“What’s that?”
“Well, gentlemen never break their word. Or their handshake.” Sutton held out her hand, fighting a smile. “We’ll be gentlemen this morning, if that’s okay with you.”
I felt shocked stupid when Charlie wiped her face to hide a grin and then stuck her other hand out. Sutton had gotten further with the girl than Leon or I had in seconds and we’d been at it for a year.
My hold on Ollie loosened and he took off towards Sutton. She’d just shaken Charlie’s hand when Ollie showed up beside her, tugging on her skirt. Whatever desires I had for Sutton somehow multiplied when she looked at Ollie and somehow softened even more. She practically had hearts in her eyes as she grinned at him and then extended her hand to him.
“Well, hello there. I’m Sutton. What’s your name, buddy?”
“That’s Ollie. He’s four.” Charlie stepped closer to Sutton. “He’s alright. He tries to be bossy but he’s learning.”
Sutton hid a grin at that and glanced up at me quickly, probably looking to see if I’d taken offense to Charlie’s characterization of my son. Her eyes widened slightly when she finally looked at me and realized I was shirtless.
“H-he’s learning?”
Ollie was done being quiet.
“I’m not learning. You’re learning, Charlie.”
Sutton rested a hand on both of their shoulders and looked so much like Snow fucking White that I had to reach up and rub my eyes. Never in my life had I had some kind of Disney Princess kink but that was changing in real time as I watched her.
“We’re all learning. I learned something new just this morning. Want to know what it was?”
Ollie continued tugging at her skirt, even when she stood up. “Yeah!”
Sutton’s nose crinkled when she smiled even wider at the kids.
“I learned that Charlie can sneak up on someone in the forest like a ninja. Did you know that about her, Ollie?”
I looked up at Theo and found him watching me. Of course. The asshole missed nothing. He raised an eyebrow and his lip twitched like he wanted to laugh at me. It was true that I was standing there, staring like a fool, but that didn’t mean he got to try to infiltrate my brain the way he was prone to do.
Leon’s voice was sharp in the otherwise peaceful forest.
“Ollie. Get out of Sutton’s skirt.”
Sure enough, Ollie was doing his best to climb under Sutton’s long skirt and she was bright red again as she stepped back and tried to keep herself decent. Charlie grabbed at Ollie’s legs, doing her best to yank him away but he had a grip on Sutton’s ankle. Sutton’s arms windmilled for a second and then she went down before Theo could catch her.
Charlie was fast in doling out her form of justice. She pulled back her little fist and punched Ollie in the arm hard enough to make him instantly burst into tears.
“You hurt Sutton! Why did you do that, Ollie?”
I growled and stomped over to scoop Ollie up. Shit with Charlie had never been easy and when she got violent it was fucking impossible to calm her down. She had less outbursts the longer she was with us but it was always the same. It was best to remove Ollie or Lee so they didn’t face more of her wrath before Theo could calm her down.
I felt a wave of shame over the instant showing of our lack of control in our own home. For men who insisted on having complete control in most areas of our life, it was hard to admit that our kids were the exception.
Instead of running and judging us, Sutton sat forward and pulled Ollie into her lap before gently taking Charlie’s hand. She held Ollie and comforted him while locking eyes with Charlie.
“I’m okay. I appreciate you wanting to stick up for me, Charlie. I do. I bet if you really think about it, though, you don’t want to actually hurt Ollie, do you?”
We all held our breath as Charlie balled her hand into a fist and released it over and over. When she spoke it sounded like she was talking around a mouth full of nails.
“No.”
Sutton smiled gently at the little girl.
“I didn’t think so. You did, though, didn’t you? How do you feel about that?”
More teeth grinding from Charlie before she ducked her head.
