“I honestly cannot believe that these are your friends,” Alex said to Gwynn, his arms crossed over his chest, sounding very much like he was about to laugh. Then, with a shake of his head, he crossed the threshold and wrapped his arms around Gwynn from behind, standing on his toes so he could kiss Gwynn’s cheek. With his chin on Gwynn’s shoulder, Alex looked at Jayne. “You want to come inside? Parker’s in the living room with Matthew, Shep, Bo, and the girls. We’ve got him set up in his car gym.”
“I would love to,” Jayne replied.
Alex let go of Gwynn and stepped into the house. “Then let’s go.”
8
Jayne
Gwynn lived in a spacious, well-furnished, two-story single-family home that was likely kept clean via magic—Jayne could think of no other way a place housing two two-year-olds could stay so tidy. Its carpets were vacuumed and its wooden surfaces were polished. The windows weren’t smudged by greasy hands or dotted with nose prints. Not a single cobweb was to be seen.
“What’s your secret?” Jayne asked as he followed Alex and Gwynn the short distance from the front door to the living room. “I can’t keep my apartment clean, let alone a whole house.”
Alex looked over his shoulder at Jayne and raised an eyebrow. “If I tell you, I might need to kill you.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up.” Jayne came to a stop and held out a hand dramatically, palm facing Alex. “Are you seriously going to threaten me with death after I shared game-changing techniques with you on how to raise the perfect diabolical child? I did that out of the kindness of my heart, you know—fully trusted you to take what I’d taught you and use it for evil. Aren’t we beyond that point, Gwynn’s jail-bait husband?”
There had been times, especially when Jayne was nervous or otherwise emotionally troubled, that he pushed his humor too far. When there was no immediate response from Alex, he assumed he’d hit that point. Mind reeling, Jayne cycled through his options. He could either keep talking and bury the comment beneath a mountain of sarcasm, he could apologize for what he’d said, or he could dig himself deeper in the hopes that if he pushed his faux pas to the extreme, Alex would laugh and all would be forgotten. The early stages of a killer headache throbbed deep in Jayne’s frontal lobe—it was mentally taxing to successfully read a situation and chart split-second damage control, and Jayne knew he’d be paying for it later.
He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could get a word out, Alex snorted and shook his head, instantly alleviating the pressure. “You, sir, have a point. I suppose, since you were kind enough to share your evil secrets with me, I can be kind enough to share mine with you. Come—let me show you what I’ve been hiding all this time.”
With a beckoning curl of his fingers, Alex led Jayne into the living room. Gwynn tagged along behind them at a leisurely pace, his hands slid into his back pockets.
The living room was a hub of activity. The television was on, but its volume was turned down low. Jayne considered it a small blessing; the game being played on it was an age-appropriate racing game with cars shaped like jungle animals and avatars with unrealistically large heads and huge, sparkly eyes. From what little he could hear of it, it was also as annoying as fuck. Shep, Jayne’s youngest brother, and Bo, the five-year-old son of fellow Single Dad TeenDad2, otherwise known as TD, were the ones playing. From what Jayne could tell, Bo was winning.
Penelope, Bo’s eleven-month-old sister, sat beside them. She had a controller in her hand, but there was no battery pack clipped into the back. That small detail didn’t seem to matter to Penelope, who happily mashed buttons and rolled the joystick beneath her palm.
Matthew, Gwynn’s teenage son from a previous marriage, was in the room as well, although Jayne didn’t spot him until Alex pointed him out. Matthew lay across the couch on his back, fast asleep, two dark-haired children conked out alongside him. The first had her hair done in pigtails with large pink ribbons and wore pajamas with cat faces all over them. She was tucked between the couch and Matthew’s side, and had soaked an impressive amount of Matthew’s hoodie with drool. The second girl had her hair loose and was wearing a fleecy dinosaur onesie. She was draped across Matthew’s chest, her head on his slightly less drool-soaked shoulder. Jayne recognized the girls as Violet, Gwynn and Alex’s daughter, and Emily, Matthew’s daughter, but wasn’t able to distinguish one from the other.
“Here’s my secret.” Alex extended his arm like he was a model on a game show, presenting contestants with all the fabulous prizes they could win. “Matthew.”
“Matthew?” Jayne looked at the sleeping teen. Housekeepers came in all shapes and sizes, but a scrawny twink of a kid in a baggy hoodie two sizes too big didn’t quite fit into any of them. He reminded Jayne too much of Shep, his own hoodie-wearing, sideswept-hair-rocking teenage brother who, much like a vampire exposed to sunlight, burst into flames at the thought of doing dishes. “That’s your secret weapon?”
“Matthew’s done a very good job at keeping the house clean and the children cared for,” Gwynn said. While he spoke, Jayne let his gaze wander, exploring the rest of the room in search of the one person he’d yet to see—Parker. Jayne found him set up beneath the wide window overlooking the backyard, only his socked feet visible. The rest of him was concealed within his car gym—a three-in-one play station fashioned in the likeness of a car. Parker, who was six months old, was starting to become mobile, and could do all kinds of incredibly clever things, like roll over and push himself up on his hands. The car gym, with its rubber grips and handles, was excellent for helping him pull himself along while he conquered his next milestone—crawling. “After Emily and Violet were born and we got settled into our new routine, we sat down and crunched some numbers—if Matthew had gone out to find an entry-level job, he wouldn’t have been paid enough to cover childcare, gas, and his other expenses, even if he got rid of his cell phone, which we wouldn’t have wanted him to do. With me at work during the week, and with Alex wanting to get back into the studio, we’d been looking into hiring a nanny, anyway, so it was a no-brainer to take on Matthew.”
“Right now we’re only testing him out on weekends,” Alex clarified, shooting Gwynn a little look that wasn’t quite lethal, but was at least a little stabby. “During the week when Parker’s here with us, I stay home to look after him. We wouldn’t switch babysitters on you like that without asking you if you were okay with it.”
“You’re fine.” Jayne let his gaze linger on Matthew for a second longer. He didn’t seem like a bad kid, and as a single dad himself, he knew what it took to take care of a baby. If Alex and Gwynn trusted him with their daughter, then Jayne trusted him as well. Alex and Gwynn had gone above and beyond looking after Parker while Jayne was at work during the week, and if having Matthew take their place was going to help them, Jayne was all for it. “Thanks for letting me know. I don’t mind.”
“We’re hoping it helps him work his way toward independence,” Alex added. The words he spoke were carefully guarded, and Jayne had to wonder if Alex’s stake in the matter ran deeper than he was letting on. “I’ve seen what being a single dad can do to a teenager, and I don’t want that for him, or for Emily. Both of them deserve so much more than that. Since we’re privileged enough to be in a position where we can support him, we’re doing everything we can to give him a shot at his best possible life.”
“That’s… really kind of you.” Jayne tore his gaze from Matthew to look at Shep, who was younger than Matthew by a few years, and had yet to manifest his secondary sexual characteristics. If he, like Jayne and Simon, turned out to be an omega and wound up in a similar situation to Matthew, Jayne would have done anything to give him a chance. Matthew was lucky. Jayne hoped he realized it.
The conversation came to a natural end, but a chill swept through Jayne regardless, and it left him more vulnerable than he cared to admit. He ducked his head, then cut away from the couch to go say hello to his son.
“Hello, little man.” Jayne dropped to his knees beside the car gym. Parker, who’d been having a blast spinning the steering wheel, looked up at Jayne with big blue eyes and laughed. Jayne, heart full to bursting, lifted him off the mat and hugged him tight, folding backward until he was lying on the floor with Parker resting on his chest. Parker immediately started to pull at the buttons on Jayne’s shirt. “It looks like you had a good time with Gwynn and Alex and all your new friends, huh?”
“Gababaa,” Parker promised.
“I’m glad to hear that.” Jayne poked Parker’s tiny button nose, causing Parker to squeal in delight. “When we get home, I’m going to read you your favorite book, and because you’ve been so good, I won’t even try to stop you if you try to gum the pages. How does that sound?”
“Baaaah.”
Despite its proximity to “bad,” Jayne was fairly sure that “baaaah” was Parker-speak for good. “Such a good boy. I think so, too.”
“I made sure Parker got a lot of tummy time in,” Shep said, sounding distracted. The tempo of the music from his video game had increased in speed—it must have been the last lap. “He’s been pulling himself along on his arms all morning. If he could figure out how to use his legs, he’d be crawling everywhere, but I don’t think that’s clicked yet.”
“Legs are overrated,” Jayne assured Parker. “I got from downtown Aurora to here without using mine. All you’ve got to do is learn how to be resourceful, and soon enough, nothing will keep you down.”
