“Uncle J! Bridgette flushed your toothbrush down the toilet!” Bethany yelled.
“I did not! It fell!” Bridgette shouted back.
Yeah, her biological clock was definitely not ticking.
15
Josh bent over and gently laid Braydon down in the porta-crib that Claire had set up in his room before she left. When he moved his hands from under him, his nephew stirred so Josh patted his back gently until he was sound asleep again.
When he straightened up to standing his back protested shooting a sharp pain down his spine and through his right leg. Chasing two four-year-olds and carrying around a one-year-old was a young man’s game. He was getting too old for this.
He was glad that Audrey had shown up when she did. She truly was his angel. Claire had been right. Adding a baby to the mix was a lot more work and he’d definitely felt outnumbered. His plan had been to get through tonight and then wear them all out tomorrow by taking them to the park, down to the riverside, and maybe even to U Bounce, which was filled with inflatable castles and other structures that the girls could play on. He’d never been there, but he’d heard people that have kids swear by it as a life saver.
On the way back to the front room, he picked up two Barbie dolls, one of which had a very short haircut. He noticed there was a lot of hair in a pile next to a pair of scissors. He had no clue the girls had gotten scissors, and he knew Audrey hadn’t seen it either. This must have happened when Audrey was feeding Braydon and he was cleaning up the soda that had spilled at dinner.
He walked out to the front room and saw that all of the girls were seated around the dining room table and were coloring. His heart was swelling and breaking at the same time. Every time he witnessed how amazing Audrey was with the kids it just solidified the fact that they couldn’t be together. She was born to be a mom.
“Wow! That’s such a pretty fish.” Audrey said.
“It’s not a fish it’s a bird,” Bridgette corrected her.
“Oh, right. Of course, it is. That is such a pretty bird.”
“Princess Thor do you like my bird?” Bridgette lowered the paper down to where Thor was sleeping under the table. His only response was a soft snore.
He now understood why pits were called the nanny breed. Thor had worked harder than both he or Audrey had tonight, and he was out for the count.
“What are you coloring?” Bethany asked Audrey.
“I’m coloring flowers.” Audrey showed his niece her picture. “What color do you think I should make this one?”
“Pink!” Both Bethany and Bridgette shouted.
“Pink it is.” Audrey got a pink crayon and began to color in the daisy. He watched as she chatted with the girls about them starting kindergarten, which the twins referred to as their big girl class, and the things they were going to learn.
He had no idea how long he’d been leaning against the doorframe just taking in the scene when Audrey noticed he was there. She looked up and smiled at him sweetly. In a flash he saw what being with her, really being with her could be. He saw what his future could be if he wasn’t so fucked up and circumstances were different.
An urgency unlike anything he’d ever felt before bubbled up inside of him. He wanted nothing more than to get down on one knee and ask Audrey to marry him. He had a ring. Nonna had given Josh her wedding ring after his father died. He’d told her he didn’t want it and that he was never going to use it because he was never going to get married, but she insisted that he keep it. In his perfect world, he would put that ring on Audrey’s finger tonight and be down at the courthouse in the morning to make it official.
He wasn’t sure what his expression looked like as that epiphany hit him, but when Audrey glanced up at him again, a crease appeared between her eyebrows and she mouthed, “Are you okay?”
No. He wasn’t.
But she didn’t need to know that.
He smiled and clapped his hands. “Who wants to watch a movie?”
“Me!” Bethany yelled.
“I do!” Bridgette’s arm flew up in the air.
He might not get to have his happily ever after with Audrey, but he did have tonight. And he was going to stop feeling sorry for himself and just feel grateful that he had her in his life.
The credits rolled and Audrey was surprised at how invested she’d gotten in the movie. They’d watched Inside Out and she’d even teared up. She hadn’t seen any cartoons since she’d nannied when she was in college. She forgot just how amazing they could be.
She glanced beside her and saw that both the girls were sound asleep.
“I’m going to take them to the room,” Josh whispered.
She started to get up and help, but he held out his arm and mouthed. “I’ve got it.”
Audrey watched as Josh carried the girls one by one into his room. She honestly didn’t think there was anything that man couldn’t do. He could fix anything that broke, he was a good cook, a dog whisperer, could change a diaper with one hand, and he could say the alphabet backwards, which she supposed wasn’t really that useful but it had always impressed her.
She stood and started cleaning up the movie snacks. She picked up the bowl, making sure to gather the popcorn that was scattered on the couch, and then grabbed the sippy cups. After taking the bowl to the trash she dumped out the unpopped popcorn and then rinsed it out, setting it in the drying rack and did the same thing with the sippy cups the girls had used after the soda spilling at dinner.
When she got back to the living room, she looked around and was amazed at how much of a mess two little people could make. It looked like a tornado had hit the place. She figured she’d start by cleaning up the dining room table and work her way out. She started straightening up the papers that she and the girls had been coloring on and gathering up the crayons. When she went to put them away in the cabinet a notebook fell out. It fell open to a page of handwritten words.
Firefly
Bright against the midnight sky
You shine light in the darkness
You luminate
You glow
The flutter of your wings
The whisper of your flight
The softness in your…
“Thanks for your help toni—" Josh’s sentence dropped off mid word and she lifted her head and saw him staring at the notebook in her hands.
“Did you write this?” she asked.
All of the color drained from his face. “Yeah.” Josh took the notebook from her hands, and she suddenly realized that it probably looked like she’d been snooping.
“I was just putting the coloring books away and it fell out.”
“It’s fine,” his tone was clipped. She could tell that he was upset that she’d seen what she had.
“I didn’t see that much. Just one poem and I thought it was beautiful.”
“Thanks.” He put the notebook into the cabinet and shut the door.
“Josh, I’m sorry.” He’d never been mad at her before and seeing him like this made her feel sick to her stomach. She didn’t know what to say, so she just repeated what she’d already said. “I was putting the coloring books away and it just fell out.”