Disclaimer: I do not own the SVM characters. They belong to Charlaine Harris.
Chapter 5
SPOV
“No Sam. I don’t know how else to say it, but NO!” We had been going over and over this for the last 15 minutes and we were getting nowhere. Of course I don’t know why I should be surprised; it seemed lately the only thing the two of us could agree on is that we didn’t agree on anything.
“I don’t understand why you don’t want to go.” He had now gone from whining to being pissed that I wasn’t willing to give in to his wishes.
“It’s not that I don’t to go, but I’ve only been working for Eric for a month, I’m not going to start asking for time off already.” I replied incredulously, my irritation clearly apparent in my voice.
“You’re at his house 24/7 for piss sake, you can’t tell me Eric wouldn’t let you have two days to go on a trip with your fiancé.” I felt myself bristle at the way he sneered out Eric’s name and fiancé. I took a deep breath and then continued.
“He probably would but that’s not the point.”
“Then I don’t understand. If you know he would give you the time off, why won’t you ask him?” His voice getting louder.
“BECAUSE. I. DON’T. WANT. TO!” I shuddered at the sound of my own voice. When did I become a screamer? I could count on two hands the number of times I had raised my voice in anger to someone other than my brother and eight of those times had been in the last month to Sam.
“EXACTLY! You don’t want to! You’ve been begging me for months to take some time off so we could go away together and now that I have, you don’t want to go. You are soooooo damn frustrating!” Sam yelled back, I was glad it was after hours and everyone had gone home from the construction site; at least there would be no one to hear this ridiculous, heated exchange.
“I’m frustrating? You’re calling me frustrating?” I was beyond livid at this point. “You want frustrating? Why don’t we talk about the fact that I have been begging to go away and YOU were always unavailable… or how about that just a few weeks ago you were reminding me about how busy you would be until at least late fall and now all of a sudden, when you know I can’t take off, you’re suddenly able to get away? What’s that about?” I sat down and put my face in my hands. “You are not going to push this off on me!” Frustration replaced my irritation.
I knew when I took this job it was going to be an issue with Sam but I figured soon he would realize just how little things changed because of it and he would accept it. But so far there were no signs of that happening. It started with the frequent phone calls, Sam would call nine or ten times during the day and then get pissed when I told him couldn’t talk to him. At first I thought he just didn’t understand the level of attention required when responsible for a small child but then I realized his irrational jealousy of my new responsibilities was spurring the interruptions.
Sam’s confidence had been one of the things that had attracted me to him in the first place. He was never at a loss for what to do or what to say; our friends often joked that though he may not always be right, he was always convinced. Thinking about it now, I couldn’t recall a single episode of indecision in the entire time I’d known him, not even something as trivial as where to go to dinner. But something happened when I accepted the position with the Northmans, and now he seemed to doubt everything. Suddenly he was asking me what I wanted to do, where I wanted to go and incessantly referring to me as his fiancée. To me! It was as if he was trying to remind me.
“Look, I just don’t see why you won’t ask Eric to find someone else to watch the ankle biter for a day or two so we can go away like you’ve wanted to.” He had calmed down a little, well at least he was no longer yelling.
“Sam, her name is Holly, not ankle biter and for the last time…I am not asking for time off right now. Period. End of discussion.” I said with my voice as calm as I could muster at the time.
Obviously it was going to take him longer to adjust to this job than I expected but I knew one thing…he needed to get over it and get over it soon because this sure as hell was not working.
EPOV
“How are things with the nanny, Cuz?” Bill asked as he walked through the door of my office offering me a cup of coffee.
“Great man, I really should’ve done this sooner.” I reluctantly confessed.
“What, it’s been about a month now right? Is Holly still doing well with her?” Bill asked as he plopped down on one of my guest chairs.
“Shit, Holly took to her immediately and never looked back; I was the one that had adjusting to do.” I thought about the last month and all the changes we had gone through. Honestly I hadn’t considered the weirdness factor when I decided to hire a live-in nanny but having a stranger move in to your home takes a little getting used to.
~o~O~o~
The first awkward moment came late one night after everyone had gone to bed and Holly woke up screaming from a bad dream.
Both Sookie and I went running in to her room apparently neither of us considering the possible presence of the other as I showed up in my boxer briefs and Sookie in a
tee shirt that didn’t even attempt to cover her tiny panty clad bottom. After a finally getting Holly calmed down, the realization of our attire, or lack thereof, seemed to hit both of us at the same time. I grabbed the small blanket on Holly’s bed and tried to look as though I was straightening her other covers as I laid it casually across my lap. Yeah, I was cool! Meanwhile Sookie’s face turn a beautiful shade of crimson began pulling on the bottom of her tee shirt as if to make it longer as she backed slowly out of the room whispering good night to Holly.
This incident alone should have been enough to remind me that I’m not the only adult in the house any more, but no, I was a slow learner, that lesson wasn’t driven home until a week later.
I had gotten up early one morning as an epiphany had come to me in the middle of the
night regarding a deposition I was conducting that day and I wanted a little time to revise my questioning before heading off to the meeting. I walked into the kitchen, again wearing only boxer briefs, still yawning not bothering to turn on the light because I didn’t think my retinas were ready to be awake yet. I rounded the corner of the center island and bumped…no, not bumped…slammed…in to a firm, round backside.
The fact that Sookie got up every morning long before the rest of us and ran for three or four miles had somehow escaped me therefore I was not expecting to find her bent over in the dark kitchen stretching out her hamstrings at 5:00 in the morning. Anyway, by the time my still groggy mind registered what had occurred, Sookie’s small frame was being propelled forward sending her head first toward the glass door of the oven. I quickly reached out to grab her and pull her back which of course prevented the collision between her head and the oven but caused another collision between her ass and my now awaking junk.
After several rounds of “oh god I’m so sorry” and “don’t worry about it, its fine” from both of us and the awkward realization that I was still standing with my hands on her hips holding her against me, I decided I no longer needed coffee as every part of my body was now wide awake. I offered my apologies again and swiftly darted out of the kitchen back to my room.
Aside from those little moments, it was probably two or three weeks after Sookie moved in before we settled into a normal routine whereby I didn’t feel the need to try to entertain her and she didn’t keep herself locked in her room in her own self imposed prison. Each day I came home to the wonderful aroma of whatever culinary lesson she had given Holly that day and if you’ll pardon the pun, Holly was eating it up. After a brief conversation recapping what she and Holly had done for the day and a somewhat ‘changing of the guard’, Sookie would take her dinner and retreat to her room for the evening. The first few nights she excused herself I assumed she had been with Holly all day she was probably ready for a break and just needed to get away, but then I finally decided to ask her about it.
“I guess you need a break after running around with Holly all day?” I hoped my nonchalant approach would offer her the out she needed if it were true.
“No, not at all, I don’t get tired of being with Holly; I just want to give you the opportunity to spend quality time with your daughter without me being in the way.”
“I appreciate what you are saying but I don’t see you being here as ‘being in the way’.” I countered reassuringly.
“You know what I mean, besides, how do we know Holly’s not tired of me?”
“Well, why don’t we just ask her?” I already knew the answer; Holly had been begging me for days to ask Sookie to join us. “Holly, could you come here please?”
Holly came running in from the dining room where she had been putting out the silverware for our dinner.
“What do you say we invited Sookie to join us for dinner?”
“Yes!” She said pumping her hand in the air, “Pleasepleasepleaseplease…” Holly squealed as she jumped up and down in front of Sookie.
“OK you win, I’ll join you.” Sookie conceded and except for weekends or the evenings she was out of the house it became our normal routine to sit down to dinner together and I listened as the two of them entertained me with stories of their day together.
Soon the jealousy I felt about no longer being able to spend quite as much time with Holly went away as I acknowledged that the time we did have now was definitely better quality; but occasionally I could still get disappointed when she’d tell me about what I had missed that day.
Apparently Sookie picked up on this.
“Daddy, we have a surprise for you.” Holly said as she grabbed my hand to pull me in to the living room. We had just finished supper, washed and put away the dishes and now it was time to unwind.
“What kind of surprise?” I asked as I headed for my chair.
“No, sit here.” She said, a little too demanding for my taste, but I could tell she was excited about something so I just flashed her the look rather than say anything.
“Why here?”
“Because we want you to be able to see the tv.” She said as she walked over the DVD player and put in the disc that Sookie had handed her.
I looked over at Sookie and gave her a questioning look but she was not offering any answers only a shrug of her shoulders.
After the disc loaded, Holly came back to the couch and crawled in my lap and pressed ‘play’ on the remote.
The homemade video began to play and the words Holly Northman Swim Lessons Summer 2009 danced on to the screen. I gave another quick look at Sookie trying to understand what was going on but again she was revealing nothing. I want to play poker with this woman!
For the next 30 minutes I watched as Sookie patiently instructed Holly how to hold her breath, kick her legs and paddle her arms to propel herself through the water. I
was amazed. Not just at how fast Holly picked it up but also at how Sookie seemed to know the exact words to make Holly understand what she was trying to convey to her. It appeared that the video had been shot over several lessons as Holly improved almost as fast as the bathing suits changed.
The clip ended with Holly peeking out from the edge of the pool waving and blowing kisses to the camera after having swum the entire length of the pool alone. I was so proud of my little girl.
“Pumkin, that was incredible. You looked just like a little fish out there swimming around.” I said tickling her as she squirmed in my lap.
“Wait daddy,” she said between giggles, “we have more.”
“More?” I said as I let her crawl off my lap.
“Yep.”
Sookie reached under the couch and pulled out a photo album and handed it to her.
Holly took the large book and climbed back up in my lap.
“What is this?” Why I bothered to look at Sookie I will never know, she just shrugged her shoulders again feigning innocence.
“This is what me and Sookie have been doing while you’re at work.” I fought the urge to correct her grammar as she opened the book to explain herself.
The photo album was full of photographs of everything from the grocery store to the librarian handing her first library card. Holly and I sat there for more than an hour while I listened as she explained what they were doing as each picture was taken. The vast majority of the photographs were just of Holly but every now and again there would be one of the two of them together.
The photographs were priceless. Not only was I being allowed to share in the missed activities, but pictures were something that were sorely lacking in this house. I mean I had the annual ‘Holly with Santa’ picture and some from birthdays and holidays that we spent with Bill and Amelia but nothing by way of candid every day shots. I was blown away by the gesture.
~o~O~o~
I thought back on all the changes that had occurred in my life since Sookie’s arrival a month ago and the positive impact was undeniable. She had added a quality to my life that I had not anticipated, for the first time in years I felt good about things, about where I was and where I was going. I thought about how happy Holly was now and the way she seemed to blossom around Sookie. I didn’t feel alone any more in caring for my child. I thought about changes that had occurred in me personally over the last few weeks, the confidence that had disappeared with my marriage was returning and I was experiencing feelings I hadn’t felt in years.
I knew what I wanted.
“Bill, you know what?”
“What’s that Cuz?”
“I think it’s time for me to start dating.”
TBC
