LOVE ‘EM(97)

I try not to be rude, but Roxie’s lip pokes out in a pout anyway. Normally, I’d have totally taken this chick up on her offer. But somehow, it just isn’t as appealing as it would’ve been a few weeks ago.

Mo passes by. Under her breath, she mumbles, “Brewery.”

I jog after her.

Roxie calls, “You’re missing out.”

I shrug. “Sorry, got things to do.”

Mo pushes through the swinging doors at the end of the hall.

I catch the door as it swishes back through the opening, following her. “So, where you headed?”

Shaking her head, she keeps walking. “Work stuff. You know, that’s why I’m here—to work.”

I snag hold of her elbow, pulling her to a halt. “Hey, I’ve been working. That girl approached me. Practically attacked me right there in the hall.”

Mo turns, hands on her hips. “Yeah, because you’d never do anything inappropriate in a hallway where anyone might see? You forget who you’re talking to, Danny.”

She strides away, head high, hips swaying just enough to tease, but not so much as to be over-the-top wanton.

Fuck fuck fuck.

I throw up my hands and head back to finish my stinking job. Who the fuck volunteers to be a janitor? Me, that’s who. And why? Because I want Mo. I want more than just her body. What the fuck am I thinking?

A voice calls down the hall after me. “Danny, I have good news.”

I let out a sigh and smile at the assistant director of the facility. “Hey, Cindy. What’s up?”

“Your background check came through. You’re cleared to work with the kids. So, if you want to go check it out tomorrow, you can.”

I nod. “Great. Thanks.”

Now we’re getting somewhere.





Mo leads me into a room that looks as though a paint store exploded on the walls. Every color imaginable has been used. The upper half is a mural of the Land of Oz, I guess—not sure. The lower half has hundreds of handprints of all different colors on a black background.

The room bustles with volunteers, all dressed in deep purple, collared shirts, and children…everywhere. They range in age from wailing, non-mobile baby-blobs, to snot-nosed kiddos at all the stations around the room.

One kid paints, giant brush smearing watercolors on a big white paper at an easel; another has a tower of Lego blocks on a rug printed with a road, while three tikes squabble over a yellow dump truck. More run, play, and squeal.

I’m going to get a fucking migraine. I should have quit when they handed me the toilet brush the other day. What the hell was I thinking? Mo comes into my peripheral.

Oh yeah. She’s what I was thinking.

A frazzled woman shoves a diapered kid with a big yellowish stain covering the lower back of its shirt into Mo’s arms. “Thank God you’re here. Selena didn’t show up so we’re short-handed. Can you change Xavier? He had a blow out.”

The smell hits me like a fifty pound bag of raw sewage and curdles my stomach. I step away. “What do they feed that kid?”

Mo throws me a frown and says to the woman, “Rhonda, meet Danny. Danny—Rhonda.”

I raise my fingers in a half wave. “Hi.”

She doesn’t even smile, just heads off to break up the Tonka truck tussle.

Mo pushes the stink bomb against my chest. “Here, you can take this one, since you’re so keen on volunteering.”

“What? No. I don’t know how to fix this.” The urge to flee flashes through me. Scrubbing toilets would be better any day.

She grins over her shoulder. “Don’t worry; I’ll show you. You’ll be a diaper changing pro in no time.”

I hold the smiling baby away from my body, balancing him while trying not to get my hands covered in kid shit. “This isn’t what I thought we’d be doing.”

At one of the tables with stacks of diapers along the back wall, Mo shakes her head as she takes Xavier and lays him on the plastic mat.

“Then leave; I didn’t think you really wanted to be here anyway.”

The look of disappointment on her face catches hold of something in my chest. I snatch the diaper out of her hand and grab the nearest container of baby powder. “No. I’m here. I told you I’d help. Show me what to do. How hard can this be?”





By the end of the four hour shift, Danny’s designer shirt is speckled with no-telling-what, his sleeves rolled to his elbows. His long hair is tied back with a pink ribbon little Caitlyn fixed him up with while he sat on the floor, building Lego castles with three-year-old Kelvin.

And he’s smiling—like happy smiling. No sneer. No grumbling or grumpy face. Just a contented grin, his green eyes shining unlike anything I’ve ever seen on him.