Ready To Go (16 page)

“I’m not,” she started to say, but changed her mind. “Forget it. I’m not trying to change your mind. I just think it’s kind of weird liking kids but not wanting any, but it’s your deal. Everything I say beyond this point will sound oddly suggestive.”

He laughed, and his laughter inspired a fresh round of laughter from the girls. “Yeah,” he said. “It would. I know it’s weird, but that’s just how I am.”

“You’re weird?” she teased.

“I can get these two to throw things at you,” he jokingly threatened.

After a while of playing with the girls, or really Daniel playing with them while Nicole awkwardly watched, Hannah complained she was hungry.

“I’ll make dinner,” Nicole offered eagerly. It was clear she wasn’t too good with kids. “What do you want?”

“Cheese!” Emily said excitedly.

“Mac and cheese?” Daniel asked her, and she nodded. He looked to Nicole and repeated, “Mac and cheese.”

“Easy enough,” Nicole said. “You’re fine watching them without me?”

“I kinda have been all day,” he replied with a reluctant smile. “I mean, they like you, but you’ve just been sitting there.”

“I took Hannah to the bathroom,” she pointed out. “You said you don’t deal with diapers, even though she’s potty-trained. I think that Emily is too, but she hasn’t done anything.”

“Okay, you’re helpful,” he admitted. “And let’s be honest, it would be weird for me to help a two year old girl go to the bathroom. The guy’s nice enough to let me babysit, I’m not going to push it by acting like a creep.”

“Good idea,” she said. “Just call me if one of them needs to pee, then.”

“Yeah, no problem.” He turned back to the girls, who were taking turns trying to throw a blanket over his head. He picked up the blanket and tossed it over both of them. “Gotcha!”

The girls laughed as they tried to pull the blanket off of them, but with both pulling on it, they ended up tangling themselves up more. Daniel told them to hold still as he tried to unwrap them—how in the world could two little girls get so caught in a blanket? As soon as they were free, they ran to their basket of toys. One of them pulled out a stuffed dinosaur and held it up to Daniel. “Cer-tops,” she said.

“Triceratops,” he corrected her. He smiled a bit as he remembered that first conversation he’d had with Nicole, about the dinosaurs. She’d been right, calling it a triceratops was better than a torosaurus.

Nicole, meanwhile, was struggling with figuring out how to cook mac and cheese. She was grateful for the time away from the kids, but she wasn’t exactly a stellar cook either. She yanked open cabinet doors until she found the familiar blue and yellow box. Was a box enough for the two girls and her and Daniel? Should she add something to it? She didn’t know if the kids were allergic to something, so she figured adding things wasn’t a good idea. They had to eat, and kids were picky eaters.

She started following the directions on the box. It didn’t look like a lot of noodles, so to be safe, she tossed in a second box. As she stirred in the cheese sauce, she began to relax. This was okay. She could do this. Cooking was easy, really. She hummed tunelessly to herself while she spooned the pasta into bowls.

Daniel was still waving a plush dinosaur at the twins when Nicole re-entered the room. “Dinner’s ready.”

He noticed she was smiling as she helped him put the girls into their high chairs. Emily stuck her hands into her meal right away, while Hannah tried to grasp the fork. Daniel sat beside her so he could spear some noodles onto the fork and feed them to the little girl.

“I’m going to go give Aaron a bowl,” Nicole announced before heading out of the room.

“I wonder why she’s so happy?” Daniel asked Hannah, who responded by opening her mouth for another bite. Emily had managed to smear cheese all around her mouth, and Daniel wasn’t sure if she’d actually eaten anything yet.

Nicole returned and grabbed two more bowls, one for herself and one for Daniel. “Here you go,” she said, sliding Daniel’s bowl to him as she sat down beside Emily.

“Thanks,” he said. “So, why are you smiling so much?”

“I am?” she asked. “I didn’t realize. I guess I’m just happy.”

“You were miserable just a little while ago,” he said. “It’s great you’re happy, I just want to know why.”

“Would you like to be happy too?” she teased.

“Kind of,” he replied. He took a bite of his own meal, and then fed another bite to Hannah. “Oh, could you help Emily, by the way?”

Nicole turned to the little girl and picked up her fork to feed her. “Why shouldn’t I be happy? We have a place to stay for the night and money enough to make it to LA. I think. How much gas is in the car?”

“Enough,” he said. “Don’t worry about that, I said I’ll get you there. Food and a place to stay, that’s pretty nice. So why are you happy?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Just this.” She waved her arm at the table. “The meal. I had a good time cooking it. I think I might’ve found what I could do when we get there. I could be a chef.”

He frowned. “You’re kind of good, for making something out of a box, but don’t you need culinary school for that? And more experience?”

“Well, I’ll work my way up,” she said. “Seriously, Daniel, I think I’ve found my calling here.”

“If that’s what you want.” He shrugged and ate some of his meal. “This isn’t bad. And a job in a restaurant will get you money.”

“It is what I want,” she said. “It’s something I’m good at, and I’ve never really been
good
at something before.” She sighed. “Is it really that crazy to decide the rest of my life because I cooked one good meal?”

Emily suddenly threw a small handful of macaroni at Nicole. The cheese splattered on her arm. “She seems to think it is,” Daniel said, trying to stifle a laugh.

Nicole brushed the noodles off of her shoulder. “Yeah,” she agreed. “But it doesn’t matter if I’ll actually
be
a chef. I know where I want to start. This is good. This is really good.” She paused, watching Daniel for a moment. “You can go ahead and laugh. I know there’s noodles on me.”

He did laugh, and the two little girls joined him in laughing. “Cheese!” Hannah cried, pointing to Nicole.

Nicole grabbed a napkin to wipe off the cheese that stubbornly remained on her shirt. She turned to Emily. “I’m tempted to throw food at you. But then I’d have to clean it off later.”

“Mine’s behaving,” Daniel bragged, feeding Hannah another bite. She turned her head, refusing to eat. “Except I think she’s full.”

“This one hasn’t eaten,” Nicole said, frustrated. “She’s just playing with it.”

“Sometimes kids don’t want to eat,” he said. “I’ll take Hannah to play again when I’m done eating, and she’ll get jealous and finish her food so she can play too.”

“You are wise with children,” she said sarcastically. “Fine. Eat, play, I’ll watch the boring one.” Apparently Emily understood that, as she stuck her cheese-covered tongue out at Nicole. “What are you sticking your tongue out at me for? I don’t get to play either since I’m watching you eat.”

“This really is good,” Daniel commented, his mouth full of macaroni. “Thanks for making it.”

“Thank Aaron,” Nicole said. “It’s his food.”

“How is he, by the way?” he asked.

She shrugged. “He’s working on some computer thing. I didn’t bother to ask. He looked really busy, so I can see why he needed us.” She turned to Emily and said, “That’s right, Daddy’s really busy. But he wants you to eat your dinner.”

Emily finally opened her mouth for a bite of macaroni.

“Finally,” Nicole muttered, feeding the little girl.

“Well, I’m done,” Daniel said.

“Already?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “I’d been eating it before Hannah finished. Didn’t you notice?”

“I have cheese on my arm,” she said in a deadpan voice.

“I’m not really sure how that’s related,” he said. He took a napkin to wipe off Hannah’s face, and then lifted the young girl out of her high chair and set her on the ground. “Come on, wanna go play with the dinosaurs again?”

Hannah ran to the other room, but ignored the dinosaurs. Instead, she found a box of crayons in her toy box. She headed towards the wall with it, but Daniel stopped her. “Nuh-uh. Come on, I’ll get some paper for you.”

There were some bags from an office supply store sitting untouched in the corner of the room. Daniel wasn’t so sure about snooping around in them, but he figured there had to be some paper. And there was, one ream. Aaron probably wouldn’t care if the girls used it, he reasoned. Paper was cheap. If the guy was paying $100 to strangers to watch his kids for the night, he could afford paper.

He tore open the package and handed a few sheets to Hannah. The little girl sat on the ground and began to diligently draw a colorful picture.

When Nicole carried Emily into the other room to join Daniel and Hannah, she found paper and crayons now spread all across the floor. Daniel looked up at her with a goofy grin on his face. “We’re coloring.”

Emily squirmed from Nicole’s grasp and joined her sister in drawing some incomprehensible scribbles. Nicole sat beside Daniel and grabbed a sheet of paper and a black crayon. “Coloring is fun. I think I’m going to draw you.”

“Great,” Daniel said. “I think that might be what they’re doing.”

Nicole laid the paper on the ground and started sketching out the shape of Daniel’s head as he watched. She was pretty good.

“Have you taken any art classes?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I mean, I’ve read some tutorials online, but no classes. This is just kind of a doodle, anyway.”

“
That’s
a doodle?” he asked in disbelief. “Okay, forget cooking, you should be an artist. You could sell that.”

“You’re kidding, right?” she asked with a laugh. “Artists have, I don’t know, that vision. They can draw things that mean something. I can just draw what’s in front of me. Like you.” She colored in his hair, not looking at him.

He looked over her shoulder at the drawing, and she turned away from him to shield it. “I can’t look?” he asked.

“No,” she said stubbornly. “Creep on their pictures.”

Daniel turned to the girls, who were both drawing on the same sheet of paper. “Wow, what’s that?” he asked. “A puppy?”

“Pony!” Emily said.

He tilted his head a little to get another view of the picture. “Oh, okay, I kind of see that. It’s a pretty pony. Are you both drawing ponies?” Both girls remained quiet. “You both have very nice ponies.”

Emily suddenly took the paper and her crayon and shoved it towards Daniel. “Pony!”

“You want me to draw?” He took the crayon and turned the paper so that half of it was still towards Hannah, who wanted to continue drawing. He drew a few circles and lines that vaguely looked like a pony. “There you go.”

Hannah stopped drawing to peer at the drawing alongside her sister. Nicole curiously glanced over and remarked, “Nice. You should be the artist, not me.”

He laughed. “You’re not serious.”

“You’re about as good as I am,” she said.

“Let me see what you have,” he said. She held up her half-finished drawing of him, and he held his terrible pony beside it. “Oh, yeah, I’m way better than you.” He was sure even the little girls could hear the sarcasm dripping from his voice.

“Shut up,” she said as she took her drawing back, but she smiled.

“Actually, I’m pretty sure Hannah’s better than both of us,” he said. Hannah had taken the paper back and was hard at work on her scribbles.

Nicole nodded. She moved over next to Hannah, and set her drawing of Daniel on the floor. “Hey, do you want to help me finish this, since you’re such an artist?”

Hannah took her blue crayon and started to draw over the picture of Daniel’s face. Emily came over and joined in, circling the line of his lips in bright red.

“Looks great, doesn’t it?” Nicole asked, as she handed the drawing turned scribble to Daniel. “Just like you.”

“Yeah,” he replied. “Especially the lipstick. I definitely wear that, every day.”

Nicole laughed, but caught sight of a clock across the room. “Oh wow, it’s already nine? When do you think we should put them to bed?”

“When they get tired,” Daniel replied. He folded up the paper he was still holding and slipped it into his pocket. He liked it. He thought Nicole really was a great artist, even if she had let two little girls draw all over her masterpiece. He turned to those little girls. “Are you two sleepy yet?”

Emily nodded, but Hannah crossed her arms and shook her head.

“One of them’s tired,” Nicole said. “Good enough for me. Let’s get them to bed. Can you show us to your room, girls?”

The two girls ran upstairs, to a room with their names on the door. “Wasn’t hard to find,” Daniel said as he opened the door. “Can you help them get into pajamas? Like I said earlier, it’s creepy if I do it.”

“Yeah, no problem,” she said. “Go tell Aaron that we’re putting them to bed?”

“Sure,” he said, exiting the room to find the girls’ busy father.

He found the man exiting his office. “Oh, there you are,” he said. “Did you put the girls to bed?”

“Just now, if you want to say good night to them,” Daniel replied.

Aaron nodded. “I’m going to sleep now too, and you should probably do the same. I’d feel a lot more comfortable if you weren’t wandering around the house now.”

“Yeah, of course,” Daniel said. “So where are we staying?”

“There,” Aaron said, pointing out a room. “And the bathroom’s next to it. Where’s your girlfriend?”

“I think she’s reading the girls a bedtime story.” He didn’t bother to correct the girlfriend comment. It’s not like it wasn’t sort of true.

“I’ll go take care of that. I do want to spend
some
time with my daughters today. I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I’m not a horrible dad.” Aaron entered the girls’ bedroom, and a moment later, Nicole exited. Daniel pointed out the guest room to her.

“So I’m guessing we need to be quiet now,” Nicole said.

“Yeah.”

“I think we can do that,” she whispered with a smile. “Where’s the guest room?”

“This way,” he said, leading her towards a room down the hall. “And the bathroom’s that one right there, by the way. Just so you know.”