She nodded, then reached for his hand and pulled him off the couch. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she rested her cheek on his chest and murmured, “Thank you for my birthday presents, Seth. The cupcake and the orgasm.”
His fingers threaded through her hair, stroking gently. “You’re welcome. And thank you. For listening, first and foremost. And for not laughing me right out of the room when I asked you to date me.” He brought his lips close to her ear and said, “And most of all, thank you for agreeing to let me babysit your children while you’re out on your date.”
She huffed out an irritated breath. “It’s not a date!”
Chapter Sixteen
The next morning, Miranda had a dickens of a time getting both her kids in the same room together. Jason was running around the apartment throwing a baseball in the air, and when she finally got his butt settled on the living room couch, Sophie had darted off to find her doll, only to get distracted by one of the sparrows out in the backyard, the one that was supposedly out to get her. So while Miranda was calming down her daughter and assuring her that sparrows were harmless, Jason took off again, this time ducking under the kitchen table to play with his little green army men.
Needless to say, by the time she finally had both kids in front of her, she was exhausted, flustered and kind of sweaty.
“Okay, guys, this is serious. I really need you to listen,” she said, sinking into the small armchair next to the couch. “Sophie, put Emily down. Jason, I know you have one of those soldiers in your mouth. Spit it out. Now.”
Emily and a little green soldier landed on the coffee table with a thud.
“All right. Are you listening?”
They nodded.
“Mommy’s going out for dinner tonight, so—”
“I wanna go to dinner too,” Jason interrupted.
“Me too!” Sophie piped up.
“I’m sorry, guys, but you can’t. It’s a business meeting, so it’s going to be super boring. Trust me, you’ll have a lot more fun at home.” Remaining casual, she added, “With Seth.”
Sophie gasped in pure horror. “Sef’s coming?”
Jason beamed with pure enchantment. “Sef’s coming?”
“Yep. He’s coming over to hang out with you while I have my business meeting.”
“I don’t want Sef! I want Dylan,” Sophie retorted.
“Dylan is busy tonight,” Miranda lied. “But Seth was free, and guess what, he’s so excited about coming over. He said he really wants to watch a movie with you guys, and make popcorn, and maybe even play in the yard for a bit.”
Sophie looked so dubious Miranda almost laughed.
“Is Sef gonna get me from Ricky’s house?” Jason’s jaw dropped as another thought occurred to him. “Is Sef gonna come to my game?”
“I’m afraid he won’t be at the game, kiddo. Coach Diaz will drop you off at home afterwards.” She glanced at Sophie. “And you get to drive in Ginny’s cool convertible. She’ll bring you home while I wrap up my last class at the studio. You and Seth will hang out until your brother gets home.”
Now Sophie was the one gaping. “I hafta be alone with Sef?”
“She gets to be alone with Sef? No fair!”
Miranda sighed. “Enough, guys. Close your mouths before bugs start flying in there.” She gave each of them a strict look. “I expect you to be on your best behavior tonight. You’re going to treat Seth with the same respect you give to me and Kim, understand?”
They nodded, Sophie albeit reluctantly.
“And no running in the house.” She glanced at Jason. “No indoor baseball, Jase. And you—” she pointed at Sophie, “—don’t you dare throw things at the bird feeder again.”
Fine, so maybe she was stacking the deck in Seth’s favor a little, but the man was making an effort, so why shouldn’t her kids do the same?
“Are we good?” She looked from one child to the other.
“Yup,” they said in unison.
But there was no mistaking the tiny glimmer of mischief in her daughter’s eyes.
Uh-oh.
With a sigh, she got to her feet. “All right, let’s get you two dressed. We’ve got a busy day ahead of us.”
Seth’s palms were unusually damp as he waited in Miranda’s living room for the kids to come home. He’d let himself in with the spare key she’d given him last night at the club, and it felt weird being in Miranda’s apartment when she wasn’t there.
He couldn’t believe he’d agreed to watch her kids this evening.
Agreed?
Right. Try offered.
And Miranda was actually trusting him with her kids. The woman had a lot more faith in him than he had in himself.
The irony didn’t escape him—he was a Navy SEAL, for fuck’s sake. He could carry out a hazardous black-ops mission in his sleep, infiltrate a terrorist cell’s lair without batting an eye, throw himself in the line of fire without hesitation. He’d saved lives before, many, many lives. His government specifically entrusted him with the task of saving lives.
And yet he was terrified that he wouldn’t be able to protect a pair of six-year-olds.
He gulped when he heard the front door open. Footsteps thudded, a female voice wafting from the hall. A moment later, a petite blonde with pale gray eyes entered the living room, holding hands with a frowning Sophie.
“You must be Seth,” the woman said. Her eyes gleamed appreciatively. “I’m Ginny, one of the instructors at the school. Miranda says you’re babysitting tonight.”
“Yep.” He rose from the couch and walked over to shake her hand. “Nice to meet you, Ginny. Hey, Sophie.”
The little girl stared at him in surprise. He suddenly realized this was the first time he’d ever addressed her by name.
“Hi,” she said suspiciously.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it then.” Ginny smiled again. “Oh, and Miranda wanted me to remind you that she left money for pizza in the jar next to the fridge.”
Seth resisted a snort. They’d argued over the phone this morning about how he wasn’t going to let her pay for dinner, and as far as he was concerned, he’d won the argument already.
“I’ll walk you out,” he told Ginny.
They headed for the door, the blonde tossing out a light “have fun” before she left.
When Seth returned to the living room, Sophie was standing exactly where he’d left her. She had a little pink duffel bag slung over one shoulder, and she wore red cotton shorts, a black T-shirt with yellow stars on it and black ballet flats. Her dark hair was up in a ponytail, brown eyes flickering with mistrust.
“So.” He cleared his throat. “What do you want to do until your brother gets home?”
“I dunno.” Her lack of enthusiasm was hardly promising.
Smothering a sigh, he took her duffel bag and set it aside. “Come on, I’m sure there’s something you want to do. We can watch a movie or go out in the backyard or draw a picture—pick anything you want.”
“Anything?”
He could’ve sworn he saw a devilish gleam in her eyes.
“Anything,” he echoed.
“Fine. I wanna play with my dolls and make their hair pretty so they can dance at the recital.”
God help him.
From the little smirk she gave him, he knew Sophie expected him to recoil in horror. Maybe revert back to the Seth she’d called mean and tell her to get lost.
When he didn’t answer right away, she crossed her skinny arms over her chest and said, “I knew you wouldn’t wanna.” She scowled. “You wouldna be good at it anyway.”
Seth raised a defiant brow, then squatted down so they were at eye level. “Sophie, I’m a United States Navy SEAL. Know what that means?”
She shifted uneasily, then shook her head.
“It means I can do whatever I set my mind on, and if you think I can’t give your dolls some awesome hairstyles, then I’m ready to prove you wrong.”
She giggled, then clapped a hand over
her mouth as if she couldn’t believe she’d dropped her guard around him.
“So you ready to do this, or what?” he challenged.
As Sophie dashed off to get her dolls, Seth gave a brisk nod, declaring himself the winner of round one. In fact, he planned on winning every damn round tonight, if only to prove to Miranda that he had what it took to be her boyfriend.
Boyfriend. Christ, he couldn’t believe he even wanted to be someone’s boyfriend.
Well, not just anyone’s boyfriend. Miranda’s.
He was falling for the woman.
He was actually fucking falling for her, and wasn’t that another dose of irony right there. He’d always believed love was a choice, that you had to be open to it in order to feel it, but his feelings for Miranda had crept up on him. One day he was thinking about how much he wanted to fuck her, the next he was fantasizing about holding her hand and making her laugh and seeing her hazel eyes light up with joy.
She was the strongest woman he’d ever met, not to mention stubborn, resilient, compassionate, generous. He’d never been in a serious relationship before, but he wasn’t averse to the idea either, and if there was anyone he could picture himself with for the long haul, it was Miranda. And if she could penetrate the shield he always threw up, then why couldn’t her kids? All he had to do was lower his guard and give himself a chance to care about those children.
And it wasn’t difficult to care about a kid like Sophie Breslin. For the next thirty minutes, Seth had a blast with the girl. They were sprawled on the living room floor on the brand-new hardwood that sparkled from the sunlight streaming in through the window. Sophie had brought out half a dozen dolls, along with tiny doll accessories—hair elastics, little pink hairbrushes, barrettes and clips of all shapes and colors.
If any of the guys had asked, he would’ve said it was the lamest thing he’d ever done in his life.
The truth?
It was pretty frickin’ fun.
As his huge fingers tried to grip a teeny hairbrush to brush the silky blonde hair of an anatomically-incorrect Barbie, Sophie was laughing at him so hard her face had turned beet red.
“You have giant fingers!” Pure glee radiated from her little body.
“I can’t help it,” he said defensively. “Okay, new plan. You do the hair brushing, I’ll braid this foxy mama’s hair.” He reached for the voluptuous Latina doll in the hot-pink minidress.
“Deal,” Sophie said, grabbing Barbie.
They were so absorbed in their respective tasks that their heads jerked up in surprise when they heard the front door fly open.
“I’m home!”
A second later, Jason skidded into the living room, halting when he noticed what Seth and his sister were up to. “You’re playing with dolls?”
Seth couldn’t have answered the question if his life depended on it. The second he laid eyes on Jason, his throat closed up to the point that he couldn’t suck in a single breath, and he felt like he’d just gotten knocked in the gut with an iron beam.
Holy fucking shit. He was going to have a panic attack. His heart raced so fast that all he could hear was its frantic beating in his ears, and his palms were tingling. Black dots appeared in his vision—he actually welcomed them, because that meant he didn’t have to focus on the little boy standing in the doorway. The white-and-blue-striped uniform and blue baseball cap and little black sneakers.
The hat was the wrong color though. It was supposed to be red.
“—fun and you don’t hafta.” Sophie’s haughty voice broke through Seth’s anxiety attack, but it sounded tinny and incredibly far away. “Me and Sef are making Emily and her friends pretty. You can play with Sef after.”
“Can we? Can we play after?”
Seth felt a pair of eager brown eyes boring into him. He couldn’t do it, though. He couldn’t look at Adam again or else he might pass out.
Jason.
Shit. That wasn’t Adam. It was Jason.
He bit hard on the insides of both cheeks, doing his best to breathe, to control his dangerously fast heartbeat.
“Can we play catch outside when you finish playing dolls?” Jason asked.
Seth abruptly shot to his feet, the doll in his hand falling to the floor with a thump.
“Hey!” Sophie protested, lunging for the doll.
“I…I’m going out for a smoke,” he blurted out.
He felt both children watching him in confusion, but he ignored them as he hurried to the kitchen.
One foot in front of the other. Keep walking. Don’t think about that fucking baseball uniform.
Yeah, maybe he would’ve stood a chance, if Jason hadn’t scampered after him like a dog nipping at his owner’s heels.
“Please, Sef?” Jason pleaded. “I wanna show you how good I pitch!”
Seth swallowed. His throat was so clogged it burned. Memories he’d banished years ago came out of exile, pouring into his brain like floodwaters streaming into an unsuspecting city. Adam used to beg him to play catch too. Sometimes he’d say yes. Most times he’d scoff and tell him to quit being a whiny brat.
Agony constricted his heart. He’d been a total shit back then too, hadn’t he?
Should’ve been you, man. Should’ve been you.
Seth’s eyes started to sting, his hands shaking so badly it was a miracle he managed to dig his cigarette pack from the front pocket of his button-down. It took two tries to open the sliding door that led to the backyard. Five tries to get his fingers to work the lighter. And then he inhaled a lungful of smoke in a pull so long and so deep he got a head rush.
He exhaled shaky puffs of smoke that got carried away by the evening breeze. It was still light out, but the sun was beginning to dip toward the horizon.
“And I wanna show you my new mitt,” Jason was babbling. “Mom got me a new one because my old one got wet from the storm but the old one still works great so now I have two gloves.”
Seth’s heart continued to race. He kept his gaze focused straight ahead, his jaw tense, teeth grinding together. He couldn’t look at the kid. He couldn’t do it, damn it, otherwise he’d break the fuck down.
“Mom says smoking is bad for you,” Jason said matter-of-factly. “You should play sports ’stead of smoking.”
He took another desperate drag of his cigarette. Fixed his gaze on the bird feeder hanging across the yard.
But Jason wasn’t having it. The kid was determined to be paid attention to, come hell or high water. He moved in front of Seth and started bouncing around, a bundle of energy and smiles. That baseball uniform was all Seth could register, and that rush of pure helpless agony seized his chest again.
“You wanna play now? Can we play now?”
“For the love of God, I don’t want to play baseball with you!”
Silence crashed over them.
Jason was stricken for a second, and then his entire face collapsed, his bottom lip beginning to tremble.
Seth sucked in an unsteady breath. Exhaustion settled, making him feel like he’d just run a marathon.
“Just…go inside, Jason,” he muttered. “Please…go inside.”
Eyes shining with tears, the little boy hurried away without a word.
Should’ve been you.
The weight on his shoulders was so heavy he couldn’t stay upright anymore. He sagged to the ground, crushing his cigarette on the grass and bringing his knees up. He rested an elbow on his knee and dropped his forehead in his hand. He blinked rapidly but the tears came anyway. Burning his eyes, choking him up.
He had to go inside. He knew that. He couldn’t leave Miranda’s children alone for too long.
But goddammit, how the hell was he supposed to face that little boy?
Pain streaked through him. He couldn’t do it. He needed to call Miranda and ask her to come home. He shouldn’t be responsible for the safety of her children. Any children. He shouldn’t—
Seth jumped when he felt a warm hand on his arm.
“Don’t
cry, Sef.”
Sophie’s voice was so gentle and so sweet that his throat clogged right back up.
He swiped a hand over his wet eyes. For the life of him, he couldn’t shrug off Sophie’s hand, and when she placed it over his, he was floored by how small her fingers were. All five of them barely covered two of his knuckles. She was innocent and tiny and fragile and she shouldn’t be around him, damn it. The thought brought a fresh wave of moisture to his eyes.
Christ, he couldn’t sit here crying like a fucking pansy. He had to call Miranda and tell her to come home.
Sophie flopped down on the grass beside him, then wiggled her way beneath his arm so that he had no choice but to sling it around her slender shoulders. She peered up at him, those brown eyes shining with encouragement, and then she reached up and touched the trail of tears on his cheek.
“’S’okay, Sef. I cry when I’m sad too.”
His shoulders sagged in defeat, his arm tightening around her, bringing the little girl close to his side. “I lost him,” he croaked.
“No, you didn’t. I’m right here.”
A somber Jason appeared in front of them, his face red and tear-streaked. He still had the uniform on, that damn uniform, but for the first time since the kid had come home, Seth’s vision was seeing everything clearly. He saw Jason’s brown eyes, not Adam’s gray ones. Jason’s short brown hair, not Adam’s unruly black curls.
As guilt swelled in his gut and stung his eyes, he met the boy’s gaze. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”
Jason sniffled. Took a step closer.
“I was…upset. When you came home, you reminded me of someone else. I looked at you and I saw someone else.” He wiped his eyes, grateful that none of his teammates were bearing witness to this show of pure and utter weakness. “I’m so sorry, Jason.”
“Who did you see?” the boy asked, taking another curious step forward.
“My little brother. He was about your age. He’s…he’s in heaven now.”
Another explosion of guilt hit him square in the chest. Breathing through it, he held out his hand, beckoning Jason.
Without hesitation, Miranda’s son plopped down on Seth’s other side and snuggled close. Sophie was still holding his hand, and now Jason held his other one. The warmth radiating from those little fingers seeped into his body, which had grown cold and weary from the excruciating emotions threatening to consume him.