Mannies Incorporated by Michael, Sean (phonics books .TXT) 📗

her brother -- who was just as tow-headed as his dad had been. "'kay."

Drake had to hide his grin. He got to put his crayon down, though, without drawing more than a green background, which was a good thing -- he had no artistic ability whatsoever.

Slayde poured another huge cup of coffee, waved the pot over. "More?"

"God, yes." He held his cup up, moaning softly as the dark liquid poured in. "Liquid of life, this."

"You know it." The timer went off and Slayde nodded. "Gotta get my girl."

"How long does she get time out for?"

"Five minutes."

"I bet it seems like forever to her."

Slayde shrugged, hazel eyes lighter in the sunlight than they'd looked yesterday. "Believe it or not, she'll be up there playing. At her age, she just needs a distraction for a minute."

"Cool. You know a lot about kids, I guess."

"I have my masters in Early Childhood Ed." Slayde headed up the stairs, leaving him sitting with his mouth open.

You could get a Master's degree in that? Who knew?

He finished his coffee and cleared the breakfast dishes, putting them in the dishwasher.

Jenny came down, dressed in a little red sundress, dark curls in a bow on top of her head. God, that was adorable. He held out his arms and she wriggled to get to him. Slayde put her down and she came to him, all bright eyes and smiles.

He picked her up and put her on his hip. "Hey, Jenny girl. You're in a good mood now, aren't you?"

She patted his cheeks. "Lib'ary day."

"Yeah, we're going to go have reading time and stuff, aren't we?"

She nodded, then hopped down. "Play, Unca Slayde."

"Go for it, kiddo. Tell your sister she needs to get dressed soon."

"Do they all dress themselves?"

Slayde gave him a wide-eyed look. "God, no, but Mindy feels like it's important they get to choose their clothes. I give them options."

"So they don't actually choose." He grinned, winked. "Sneaky."

"Sanity saving."

Slayde grabbed the house phone when it rang. "Hey, Jeannie. Yes, we'll be there. Yeah. Yeah, I'll bring it. No problem. Yeah? Oh, that works."

Drake rinsed out his coffee cup and put it on the drying rack, then waited for Slayde to finish his conversation; he had no clue when Library time was.

"Sure, honey, but I'm not sure Christian's ready for a sleep over. I'll talk to Mindy about it. See you in a bit. Okay, bye."

"So I take it the library is soon?"

Slayde looked at the clock. "An hour. I have to grab the ice cream maker for Jeannie. She's going to trade me a new gluten-free cupcake cookbook for a week."

Trading with Mommies…

"Oh. Cool."

"Don't judge. These women are doing this on their own and, when Jerry died, they had Mindy's back."

"Did I say anything?"

"You didn't have to." Slayde looked at him, face serious. "Look, I know you think I'm a big pussy boy because I'm a nanny and queer, and you can think what you want, but I'm good at my job."

"I never said that." He hadn't. Hell, he was fucking queer himself. Not that he'd ever shared that with anyone he knew. Mindy didn't even know, for fuck's sake. "I can see how hard you work."

"I do. I'll be glad when she's home, I admit. It's hard to go it alone."

"I know you think I'm a useless fuck, but you're not going it alone anymore. I'm here and ready to lend a hand where you need it." How many fucking times was he going to have to say that?

"Be careful or you'll be doing pushups again."

"Only if the kids catch me." He noticed Slayde didn't bother to try to deny that he thought Drake was useless.

Slayde chuckled. "Right. Well, I'm going to convince the older two to get dressed. Do you want to start sandwiches for our picnic?"

"Sure. What do you want me to make?"

"There's gluten-free bread. Peanut butter and jelly."

"You make the peanut butter and jelly yourself, too?" He knew Slayde didn't, he'd seen the store-bought containers yesterday, but he couldn't help teasing.

"Are you going to give me shit if I did?"

"I was teasing actually; are you telling me you actually did? You've got to have a time fairy or something in your back pocket."

Was Slayde for real? Shit, this guy did more for Mindy's kids than most parents did for their own.

"I work hard. I don't get days off and I can't leave, even to see my friends for a beer. I get bored."

That was no way to live. Really. "Well, you can go meet your friends for a beer now."

"Yeah, I'll give you a couple of days to get used to the routine and I'll take you up on it." Slayde looked at the clock. "Maggie, clothes."

"You were gonna do something to my phone so you could put the schedule on it. That'll help." He hated having no clue what was happening next. Oh, he loved spontaneous, but not if everyone else was on a plan.

"Right. Cozi. Remind me during nap time and I'll set you up."

"Naptime's in the afternoon." He remembered that much from yesterday.

"Yeah. We'll library, eat and play, come home, nap. Mindy will call, we'll chat, and then I do household business."

Slayde exhausted him.

"No naptime for grown-ups?" He made it sound like more teasing, but man, he was pretty sure he was going to need a nap, big time.

"Go for it, man. When I can, I doze off."

"Well, hopefully you'll be able to indulge more often now that there's an extra set of hands around."

"I hope so." Slayde gave him a grin. "Sandwiches. I'll deal with clothes."

"Okay, I can do sandwiches. I might have a harder time with little girl clothes."

"Lots of little buttons. Christian's are actually harder."

"Like I said, sandwiches I can do." He got up and took out the bread. The peanut butter was easy because they'd had that yesterday.

He made them up, bagged them in these weird-assed, handmade, reusable, washable sandwich bags. This was insane. It was like Slayde was really Mary Poppins or something. Of course,