Gwynning: I’ll be there to meet you at the door.
The Uber turned onto Gwynn’s street, slowed to a crawl, then pulled up to the sidewalk outside his house.
“Thanks for the ride,” Jayne said.
The woman in the front seat looked nervous, as if engaging with him would leave her vulnerable to his leg plague. “You’re, um, you’re welcome. Have a nice day.”
“You too.” Jayne opened the door, sent up a silent prayer that he wouldn’t crumple into a pile of boneless skin on the side of the road, and stepped out of the car. To his delight, the ground didn’t feel uneven beneath his feet, and his muscles had recovered enough to keep him upright. He pushed his luck and took a step forward. Stability. Gravity wasn’t going to keep him down anymore, that saucy bitch.
Never one to be rude, Jayne closed the car door and stepped away from the vehicle, giving his terrified Uber driver a chance to escape. As the Toyota pulled away from the curb and headed far,farfrom the strange man who’d just exited from it, Jayne started up the driveway, destined for Gwynn’s front door. Before he could tackle the three steps separating the door from the ground, the knob turned and Gwynn emerged. The late-morning sun reflected off his glasses and shone in his dark hair. He rubbed his stubbly chin. “I wouldn’t quite call this ‘graceful Saturday morning gazelle,’ but it’s closer to that than ‘unfortunate seal.’”
“That’s unfortunate, yet fabulous seal, thank you very much.” Jayne set his hand on the wrought-iron railing, glad for the additional support. While his legs had recovered enough to see him from the street to the house, he wasn’t sure how he’d fare on stairs. “But, that aside, you’re right. If I clap my hands and ask for fish, will that make it better?”
“Marginally.”
There was a gleeful, high-pitched shriek of childish laughter from deeper in the house. Gwynn glanced over his shoulder, then closed the door with his foot and leaned against it. He crossed his arms over his chest, then looked Jayne over and frowned. “Joking aside, what happened, Glit? What you mentioned sounded serious. Are you going to be okay?”
“I’ll be fine.” Jayne climbed the first step to prove his point, but his knee almost gave out, and he wobbled. If it hadn’t been for his grip on the handrail, he likely would have fallen.
Gwynn gave him a look.
Jayne cleared his throat. “Contrary to popular belief, this is what fine looks like. I promise. If I wasn’t okay, I wouldn’t be standing here.”
The incredulous look on Gwynn’s face softened with worry. “It’s not my place to ask you what’s going on, but I want you to know that whatever it is, I’m here to listen if you need an ear, and I’m sure all of the Single Dads would say the same.”
“You’re sweet.” Jayne hesitated. “You’reallsweet. Thank you. But I promise, this is nothing to worry about.”
The less Gwynn—or any of the Single Dads, for that matter—knew about what a shit-show Jayne’s life was, the better. It had only been about a month since Jayne had been introduced to the Single Dads through his brother’s lover and fellow Single Dad, LoveHarley, otherwise known as Harlow, and Jayne didn’t want to chase his new friends away.
“So.” Jayne gestured at the door. “Tell me all about Parker. Did he give you any problems last night? Has he been eating okay? Did he steal your heart with his adorable little laugh, or am I going to have to fire him?”
Gwynn gave him a strange look. “Pardon?”
“The heart-stealing laugh.” One corner of Jayne’s lips quirked into a mischievous smirk. “I don’t know how he expects us to take over the world if he’s not pulling his weight. The deal is, I drop him off with random babysitters, he steals their hearts, and I recruit them to our evil army. If he’s not doing his job, I’m going to have to let him go.”
Gwynn’s lips twitched, but otherwise, he managed to keep a straight face. “So that’s why he spent so much time this morning being adorable. It’s all starting to make sense.”
“It’s a very straightforward plan, really,” Jayne agreed. “So, did it work?”
“No.”
“Fuck.”
“But it might have worked on Alex.” Gwynn looked over his shoulder at the door. “I noticed him making moon eyes at Parker more than once since you left him with us yesterday.”
Jayne grinned. “Another heart stolen. Looks like I’m not going to have to give Parker the boot after all.”
Gwynn shrugged, but the glint in his eyes transformed the gesture from casual to impish. “I don’t know,” he said as he turned the doorknob. “It might end up backfiring on you. Seeing him look at a baby like that has been giving me evil ideas of my own—you might not be the only Single Dad with an adorable child under one year old after Alex’s next heat.”
The door opened the rest of the way seemingly of its own accord. Gwynn’s young husband, Alex, stood on the other side, his ultraviolet hair more purple than black under the late-morning sun. “Is that so?”
“It could be,” Gwynn replied without missing a beat. He stepped into the house and gestured for Jayne to follow. “Violet is too old to enslave the human race—you’ve got to start them young. Glit, how old was Parker when you started training him to do evil?”
“Oh, probably two weeks.” Jayne took his phone from his pocket and casually checked the time, then looked away from the screen to focus on Gwynn and Alex. “I mean, training really started in utero, but there’s been a discussion buzzing in the Pre-Natal, Pre-Fatal forum about whether a fetus can truly understand what it means to want to take over the world. The argument goes that at that point of their development, they don’t even know what the worldis,much less how to take it over.”
Alex snorted.
“But, I don’t know.” Jayne put his phone back in his pocket. “If you do the legwork like I did and properly introduce your fetus to the concept of the Earth, the universe, and all the conquerable forces therein, I think you should be fine.”
