Disclaimer: I don't own The O.C. Or Chino. Or my own home. So there.
A/N: I had no idea it'd been so long since I'd last posted. Whoops. My LJ maybe has some more timely updates...bluestargirl6 if you're curious...
If you'd told her a year ago that she would have enjoyed babysitting Ryan's baby she would have shrugged, maybe gotten a little teary, and changed the subject.
If you'd told her two years ago she would have asked, "Ryan who?"
But Nicholas is a sweet baby. He's a perfect combination of his parents, but he doesn't look enough like one of them to be painful.
Nicky likes to cuddle and he's standing and trying to walk. He falls frequently, and hates it. Like his father, Nicholas doesn't have a lot of patience for bullshit. If given a vote he'd probably rather skip the walking thing altogether and learn to drive.
She doesn't even mind the hour drive each way to Chino and back to Newport. She never lets Ryan pay her, despite his insistence. Once he'd slipped twenty dollars into her purse and she'd spent the next month slipping twenties into Ryan's wallet until he told her to knock it off and started hiding his wallet.
Ryan always invites her to spend the night when he and Theresa get home especially late. Sometimes she even stays.
Which is how she knows that Ryan and Theresa sleep in separate rooms with different people.
Still she doesn't like to stay the night sleeping on the couch. She's afraid one night Ryan will invite her to spend the night in his room. If he ever asked, she knows she wouldn't refuse.
As she walks into the cool night air Ryan once more invites her to stay, and she refuses. She'll drive through somewhere and get a Diet Coke that will get her home. When Ryan asks why she doesn't just stay she makes a stupid joke about the couch being uncomfortable.
Once the words are out of her mouth she knows it's the wrong thing to say. Now Ryan has the excuse to invite her to his room, and he does.
But she's outside the house, and a few feet away from him. He's somehow easier to resist like this.
"I can't," she shakes her head and walks down the porch steps.
He follows her to the edge of the porch.
"I love you."
"I know. I love you too," the realization isn't all that surprising, and the conversation isn't terribly poignant, "But I can't stay."
It's a long time before Ryan and Theresa need her to baby-sit again.