“Thank you! It was wonderful to meet you as well.” It doesn’t escape my notice that she left me out of that compliment.
She turns her head to give me a glare that would have a lesser man shaking in his boots. Maybe I should have let her come last night. Next thing I know, her front door is slamming and Gloria is tugging on my arm. I’m surprised because I almost forgot she was standing there with everything going on.
“She’s spunky. I like her.”
“Yeah, me too.”
Chapter Nine
Bianca
“Don’t forget to find out how old he is!” Violet calls out before closing the door behind me. I carefully make my way down the two porch steps while keeping a firm grip on the stack of art supplies clutched in my arms. I may not know anything about babysitting, but I figure there’s got to be at least a few things in this heap that will entertain Oliver until his Unc—Dad now I guess, gets home.
I shouldn’t have let Carson goad me into this. In fact, I should be staying far far away from him. I even had plans tonight! I was going to have dinner with Mom and Dad but since I agreed to watch Oliver I had to cancel.
It’s probably for the best. Yes, I’m trying to facilitate the rekindling of their connection but I don’t think Dad is into it. Most of the reason I even tried to set them up, besides Mom pushing for it, was because he seems so lonely. I don’t want him to be alone and I thought that if they loved each other once, maybe they could do it again.
It’s probably best that I had to cancel, though I feel bad about doing it at the last minute. But once Carson started acting like he didn’t want me to watch Oliver and that I was out of my depth, saying I’d do it was a knee jerk reaction. I don’t know what it is about him that drives me so crazy. If anybody else had said I wasn’t cut out for babysitting I would have laughed and agreed with them. There’s something about him that just makes me want to put him in his place, especially after he left me so sexually frustrated last night.
At least Oliver is a pretty cool kid. I don’t think it’ll be too bad to spend a couple hours with him. Who knows, maybe I’ll start to like kids after this.
Yeah, it doesn’t sound convincing to me either.
I manage to shift all the supplies over to one arm so I have a free hand to knock on the door. They’re tilting precariously, so I manage a quick knock before redistributing the weight. Carson opens the door and takes in the pile of art supplies I’m carrying. “Did you leave anything at home?”
“Here, help,” I say, ignoring his question and shoving the pile into his stomach. He carries them much more easily than I did and moves them to the kitchen table. I walk inside and close the door behind me, taking a moment to look around. The first thing that strikes me is how clean and organized it is. It looks like there’s a place for everything and everything’s in its place. I wander over to the mantle of the fireplace where there are pictures lined up way too evenly to be by accident. I smile to myself imagining Carson standing here with a ruler making sure each picture is placed just-so.
There’s a photo of a teenage Carson with an older couple and a young girl, I figure that must be his parents and his sister. There seems to be a gap in time between the teenage Carson photos and more recent ones. There are plenty of pictures of Oliver either on his own or with Carson and Gloria. In everyphoto he looks about the same age he is now which I find a bit curious. Shouldn’t he have pictures of him from when he was a baby or a toddler or something? For the first time I wonder how long he’s been with Carson.
His bookshelf seems to be organized by color instead of by author or even genre which, as an artist, I find aesthetically exciting, but I know if Violet saw this she would have a heart attack. What would happen if I took just one book and moved it? Would he notice? Would it drive him insane?
“Why are you staring at my bookcase with an evil look in your eye?”
I quickly turn back to him and give a shrug. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I join him in the kitchen where he’s jotting something down on a pad of paper. “You really don’t have to do this, Bianca. It isn’t your responsibility.”
I wave my hand at him dismissively. “It’s not a big deal, I didn’t have any plans for the evening,” I lie smoothly. He’s searching my face like he’s trying to find my lie, but I keep my face perfectly impassive. “So, what are you writing down?”
He shakes his head like he’s trying to clear it of whatever he was thinking. “I haven’t had a chance to feed Oliver dinner. I’ve left the name of the restaurant along with his order. Go ahead and pick something for yourself too.”
I give an appreciative smile. Since I had been planning on eating with my parents, I hadn’t had a big lunch and now I’m feeling just short of ravenous.
“I also have a list of emergency numbers that I’ll text you so you can have them in your phone.”
“Everything is going to be fine Carson, I can watch him for a few hours without some kind of major disaster,” I say with a bit of hurt in my voice that I’m not able to disguise.
“I know, Bianca, really. It’s just that when I’m on the job I can’t always get to my phone and you might have questions.It’s just the numbers for Gloria, my desk at the station, and the number for dispatch. If it’s a real emergency, you can contact them and have them get me over the radio.”
“It’ll be fine, I promise. We’re just going to have some dinner, do some drawing or painting or whatever he wants. Maybe watch some TV. You know the usual.” At least I think that’s the usual for babysitting. At least that’s what The Babysitter’s Club had me believe.
He chews on his lip a little which I’ve never seen him do before. I’m sure it’s a nerves thing but it immediately sends me back to the alley last night when he nibbled on my own lip and all of the sudden an ache appears between my thighs while my nipples harden into stiff points. Thank God I changed into a thick knit sweater so he can’t see them through my top. It hasn’t escaped my notice that we’re both doing our best to avoid talking about what happened which is fine by me.
He’s nodding his head while distractedly gathering the things he needs for work. “That sounds good, he’ll love that. Just make sure he’s in bed before nine. He knows his bedtime routine so just have him start it at eight thirty and it should be fine.”
“No problem, we can do that.”
Oliver comes rushing into the room, toy truck in hand and yells “Bianca!” before latching himself onto my leg. I can’t help but laugh. If I could get another kid to grab onto the other one, walking around would be a great workout. If I was into that kind of thing.
“Oliver, what do you say to Bianca?”