The Hot Mess and the Heartthrob(32)

“How old are you?” I know he’s four, but he doesn’t know I know he’s four, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned from Tripp’s kids, it’s how to deflect the body part questions.

“I’m eighty,” he says solemnly.

For the record, I manage to not crack up. “Eighty, huh?”

“Sometimes I’m free.” He holds up three fingers. “Sometimes I’m Iron Man.”

“I like Iron Man. He has a big heart.”

“I gots a big peanut.” He digs into his pajama pants.

“Whoa, hey, did you hear that? I think Skippy asked to go to bed.”

I leap up. The squirrel dashes for the curtain rod. And Hudson pulls an orange circus peanut out of his pajama pants. “I gots a big peanut for Skippy.”

“Hudson.”

We both look to the hallway, probably equally guiltily, at Ingrid’s voice. I can’t tell if she’s panicked at finding her son offering to show me his peanut, or frustrated that he’s out of bed, or just exhausted.

I should let her get to sleep, except she’s utterly fucking adorable, and I don’t want to leave.

I want to help her get un-exhausted. I want to give her a little slice of joy to end the night.

Her hair’s damp and hanging loosely in waves that look towel-dried and finger-combed. No makeup. Pink cheeks like she scrubbed them hard.

She’s in a baggy gray T-shirt that has HOT MESS MOMS CLUB: COFFEE CHAPTER PRESIDENT written in huge letters, and pink pajama pants with little reading mice all over them. No bra, which is making my cock twitch.

No socks either.

Also making my cock twitch.

Not saying I have a foot fetish, but I’m not saying I don’t, either.

“Skippy needs a friend,” Hudson says. He doesn’t make his Rs and Ls sound like Ws the way James did forever, and Emma still does. If he wasn’t small with a short attention span and a penchant for ditching bed for fun, I’d believe that he was eighty.

Sometimes.

“Skippy needs to go to bed, and so do you.”

“We’re busted, pal,” I tell him. “How about you go to bed, and in the morning, this magic thing will happen where you’ll wake up with lots of energy and you get to have fun?”

Ah, the suspicious eyeball. Always my favorite. “I wants fun now.”

“Sleeping’s fun.”

More suspicious eyeball.

Ingrid sucks her lips into her mouth like she’s trying to not laugh at my failing attempt to get my couch buddy to go to sleep.

“You ever have temper tantrums?” I ask him.

He freezes.

I nod. “Me too. Always when I don’t have enough sleep. And then my mom puts me in time-out, and I don’t get dessert or to see my friends. That’s why I always go to bed at my bedtime.”

“You’re not in bed now.”

“I have a grown-up bedtime.”

He looks at Ingrid, who’s approaching in full-on mom mode, then back to me. “That sucks.”

“Hudson.”

I grin at him as the squirrel leaps on my shoulder and inspects my hair. “You’re busted, little dude.”

“I got him.”

We all look at Giselle, who sneaks in the door and nods to me in answer to a question I posed five minutes ago, before she left the apartment.

“The squirrel or the potty-mouth?” Ingrid asks her.

Giselle smiles.

“That means the boy,” I translate. “She doesn’t do squirrels.”

“Here. I’ll get Skippy. He—” Ingrid reaches for the animal, and our fingers collide as I reach for him too, and there it is again.

That same jolt I felt when she kissed me. “Cage?”

She tucks her hands behind her back like she’s embarrassed. “You’re very observant.”

“Sometimes.”

She gives the squirrel a look, and he leaps off me and heads for the bookshelf.

“No, Skippy!” Hudson tries to follow, but Ingrid gets a grip on his shoulder and bends down and says something quietly in his ear.

Giselle squats in front of both of them. “Hey, little person. You’re going to bed, and I’m going to tell you a story, and then you’re going to stay there. Okay?”

He wrinkles his nose. “You smell like poop.”

“Did you throw your mommy’s things in the toilet?”

His eyes go wide, and he darts a look at Ingrid, then back to Giselle.

Giselle winks. “I won’t tell her, but only if you get your tush up and go to bed right now this very instant.”

Hudson darts for the hallway.

Ingrid lifts a brow at Giselle. “How…?”

“I can smell fear, and I know how to use it against them.” Giselle looks down the hallway. “Do you want me to make sure he goes to sleep, or do you want me to drag the other troublemaker out of here?”

I’m clearly the other troublemaker, so I snag the bakery bag and lift it up with puppy dog eyes.

And five minutes later, Ingrid and I are alone on the roof while Giselle plays babysitter.

I’m gonna owe her big for this. Kids aren’t her thing.

Pretty sure squirrels aren’t either, but Ingrid tossed a handful of peanuts into the cage and told Giselle to just shut the door if he climbed in, and otherwise not to worry about the loose rodent.