Hey guys! We're almost halfway through the story, and things are starting to heat up between Matt & Mimi. Thanks again for the reviews! Lol
Janay – I'm glad to hear you love my story! Kaye – now that's a great review! Thanks! Yeah, Nikko & Ella are angels, aren't they? Actually, both of them can say 'one' syllable words, but Nikko learned a really awesome word that you'll find pretty hilarious once he say it!...you'll be surprised to hear what it is. Dark's Assassin – CONGRATULATIONS! Since you got the right answer, you win the prize of…uh…well, reading another great chapter! Hehe! Enjoy!
Chapter Eight
It was dark when she dropped Willis at the real-estate office where he left his care all day, & for a couple of minutes she just sat in the parking lot, rolling her head to try to loosen the muscles in her neck. In eight hours she managed to change four diapers & feed Ella lunch & a snack, while showing six houses in six different neighborhoods and driving by seven more. If hadn't actually done it, she would have sworn it was impossible.
She gave up in the neck exercises & reached for her cell phone. Sora's home number rang & rang, and finally the answering machine kicked on. "Matt?" she said. "Are you there?"
Finally the phone clicked. "Yeah, what's up?"
Mimi tried not to let her relief show. "I was starting to wonder where you were."
"That makes two of us. I was under the dishwasher. Where have you been?"
"I thought you said the dishwasher was hopeless? Never mind, you can tell me later. I've been showing houses…what did you think I was doing?"
"I was starting to wonder if you'd gone out dancing with that tycoon."
"Well, he did invite me to dinner. You could have called my cell phone."
"I forgot to ask you for the number.'
"Oh…I guess that makes us even because I don't have yours either. Sora's phone list is posted on the refrigerator door."
"Perfectly sensible," Matt muttered. "Why hang it right next to the phone when it can be all the way across the room?"
"Ask Sora. Anyway, I thought I'd pick up a pizza. Is pepperoni & extra cheese all right with you?"
"My favorite, & you told me we didn't have anything in common…I thought the tycoon too you to dinner?"
"I said he invited me. I'll be home as soon as the pizza's done." Mimi clicked off the phone & sat still for a moment longer. I'll be home…It was a good thing Matt hadn't picked up on that little slip, or he'd be tying his jogging shoes right now in an effort to get away from the barest hint of domesticity.
If it hadn't been for the requirement of basic good manners, Mimi would have eaten her share of the pizza on the drive home. Even Ella seemed perk up at the sharp scent of pepperoni & cheese; the child who had gone as limp as a boneless chicken in protest at being taken in & out of her car seat all day was suddenly sitting up straight & sniffing hungrily.
"Don't get any ideas about snitching my pepperoni," Mimi said. "You're having spaghetti & meatballs, remember? You heard me order it."
She carried Ella into the house first & stopped dead just inside the back door. The galley kitchen was completely blocked, with the dishwasher sitting squarely in the center of the narrow walkway. She took a second look & saw hat there were now two dishwashers…the old one blocking the kitchen, & the new one which stuck halfway out the cabinets.
"Sora will love this setup," she said. "Having to climb over the dishwasher to get to the back door, I mean."
"Sorry," Matt sounded distracted, "I was going to take that out of the way before you got here."
"No problem, you can either let me hand Ella to you or go open the front door & I'll walk around."
He dusted his hands on his jeans & took the baby. Nikko came around the corner on hands & knees, and Ella leaned out of Matt's arms & shrieked, "Kick!"
Mimi snapped her fingers. "So that's what she means! She'd been saying it all day. I was starting to think I had a budding soccer star on my hands, when all she wanted was to know where her brother was." She looked pat Ella, who was hugging Nikko, & gasped.
A narrow read streak scarred the baby's face…running across his forehead, down one cheek, all the way to this chin. It looked as if he'd been slashed with a razor.
Mimi clutched her chest. "What happened to Nikko?"
"Don't panic, it's not permanent. Well, actually, it was a permanent marker he got hold of, but I'm sure it'll wash off sooner or late."
"You gave him a permanent marker to play with?"
"I certainly did not! And I didn't give him the brand new & expensive building permit that he scribbled all over, either."
Mimi winced. "I bet that hurt."
"He's lucky to be here. Between the building permit & the client he hung up on…"
Mimi put both hand up, palms out. "Hold the thought for a minute; I'm going after the pizza. I suspect I'm going to need fuel to listen to this story."
When she came up with the boxes, he shifted the dishwasher enough that she could squeeze by. She set the pizza on the counter, got two plates down from the cabinet, & opened the order of spaghetti and meatballs, cutting the meat into twin-sized bites. It was mindless chore & her attention drifted to a slip of paper on the counter. "I had no idea dishwashers cost that much," she said.
Matt shot her a sideways look & slid the receipt out from under the pizza box. It vanished into his pocket with the same smoothness that a magician would use to make a white rabbit disappear.
Thoughtfully, Mimi continued to mince the meatballs. "Did Sora call today?"
"No, why?"
"I thought maybe you'd have talked to her before you spent that much money on a new dishwasher."
Mimi thought for a minute that he wasn't going to answer at all, but finally Matt said, "I'm going to tell her it was left over from o job. Was the tycoon up to your expectations?"
"Oh, quite." She kept her tone airy.
"Then why didn't you go to dinner with him?"
She gave it up. "Because eight hours in one day is all I could take," she admitted.
"You do that a lot with guys, don't you?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, the businessman bored you, & now the tycoon."
"There is no comparison. I have to listen to Willis Harrison. This reminds me…"
"I don't think I like the sound of this."
"About tomorrow, Matt…"
He ran a hand through his hair. "Not on you life, Mimi. One more day with Nikko in tow & I won't have a business left."
"No, no, it's only the evening. Willis has meetings all day."
"Wait a minute. I thought you weren't going out with him."
"I'm not, but we still have houses to look at."
"Eight hours & he couldn't find anything he liked?"
"Some people buy the first thing they look at. Others want to check out everything before they decide.'
And some of them are more interested in looking than buying. Mimi was beginning to think that Izzy has been right when he called Willis Harrison a tourist. Not that she'd admit it to Izzy…or for that matter, to Matt.
"If you'll keep the twins in the evening," she went on, "I can finish off the list with him. It won't take nearly as long if I'm not dragging Ella in & out of the car at every stop."
"Or trying to keep Nikko from eating grass," Matt said absently. "And then you'll be done?"
"For this round, anyway. He's flying back to New York Thursday morning." She set the twins' plate in the dining room & scooped up Nikko to put him in his high chair. "Matt, after the first couple of houses, he actually suggested that I just leave Ella sitting in the car while we looked around. Come on, I have to do this. Help me, please."
He captured Ella, who protested being picked up but sniffed thoughtfully as he set the plate of spaghetti on the tray in front of her. Mimi put a slice of pizza on a plate & handed it to Matt.
"On one condition," he said.
She paused in midmotion. "What's that?"
"Hey, you're not in much position to bargain, you know. After tomorrow, we both take the rest of the week off."
"So we don't have to juggle the babies? That's not a condition, Matt, that's a reward. I couldn't do that to Ella again; anyway…the poor kid was exhausted from getting in & out of the car all day."
"And you don't look so good, either."
"My back aches," Mimi admitted. "That's a pretty awkward angle to be lifting twenty pounds, especially when she doesn't want to be lifted."
He set the pizza down & moved around behind her, his hands warm against her shoulder blades. "Tell me where it hurts."
"All over."
He pulled out a chair. "Here, sit down backwards & fold your arms on the back. It's a pretty makeshift massage bench, but it works in a pinch."
Mimi sat down, propped her chin on her hands, & sagged. No wonder Ella had done the limp-chicken act, she thought…it felt good to pretend to be boneless. She noticed that Nikko had given up on his spoon & was feeding himself with his hands, but she couldn't muster up enough energy to care. In fact, now that he was half-covered in marinara sauce, the red marker hardly showed at all.
Matt used his thumbs to massage her spinal column & the flat of his hands to rub the sore spots across her shoulders. When he moved up to her neck, using his fingertips to work the muscles, Mimi groaned. He froze & she said, "Don't stop. That feels so good."
She lifted a hand & pulled the clip out of her hair, releasing the twist at the back of her head so he could more easily run his fingers over her scalp. "You're handy to have around, you know that?" she asked lazily. "You'd better watch out or some woman's going to try to keep you."
He stopped rubbing. For an instant, he was absolutely still. Mimi felt as if his fingers were electrical contacts & her scalp a transformer. Idiot, she told herself. Don't act domestic…even if it's the farthest thing from your mind, you can't afford for him to get the wrong idea. You need him. The kids need him.
Ad even though she'd like him to keep on rubbing her back for the next year, it was time to call a halt. She pushed herself up from the chair & turned with what she hoped was only a friendly smile. "Thanks, Matt. That felt wonderful. Hey, what happened to your neck?"
He ran a finger down his throat, tracing the scratch. "Nikko's making a point. It won't happen again, because I trimmed his fingernails while he was napping this afternoon."
"Good thinking." She got herself a piece of pizza & reached into the refrigerator for a soda. "Here's my cell number if you want it, by the way." She ran a finger down the phone list, looking for his, & knocked loose the magnet which held the list onto the refrigerator door. As she grabbed for the magnet, a slip of paper fluttered out of the calendar which was stuck up next to the list.
She muttered under her breath & picked it up form the floor. She actually stuck it back on the refrigerator before her tired brain registered what it was. "Oh, no," she whispered.
"What now?" Matt asked warily.
"Tomorrow's Wednesday the fifth…right?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Because this is an appointment card: 'Twins' portrait, Jensen Studio, Wednesday, September fifth, 10:00 a.m." She looked up at Matt. "Now what do we do?"
Mimi was startled when Matt shrugged the problem off as no big deal. "Getting their picture taken can be the adventure of the day for the three of you," he said.
It would be an adventure, all right. Mimi's head was swimming at the very thought of dressing up two babies & getting them to sit up straight & smile…at the exact same moment the camera clicked.
"And with Nikko's face looking as if he's been slashed in a gang war," she said dryly, "I'm sure it'll be a portrait that Sora will want to hang over prominently over the fireplace, too."
Matt's forehead wrinkled. "What fireplace?"
"In their next house."
"They're looking for another house?"
"Stop changing the subject," Mimi ordered.
"I'm not even the one who brought up…oh, all right." He took a deep breath & blew it out with a whoosh. "I'd forgotten about Nikko's face," he admitted. "I guess I don't want that immortalized on film."
He looked sympathetic that Mimi forgave him. "If you can scrub him off before Sora gets home, she'll never have to know what happened."
The corner of his mouth turned up. "Are you offering to share secrets with me, Mimi?"
"No…I'm collecting blackmail material on you. Not that I think I'll have to keep that promise not to tell his mom because it would take sandpaper to clean him up enough to fool her."
Matt looked thoughtful. "What about one of those spa places? Somebody was telling me they promise to shave years from your age by taking off the top layer of skin. What do they call that? Skin peels?"
"Face peels." Mimi wondered which of the models would have been dumb enough to tell him about face peels. Wrong question, she thought. Which one would be smart enough not to? "That would be worse than the sandpaper."
Matt looked a bit disappointed.
"Even if it wasn't for Nikko's face, though, we couldn't do it…I have no idea how Sora wants them dressed, or…" She saw him start to open his mouth & added, "Don't tell me one outfit is just as good as another, either, because it's not."
"You're the expert on making things look good, Mimi. Though I was just thinking we could leave him this way. By tomorrow morning, the spaghetti sauce will have hardened & it'll cover up everything underneath, so Sora would never know the difference. No? All right, call the studio & cancel the appointment."
"It's too late tonight. I'll call early in the morning." She looked at the card again. "I hope rescheduling is no big thing. This says Sora's already paid for the sitting."
"They must do it all the time," Matt said. "Would you stop worrying about it & help me excavate the kids from the spaghetti so you can give them a bath?"
"Why is the bath my job? I thought this was a partnership."
"I still have to finish the dishwasher. Unless of course, you want to walk around it all day tomorrow, or I can leave you the installation guide o you can…"
"Get to work," Mimi ordered.
AN: I just finished typing chapter nine, & hopefully I'll be able to post it before Sunday. Don't forget to leave a review! Oh, by the way, the name Willis Harrison came from the names of Bruce WILLIS & HARRISON Ford, who are very good actors! Good job, Dark's Assassin! Watch out for the movie "Sin City" everyone! lol
