Mannies Incorporated Read online

  "MINE!"

  "Jennifer!" Slayde's voice cut across the kitchen. "Not appropriate."

  "Do they have their own or are they meant to share?" Look at him, asking before assuming anything.

  "They are supposed to share. Jenny is having issues with this idea."

  "Ah. Better get used to it, kiddo."

  "MINE COLOR!" God, she could scream.

  "Jennifer. That's two. One more and you go upstairs."

  Maggie watched with huge dark eyes.

  Drake shook his head. "Maggie's happy to share with you, Jenny. Sharing is good." He grabbed another piece of paper and one of the crayons still on her table. "I'm going to draw, too."

  The scream split the air and Slayde headed over, picked her up and carried her upstairs, throwing a fit.

  Maggie looked at him. "You coloring?"

  Christian's voice floated in. "Babies are stupid. Maggie, come play pirates with me?"

  "I am, but if you'd rather go play pirates with Christian, I'll understand." He wasn't going to push it, but if he could get her to warm up to him a little…

  "The baby's mad."

  Slayde came back downstairs, set a timer on the counter, then got back to cleaning the kitchen.

  "Yeah. She doesn't know how to share yet, does she?"

  "No. She's a baby." Maggie went back to coloring, at least until Christian came in.

  "Maggie! Play pirates!"

  She sighed, dark eyes rolling at 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, he didn't think Julie Andrews had ever filled out a pair of jeans the way Slayde did.

  "Oh, you found the bags, cool." Slayde looked at them. "This is Mindy's new fixation. No plastic. I do more laundry…"

  "Easy for her to say -- she's not here dealing with it." He'd have told her to do it on her own watch.

  "Yeah, well, she's the boss."

  He grunted. He might have to talk to her about that. About the fact that Slayde wor
ked his ass off, all the time. It wasn't right. The man wasn't family. Hell, he wouldn't put family through this.

  "So, are we ready to go?"

  "Christian's going to the restroom and we can. Let me put the rest of lunch together real quick."

  "There's more?"

  "Carrot sticks, grapes, juice boxes." Bang. Bang. Bang.

  "Super Nanny," murmured Drake.

  Hazel eyes stared at him. "I'm going to tell Christian you swore."

  "What?" What had he done now?

  Slayde grinned. "Teasing me."

  "If you're going to start making up reasons to watch me do push-ups…"

  "Would I do that?"

  Oh. Oh, that was dangerous. He couldn't afford to flirt and they were coming dangerously close here. He made himself chuckle. "I'm not sure you've got time to do that." He added a wink.

  "Probably not, no."

  They stared at each other for a moment. "So…library?"

  "Yep. Come on, kids. To the van!"

  Good lord, he was going to be traveling in a van full of kids.

  How…domesticated.

  Chapter Four

  "So, are you going to come dancing on Saturday?" Joey sounded so excited.

  "No. No, maybe next weekend, honey. Drake is so new to all this, and I'll want to spend the night if I'm drinking." He pulled out the stuff for macaroni and cheese and hot dogs. "Also, Christian and Jenny are awake and you're on speaker phone."

  "I'm going to hold you to next weekend. We miss you. And there's this new guy working at the shop…"

  "Yeah? Cute?" He needed a blow job in the worst way. Hand job. Hell, a hug. He could use a hug.

  "Who's cute?" Drake asked, looking freshly scrubbed after his shower.

  "Oh, just talking to my friend." He nodded to the phone. "Joey, Drake. Drake, Joey."

  "Uncle Slayde's going dancing with a new guy next week." Christian informed Drake.

  "I see."

  "Maybe. I said maybe." Christ. "Say hello to Christian, Joey."

  "Hey, sweetie. How was your day?"

  "Uncle Slayde is making macamaronis!"

  Drake chuckled and stared setting the table.

  "With hot dogs? Goodie."

  He rolled his eyes. Yeah. Yum. "Be good, Joey."

  Drake snorted and grabbed the utensils.

  "Are you coming to supper with your husband?" Christian loved Joey and was fascinated by Travis' rainbow striped hair.

  "Uh. No, sweetie. Me and Travis, we have to work."

  "Nice save," he muttered.

  "That was a euphemism?" Drake asked under his breath as he grabbed the glasses out of the cupboard next to Slayde.

  "I don't ask when he's on speaker phone."

  "I can take this over if you want to talk to him privately."

  "Nah, we were just chatting. I need to start cooking, man. I'll call later?"

  "Have a good one. I'll keep my fingers crossed for next weekend."

  "You'd better come next weekend. Bye, honey."

  "What's happening next weekend?" Drake asked.

  "Joey wants me to come dancing with them."

  He missed dancing, swaying and moving namelessly with a bunch of other guys.

  "Yeah? You like that?"

  "Dancing? Sure. Doesn't everybody?" He started the water boiling, keeping an ear out for the girls.

  Drake shrugged. "People who can, yeah."

  He had no idea what to say to that, so he didn't. Drake wasn't into guys and God knew Mindy and Jerry never went dancing, so maybe it was just him.

  He started the béchamel sauce, pondering what he was going to eat, after the kids were in bed.

  "Hey, that's not regular macaroni, that's fancy sauce." Drake grinned. "And here I thought we were going to have mac'n cheese out of a box."

  His nose winkled. "Nope. It has gluten."

  "And we're gluten-free. What is gluten exactly anyway?"

  "It's a protein that is found in wheat and barley and stuff. It makes Maggie poop blood."

  "Gross." Drake frowned and pointed at the macaroni. "Doesn't that have gluten, then?"

  He held up the container. "Rice pasta."

  "That's pretty neat."

  "There's a bunch of kinds. They like this one for macaroni." God knew they'd experimented with a thousand.

  "Huh. Cool." Drake looked at the macaroni suspiciously.

  "It's cheesy, slimy, and has hot dogs."

  "Great…" Drake looked like it was going to jump out of the saucepan and bite him.

  "Uh-huh." Fabulous.

  "So uh…" Drake stepped closer. He could feel the heat coming off the man, could smell him. "Are we allowed to have something else? Anything. Hell, I'll even have PB & J again."

  "After they go to bed, we can order a pizza and eat it in the back yard."

  Drake beamed at him. "Awesome."

  God, that was an amazing smile.

  "Just don't tell." And don't ask. Or look. Or anything. God. He needed to get laid.

  He got another awesome smile, and Drake stood a little closer. "It'll be our secret."

  "I'm good at keeping secrets." Oh, stop it.

  Drake grinned at him, winked. "Good."

  Okay, no deciding Mr. I Think Gluten-Free Bread Sucks was cute. Not even a little. Of course that didn't mean Drake wasn't a stud. Slayde almost wished the man would swear again.

  "Can you please check on the girls?" Stand somewhere else?

  "Yeah, okay. How long 'til supper?" Drake wasn't moving yet and the man smelled so good.

  "An hour or so."

  "Okay." Drake lingered a moment longer, looking at him, and then seemed almost to shake himself turning and going.

  Slayde needed to… He didn't know. Shit, maybe all he needed to do was have a conversation with the big grumpy bastard.

  Two minutes later Drake was back. "Girls are watching Lilo and Stitch. How come you're not, Christian?"

  "That's a girl's movie."

  "Are you kidding? It's got all that great Elvis music and an alien."

  Christian wrinkled his nose. "I don't like it."

  "How about Elvis, though? He's the king, you know." Drake began to rock his hips from side to side. "One for the money, two for the show." Not a bad singing voice. And Drake had said he couldn't dance, but he sure could move his hips.

  Slayde was a bad man. Really. Because he could so take Drake upstairs and ride the man into hysteria.

  "Three to get ready, now go cat go." Drake grinned at Christian. "I will watch any movie that has songs by the King in it. Even if it's aimed at kids." Which explained why Drake suddenly knew about Lilo and Stitch when he didn't seem to have a clue about pretty much anything kid related.

  Christian looked at him, head tilting. "I like Cars."

  "I haven't seen that one. I haven't seen most of them." Drake shrugged. "Lilo and Stitch has a lot of Elvis in it."

  "Can we watch Cars after Lilo and Stitch, Uncle Slayde?"

  He nodded. "Sure. I don't see why not." By then the girls would need to run around and play anyway.

  "So is Cars about…well, cars?" Drake grinned at Christian.

  "Uh-huh. Come on, let's go find it."

  Christian grabbed Drake's hand and dragged the man off, letting Slayde get the macaroni in the oven.

  He could hear Drake and Christian laughing, having a good time together. Slayde leaned against the counter, eyes closed for a second. It felt good, to just be still for a minute or two, to know there was someone else looking out for the kids.

  He heard Christian's triumphant "found it!", heard the girls complain, but instead of hearing a fight he had to go break up, all was quiet.

  He should go check, but he was so sleepy. He dozed off, standing right there.

  "Slayde. Slayde." Drake touched his shoulder, jerking him out of sleep. "You all right, man?"

  "Sorry. Sorry. Yeah. Everyone okay?" He looked at the clock. Eight minutes. He'd only been asleep eight minutes. Okay.

  "Yeah,
Christian is setting up Cars. I'm gonna watch it with him, okay?"

  "That's great. The girls playing?" He put water in the coffee pot.

  "Yeah. Maggie's Lilo and Jenny is Stitch. You should hear them trying to sing "Hunka Hunka Burnin' Love"."

  Slayde chuckled. "I'll have to video it to send to Mindy. She'd love that."

  "Yeah, she would. She's not quite the Elvis fan I am, but I know she's a Maggie and Jenny fan." Drake gave him a wink and grabbed a banana.

  Oh, no. Slayde didn't think he could stand here and watch the man eat a banana. No way. "I'll go see if I can't catch them." So what if he was coward. He couldn't spring wood around the man; Drake would beat the fuck out of him.

  He high-tailed it out of the kitchen, feeling Drake's eyes on him until he was out of sight.

  Damn it. He was never going to survive the next nine or so months. Never.

  ***

  Drake was in trouble.

  Over the last week, he'd learned the kids' routine, and he and Slayde were working well together. The kids seemed really happy, and even Mindy was pleased he was there now to help out. None of that was a problem.

  It was Slayde who was the problem. The man had a fine ass. He had warm eyes and a full, generous mouth. His belly was inviting and the few times Slayde's T-shirt had slipped up, it had revealed a little treasure trail disappearing into the man's waistband. All of which, in and of itself, wasn't a problem.

  No, the problem was that Drake had noticed and continued to notice these things. His prick especially was noticing. More than once he'd had to abruptly leave the room or risk being found out thanks to his traitorous cock.

  Like just now.

  He'd been helping with supper while Slayde made dessert, the man licking something creamy off his lips. Drake had had a sudden vision of that tongue and those lips on his cock and bam, there he was with a hard on pushing at his zipper. He'd dropped the plates on the table and high-tailed it into the backyard. Deep breaths weren't helping and he tried to picture the last dead body he'd seen as he walked around the backyard like a trapped hound.

  "You okay, man?" Slayde's head popped out of the back door.

  "Shit." He cleared his throat and tried to surreptitiously thump his prick. Down boy. "Fine."

  "Okay. Cool. Just checking." Slayde disappeared again, and it wasn't two minutes before the kids were heading out into the early evening heat.