“Callie Anne Webster! What on earth do you think you’re doing?” I reached down and scooped her up while Megan picked up a wailing Cameron and held him to her chest.
“Explain now, little girl,” I warned as I stared into my daughter’s face, not swayed whatsoever by the big hazel doe eyes she was giving me.
“I wasn’t doin’ nothin’ wrong,” she pouted. “Ms. Lizzy told me boys is stupider than girls. That they’d be lucky to kiss our feet. That’s jus what I was doin’.”
“She put her stinky toes in my mouth, Mommy!” Cameron cried, not to be one-upped by his sister when it came to dramatics.
“Yeah, it’s kinda been like this all day,” Megan informed me with an apologetic smile.
“I’m so sorry—”
She raised her hands to stop me. “It’s okay, Ms. Webster, really. Some days are just more…tense than others. But we all know Cameron and Callie are good kids.”
I looked down at Callie in my arms with the sternest expression I could muster. “Well, I appreciate that, Megan. But we’ll still be having a talk about this behavior when we get home. Won’t we, Callie?”
At least she had the good grace to look properly chastised. “Yes, ma’am,” she answered with her little bottom lip poking out.
After making the kids’ dinner later that evening and getting them bathed and de-stickified, I dressed them in their jammies and tucked then into their twin beds in the second room of our tiny apartment.
“Now, you remember what I told you?” I asked Callie as I pulled the covers up to her chin and tucked them tightly around her body, making her into the little bedtime burrito that she liked so much.
“Never listen to anything Ms. Lizzy says,” she repeated.
“And?”
“And no more puttin’ my toes in bubby’s mouf,” she stated matter-of-factly.
I smiled and placed a kiss on her forehead. “That’s right, baby. Now, give Mommy night night kisses.”
She tilted her face up to me and planted a smacking kiss on my lips before I climbed from the side of her bed and went over to Cameron.
“Mommy, will you make me into a burrito, too?” I smiled down at him, brushing his sandy brown hair from his forehead. “You got it, bub.” I pulled his covers up and tucked them tightly around his body, just like I’d done to his sister, before giving him a kiss goodnight.
I reached up to turn off the bedroom light when Callie asked, “Will you read Goodnight Moon? Just one more time? Pleeeeeease?”
“I already read it three times, baby. Go to sleep now.”
I flipped the switch and pulled the door to, leaving it open just a crack. Walking into the kitchen, I poured myself a glass of iced tea, and curled up on the couch. My DVR was calling my name. I had about a million episodes of The Mindy Project and New Girl just waiting to give me a much needed hour or so of enjoyment.
My life was chaotic and every hour of my day seemed to be full, but I had my little ones, a job I loved, and new friends. Best of all, I was doing it all on my own, just me taking care of my kids and building a happy life for all of us.
Shooting up a quick prayer of thanks, I sipped my tea and queued up a mindless sitcom.
This was what life was all about.
“Good morning, sunshine,” Lizzy called as I walked through the door of Elegant Nail. She was in a chipper mood. I wasn’t sure if it had to do with the cup of coffee in her hand—no doubt her second or third cup—or the fact that she had that sexy blond man warming her bed, but I was still planning to rip her a new one after the little scene at the daycare.
“You have a good night?”
“You tell me,” I told her dryly as I propped my hands on my hips and stared her down. “First, I had to deal with Callie pile driving her brother into the ground like she was Xena the friggin’ Warrior Princess. Does that sound good to you?”
Lizzy choked on a surprised laugh.
“Or how about when she planted her little ass on his chest and tried to shove her foot down his throat, all because you told her boys are stupider than girls and should be kissing our feet?”
Her eyes grew wide in that oh, shit, my bad expression. I opened my mouth to lay into her when a deep, amused laugh from the front door caught my attention. I turned around to see Brett standing there, his gorgeous face alight with humor as he chuckled. That devastating smile of his momentarily short-circuited my brain.
“Sounds like your girl’s being raised right, if you ask me,” he joked as he took a step closer to Lizzy and me.
Giving my head a quick shake, I pulled myself from my lustful haze and narrowed my eyes at him. “I’m glad you find this funny.” It dawned on me in that second that those few words were the first we’d ever spoken to each other.