get when I can’t stop giggling. I’ll reach the point of no return soon and it won’t be pretty.”
“So now would not be a good time to kiss you? You’d just giggle into my mouth?”
On the table his cell phone beeped. He didn’t move, but Linda’s giggles stopped. “Aren’t you going to answer that?”
“Nope. I’ve got you almost where I want you.” His arms tightened around her. “I’m not letting go.”
“It might be Holly. She’s probably worried about the kids. You have to answer.”
With a groan he disentangled himself from her and reached for the phone just as it stopped ringing. Grateful he tried to fall back into Linda’s arms, but she pushed him away. “Don’t you have Caller ID? Check the number. Holly is probably worried sick about how things are going here.”
He squinted at the phone display. “I don’t recognize the number.”
“Call her back. It must be Holly.”
“Bossy woman.” Grumbling, he punched in the numbers and waited for an answer. He used the time to think of sinful ways to punish Linda.
A man answered the phone. “Yes?”
Robert sat up straight. “Eric? It’s you? Where the hell are you?”
“Oh. It’s you.” His brother didn’t sound thrilled to hear from him. “How did you get this number? This is a new cell phone. I haven’t given the number to anyone.”
“You just called me, you idiot. I’ve got caller ID.”
“Oh.”
“Do you know Holly is out searching for you? I’m babysitting your kids while you have an early mid-life crisis. What the hell are you thinking? When are you coming home?”
“Uh... I don’t know.” In the background Robert could hear something. Was that a woman’s voice?
“Did Holly find you yet? Is she there?”
“No, she didn’t. Listen, I have to go. I’ll talk to you later. Thanks for looking after the kids. Everything will be fine, don’t worry.”
He hang up. Angry, Robert called again, but there was no reply. “The bastard,” he ground out, “he’s got a woman with him.”
“What?” Linda gasped. “He’s having an affair?”
“I could hear a woman in the background. I should have guessed.” He rested his head on his hands, elbows on his knees and stared down at the carpet. “And poor Holly is on her way. She should be there tomorrow evening. This means their marriage is over. Poor kids.”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions. We don’t know for sure if he’s having an affair.”
“I wish I could just drive down and get to him before she does. Punch some sense into him, so he’ll at least have the go
od sense to grovel when he talks to his wife again.”
“Surely you mean talk some sense into him?”
“Nope, I mean punch some sense into him.”
Linda patted his arm. “Let’s change the subject, shall we? You’ll feel less violent in the morning.”
Robert didn’t answer. He just sat there with his fists clenched. “Tomorrow,” she repeated. “There’s nothing we can do right now, so just put this out of your mind.”
“Easier said than done.”
Linda cast around for a safe conversational topic, something that would take his mind of his brother’s problems, and found the perfect one. “Tell me, why did you become a biologist?”
“Why do you ask?”
She shrugged. “Just curious. It’s not a subject that would ever appeal to me, I think.”
“I was always fascinated by biology,” Robert answered reluctantly, his mind probably still on his brother.
Linda made a face. “Cells and organs and blood. Not fun. At my school they even took the fun out of sex ed.”
Robert grinned, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’ve frequently found that the interest of a subject depends on how good a teacher you’ve got, so don’t knock it. My specialty is the connection between biology and behavior. That’s the common ground between me and Ellen, only she concentrates mainly on neurology, while I look at biology in a broader sense.”
“So... do you only know mouse and chimp biology, or also human?”
“You'd be surprised at how little difference there often is. Why do you ask? Is there something you'd like to know?”
“Yeah. Like...” She hesitated, then threw out the question before she could change her mind. Heck, if nothing else it would amuse him, wipe that darkness from his eyes. “Does that G-spot really exist?”
For a moment astonishment flared in his eyes, then he was laughing. “What?”
Linda jumped up and briskly walked to the window, pushed the drapes aside and opened it. She never blushed; therefore the warmth in her cheeks must mean the room was too warm.