Another shout sounded from beyond the bathroom door and Trunks reached out and silently flicked the lock. He didn't know how long he could remain in here undetected, but it was worth a shot.
"Hang on," he said into the phone.
His sister, "bulla ", chuckled. "Where are you, anyway? You sound all echoey."
He pressed his cell phone to his cheek and lowered his voice. "Echoey is not a word. I'm hiding in the bathroom."
She barked a laugh. "From your son ? Trunks , really."
"I think I bit off more than I can chew," he mumbled, pacing the tiled floor. On his second pass between shower and sink, he noticed the ruckus that had driven him in here had stopped. Suspicious. He shushed Bulla and held his breath, pressed his ear to the door to listen. Nothing. He unlocked it and poked his head out.
"Hello?" she whispered.
"He's gone into stealth mode," he said quietly. She erupted into another fit of laughter. "Send reinforcements."
Tiptoeing in his socks through his bedroom, he sidled along the wall and around the dresser. Back pressed against the bedroom door, he peeked into the hallway
"Rawr!"
A blur that may well have been his life flashing before his eyes nearly took Trunk's head off. He stilled the object with one palm—a plastic light saber—and Killian grinned up at him, a gap where one of his front teeth should be.
"You're dead!" Killian shouted.
"Not in the hall." Trunks voice held a comical tremor. "You're going to break something , Like my nose "
"Okay!" With that, the kid turned on a heel and went tearing down the hallway, swinging the light saber with renewed vigor.
Trunks stepped into the hallway and, with one more cautious look over his shoulder, made a break for the kitchen. "I can't get anything done with him here," he said as he neared the end of the hall. "How did you keep him for two weeks?"
The way he'd said it made two weeks sound like two years. May as well be. killian had thwarted both attempts at getting on his company's conference call and several other attempts to check his e-mail from his phone. "Seriously, did you drug him or something bulla?" he asked, only half kidding.
"Maybe I'm more maternal than you think,big bro " she quipped. He thought of bulla's struggle to get pregnant and felt the pang of loss for his only sister. She would make an excellent mother, and they all knew it. Never one to welcome pity, she shifted subjects before he could respond. "First of all, I took offwork the first week he was here. After that, he had a routine and I was able to work some in between."
"And you had Goten to help you " Her husband. Trunks had himself, and the team of engineers he'd assigned to the new project , who were having a conference call without him with their client , this very minute. "I can't take off this week."
He pulled in a deep breath. The slapping sound of tennis shoes on the wooden floor followed the path of the car as Killian blew past. "Careful, buddy!" he called to the five years old . Then to bulla he repeated, a little desperately, "I can't take off this week."
The truck slammed into his noise and he bit back a curse. "kill." His Son's bleu eyes grew wide and Trunks promptly slapped a patient smile on his face despite the pain in his noise .
"Not in the house, okay, buddy?"
"Sorry daddy ," he said, lifting the car and stamping in the other direction again.
Trunks limped into the sanctuary of the carpeted living room. "Help me, bulla you're my only hope."
She laughed, at his expense, but he was beyond caring. The mighty Killian breif had defeated him.
" Well you were the one who decided to move out of mom and dad house , assume your responsibility " commented bulla
" I know , but at the time I wasn't aware of ...this "
"You mean to say I didn't know my son trunks , you were neglecting him and now is your chance to bond with the kid "
" I still need to work and I can't leave him alone "
Bulla heaved a sigh, then blew out the word "okay" before falling silent while she thought. A moment later, he heard her snap her fingers, a sign she'd landed on an idea. "What about the day care in your building?"
"What? No." He wouldn't abandon his son in a strange place, not even the day care at work, which he knew was staffed with well-trained professionals. Last night, killian had a nightmare because of the change of scenery. bulma had warned Trunks it might happen, but nothing had prepared him for the helplessness of holding his son and being unable to comfort him. He remembered killian's eyes, wide with terror and filled with tears, his little heart racing against Trunks's chest.
"No," he repeated firmly.
"Okay… Well, what about a nanny?"
A plump, proper woman with a British accent popped into his mind and he made a face. "You can't be serious bulla "
Bulla 's voice dipped conspiratorially. "What if she was someone you knew? Someone we all knew?"
He crossed an arm over his chest and narrowed his eyes at the lake view outside. She was up to something. Plotting and scheming as per her usual. "Bulla , you do understand that kill is part sayian right ?"
" I know but..."
" bulla ." he interrupted her " unless you are going to hire Superman daughter nobody can handle my son , hell I couldn't stop him , can you imagine what would happen to the poor nanny ?"
"Stop being dramatic trunks, You remember pan ?
" pan...ah you mean little panny ?"
He smiled as he remembered the little tomboy who used to play with his sister
", She's not so little anymore trunks , anyway she's back from her space trip and still adjusting to earth , she's not working , so I was thinking that she'll be the perfect nanny for kill "
Trunks sighted " I don't think that she'll appreciate babysitting my son as an activity on earth "
Pan left on a trip to space five years ago , around the time trunks was supposed to get married
"She will , i'll talk to her , besides this is pan , she won't mind living with you "
" What ! live with me ?
"Of course." He pictured her shrugging. "You'll need someone to bathe Kill and feed him dinner at night in case you need to work late at the office. And in the morning, you won't want to wait for her to arrive"
She was being a smartass, but she had a point. if Pan was here with Kill taking care of him , He could focus on work and be home in time to play with his son or tuck him in. But a woman living in his penthouse? Not that his place was small. At six thousand square feet, it'd easily hold the three of them .
"I don't know, Sis. Has Pan… done this sort of thing before? Cared for the Son of a bachelor workaholic billionaire whose fiancée dumped him cause he freaked her out with his strength , then found out she was pregnant , gave him his son in exchange for a lot of money "
"Of course! , she used to babysit.children when we were teens and look at the positive side , you don't have to act around pan "
"okay , talk to her and tell me "
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Me? Babysit?" Pan couldn't say the word without laughing. But seriously. Her with a child? It was ridiculous.
Bulla lifted a turquoise silk shirt and held it up to her chest. "Does this bring out my eyes?"
Pan. took the top out of Bulla's hands and hung it back up. "You know it does."
the bleu haired girl rolled her eyes. "Anyway, it's not babysitting. It's a nanny position."
"Oh, that's so different." She turned to walk away.
"It is!" bulla followed.
"I'm an only child," she said. "I have had zero experience with siblings or babies or children of my own. Do you want to entrust your only nephew with someone who has never changed a diaper?"
Bulla laughed the next two words. "He's six. And well out of diapers."
"See?" She stood and paced to the other side of the store
Bulla waved her off. "My nephew is a doll face. Like me." She batted her eyelashes.
Pan rolled her eyes " yeah right "
"Oh come on panny , help out a friend , I thought we are family ,you know even Goten loved the idea , he was going to call you himself "
Pan could get through her discomfort, figure out how to handle a five-year-old. The main problem with this whole scenario was that Bulla had said this was a "live-in" situation. And Pan couldn't fathom a world where she might live under the same roof as Trunks . Unless it was a fantasy world of her making.
bulla leand and murmured "I know you had a crush on Evan way back then," started.
" That was an age ago "
" I won't consider six years an age ago , so are you in ?"
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It may have been a long time since Pan had seen Trunks in person, but she'd seen a picture of him six months ago in the Arts Entertainment section of the City Tribune. In the photo, he was as gorgeous as ever , and although it was a photo , pan couldn't stop her heart from beating faster. Trunks was her first love , and maybe the only one., the man she left everything just to not see him married .
Of course " bulla " managed to convince her to be Trunks son nanny
and she told her that he'll call her after lunch
She spent the remainder of the afternoon with one eye on the telephone wondering what "after lunch" meant to a billionaire . What time did he eat lunch? Most people ate at noon, but sometimes she got caught up in a task and forgot to eat until two.
The cordless phone rang on the counter next to her, and she nearly jumped out of her lightly freckled skin.
"Hello?"
" Panella Son, please."
Oh, his voice. She had been too young to know what the sound of Trunks deep, hypnotic voice had been doing to her. The nights she'd lain awake in bulla's top bunk and listened to the melody of his words float up from the porch. She remembered how goose bumps lit her skin whenever he'd spoken. Now a woman, she knew exactly what that sensually deep voice had been doing. Making sweet love to her ear canal.
"Hello?" he asked when she'd
gone silent.
"Speaking," she said on a near moan.
Trunks breif bulla's brother , you remember me right pan ?."
Like he needed any introduction.
"Of course I do , it's nice to hear from you Trunks "
She managed to say
" Same here , pan , Thank you for agreeing to stay with my son this week. I appreciate your willingness to step in at the last minute."
Wow. Official. His tone made her stand straighter. "Oh, um Sure "
"I wanted to go over a few items with you if you don't mind."
"Oh. Sure." Could she sound like more of an idiot? Say something besides "oh" and "sure." And probably stop thinking of his voice
If her stern self-talking-to wouldn't jolt her out of her thoughts, Trunks 's next question did.
"Do you have any food allergies or special requests for meals while you're here?"
Last thing on the planet she'd expected him to ask.
"Whatever you have is fine," she answered.
"Just wanted to make sure , any preference ? , I want you to have everything.you want "
Feeling like she should say something, she finally blurted, "I like potato chips."
And I'm a moron.
He did chuckle this time, and she may have emulsified into a puddle of humiliation if it hadn't been for how sexy he'd sounded. It was the way he laughed, deep in his throat, the sound short but powerful. Like a punch to the gut. How, again, was she supposed to live with this man for an entire week?
"Potato chips," Trunks repeated. "Perfect." She had no idea what he meant by that, and he didn't offer an explanation. She heard a scratching sound like he'd put pen to paper to write it down. He went through a list of questions, reiterating how he would provide all her expenses for the week she stayed with Lyon, and ignoring her when she insisted that wasn't necessary.
They agreed that she'll move with them tomorrow and Trunks will introduce her to killian
111111111111111111111111111111 it's my first try so tell me what you think