Page 16

CALLIOPE

T om and Crew walked up the street as I arrived outside his apartment. Dear Lord, that man was an absolute sin. Add a cute toddler boy to his back, and I was surprised the women weren’t following him around like puppies.

“Hey guys!” I yelled to get their attention, waving.

“Hi, Pee!” Crew called back and as cute as it was, I couldn’t have him calling me pee.

“Hey bud, you know what? I have a nickname, but only really special people get to call me. Do you think you could call me Callie?” I asked.

He nodded, screwed up his face, and tried to say it. “Kiwi?”

Tom and I laughed, and he looked at us shyly. “That’s perfect. Great job saying new words, bud,” I said, wanting to continue to encourage him to try out new words.

“You’ve been upgraded from urine to a tropical fruit. Good on you,” Tom said, shifting Crew to find the key to his front door.

I leaned over and reached my arms to Crew, and he moved from Tom’s back to hang off the front of me. Damn, he was a solid little boy. Once we got in the door, I set Crew down, and he ran off.

“Kiwi, come. Come see my train!”

I looked at Tom, and he gestured for me to follow his son.

“Go ahead, I’m gonna start dinner. I hope pasta and sauce are okay with you.

He’s been going through a picky phase, and pasta is the only thing I can reliably get him to eat.

He likes smoothies, so I bury as many nutrient-dense fruits and vegetables in his breakfast smoothies as possible to make up for what he misses in the rest of his meals. ”

“Perfect. I love pasta. I was hoping for some macaroni and cheese; honestly, I thought we’d have that or grilled cheese.”

“That’s lunch tomorrow. I hope you’re good at cooking toddler food.”

“Chicken nuggets, grilled cheese, pasta, and macaroni and cheese? Easy enough. Did I miss anything?” I asked.

Tom shook his head with a slight smile. I’m not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t for him to be so competent and hands-on with Crew. To be honest, I wondered if the invitation tonight might not have been motivated by Tom wanting help handling his toddler.

“Kiwi, come,” Crew called impatiently from the doorway of one of the bedrooms.

“OK!” I said, following him into his bedroom. The room must be heaven for a little boy. He had a train track on a rug mat to play with his train set.

He sat down on the floor and patted the spot next to him. “Kiwi, sit.” We both raced trains on the track until Tom called us for dinner. We were only in there a moment before Crew dropped his train, and I followed him out to the kitchen, where I helped him into his seat.

Tom sliced cucumbers and served them with ranch dressing to dip alongside Crew’s plate of pasta. “No begtables, Dada. No, thank you.”

“Nice job using your manners, buddy. But you still need to eat your cucumbers. We can have ice cream for dessert if you eat all your dinner.”

Crew’s face brightened, “Chocolate ice cream?”

“Yup. We have chocolate ice cream,” Tom nodded as he spoke, and Crew beamed even as he took a big bite of a cucumber.

“Otay,” he said. “Kiwi, have begtables?”

I looked over at the salad Tom had prepared to go with dinner and scooped a healthy helping onto a plate. “Yep. I love vegetables.”

Tom mouthed “Thank you” from across the room as he piled his own plate with pasta and salad.

“Garlic bread?” he asked, holding a platter with a baguette slathered with butter and garlic. My mouth watered.

“Ooh, yes, please.” I took the bread he offered and mopped up the extra sauce on the plate.

“Crew, Kiwi is going to live with us at our house in Denver, and she’ll stay with you when you are with Mommy and Pops. She’s also going to watch you while I’m working.”

Crew’s eyes grew wide, “Kiwi live with us?”

“How does that sound?” Tom asked.

“In my room?”

“No, buddy, she’s going to have a bedroom at my house and one with Mommy and Pops.”

“You stay tonight?” he asked me.

“Not tonight, but soon.”

“Otay.”

Crew ate most of his pasta but pushed the rest of the cucumbers around on his plate. “Come on, bud, almost done with your cucumbers. Then we all get ice cream.” He took a bite of the cucumber I had coated in ranch dressing and chewed slowly, swallowing as if I were feeding him a mud pie.

“Sorry, vegetables are a bit of a battle with him. Sam and I blame Kelsey, she’s a junk food junkie, and he takes after her with his taste buds. I’m not super strict with my diet, but Sam is. Kelsey tries to get him to eat healthy, but he naturally sways towards anything devoid of nutrients.”

“Eh, he’s got good genes. He should be all set.

My sister Juno went through a stage where she would only eat canned ravioli.

My mother tried to force her to eat healthy, balanced meals, and instead of giving in, she went on a hunger strike.

Her doctor eventually told my mother that she needed to eat; Juno was tiny and couldn’t afford to lose weight.

Canned ravioli was better than no food. He’ll be fine. ”

“I guess deep down I understand that, but it’s too important to mess this up,” Tom said, offering me a window into his thoughts. Yes, parenting was a tremendous responsibility, but he internalized every bit of potential criticism and seemed to see even the smallest bumps as failures.

“Do you honestly think you can raise a kid without messing up something? My parents are some of the best parents out there, and they managed to screw up a ton. Ask them about when they left me alone with PJ when I was 16 and he and Juno were 18.”

“Do I even want to know what happened?” Tom asked.

“Have you seen the movie Project X? I thought, unplugging the security cameras so my father wouldn’t notice the activity in and out of my house.

Turns out the issue was the lack of activity.

He realized something was wrong when he got a notification that a package had been delivered, but the delivery truck never showed up in his notifications.

Once he realized it and called me, I was in the middle of trying to get people to leave.

The small gathering had exploded in size once one of my friends sent out a group message. ”

“How did it end?”

“One of his friends came by to help me kick everyone out of the house. I was grounded for over a month, but the worst part was that I’d destroyed his trust. My point?

No parent is perfect, and expecting that of yourself is unrealistic.

Failing to get him to eat his vegetables is the universe telling you you have no control over the creatures you create. And you better get used to it.”

“So, I should throw in the towel?” he smirked. Dammit, were those dimples? I fucking loved dimples.

“Oh, God, no. Don’t ever let him see you sweat,” I joked.

Crew had choked down the rest of his cucumbers while we talked. I cleared the plates once we were all finished, doing my best to find my way around the kitchen and make myself useful. Tom wiped Crew’s face and lifted him out of his booster seat. “Bath, buddy. Then ice cream.”

Crew ran down the hallway towards the bathroom, and Tom reminded him to pick out some pajamas, following behind him.

“Do you want to help with his bath?” I asked. “I could meet you in there after I do the dishes.”

“You don’t need to do those; I didn’t invite you here to work.”

“In my family, the person who cooks never does the dishes. Go, start his bath, and I’ll be in there in a few minutes.”

I could hear Crew’s giggling and splashing from down the hall as I rinsed the dishes and loaded them into the dishwasher.

I washed the pots and pans and stacked them on the drying rack.

I hadn’t expected Tom to be so open with me; he seemed willing to share so much about himself.

Was that normal with a nanny? Or was that so if I decided to fake date him, it would be believable?

I still hadn’t come to any decision on his proposition.

I wanted to run it by Monica, but I didn’t think she could give an unbiased answer with her conflicting relationship with all of us.

She had never shared enough details about Sam and Kelsey for me to know who they were, but she had talked in generalizations about her favorite clients.

She also had been obsessed with getting details perfect for a baby boy over the last year and a half.

I don’t think I was making a considerable leap, assuming it was Crew.

With that in mind, there was no way that she would want me to jeopardize that business relationship she had built.

Juno had asked if the fake dating would include real fucking. PJ exited the group chat after clarifying that there was no such thing as fake dating. It was just a way to delay the inevitable, but he’d heard the payoff at the end could be “explosive.”

Once I finished the dishes, I joined Crew and Tom in the cramped bathroom. They were finishing the bath, and I was just in time to catch Tom’s perfect bubble butt in my face as he bent to pick up his son. Crew covered the front of his shirt in bubbles and water as he squirmed.

“Here, let me take him to get his jammies on. Come on, buddy. Can you show me where you put your pajamas?”

Crew threw himself in my arms and pointed to his bedroom.

I followed his directions to his room, and he squirmed out of my arms, his hooded towel splaying out behind him like a superhero cape.

He pulled open the drawers and rifled through them until he found what he was looking for, “Dinos! Kiwi, help?”

I helped him pull the top over his head and looked around for diapers. When I grabbed a diaper, he shook his head aggressively. “No! No! No! Big boy pull-ups!”

I looked everywhere, not finding pull-ups while Crew got increasingly upset.

“I not a baby!” He shouted at me, his face turning red with anger.