Luke was in the driver's seat of the black jeep as evening was approaching. His chocolate brown eyes were trained on the road as Gabriel sat beside him playing navigator. All Gabriel had to do was relay the information the Maps app on his iPhone displayed, but the teen couldn't help but stir up conversation with questions and speculations.
"We'll be out before midnight, right?" he half asked, half stated as he ran his fingers through his hair, blending the blonde fore locks in with the rest of the russet that was finally starting to grow out the way he wanted. "I mean, how hard can this assignment be? Easiest three favors ever." Gabriel really needed them, so he did not hesitate to throw his hand up into the air when Kota asked for volunteers the day before.
"I don't know, man," Luke said. "We've never done this kind of job before. Even North looked concerned."
"North always looks concerned," Gabriel retorted.
A smile tugged on Luke's lips. Gabriel had a point. "Hear me out. I live with the guy. Sort of. This was more so than his usual look. He's done this sort of thing before. He knows we're walking into something more than what's in the file, and that makes me nervous."
"When the hell did North do this?" Gabriel asked incredulously. "He's the last person I'd expect to pull one of these jobs."
"Sometime last year," Luke answered. "Not for this bird, but he did it."
"Well, fuck me sideways. I didn't know he had it in him."
The jeep parked at the correct address stated in the file, a typical home that did not stand out from any of the others in the area. Side by side, they headed for the door.
"Any guesses to where she's going?" Luke asked quietly as his eyes scanned around their surroundings, making sure no one was paying attention to them.
Gabriel inspected the home's exterior and quickly analyzed any pertinent details that may factor into their mission as he answered. "No clue. Maybe a hot date."
"She's married," Luke said.
"A hot date with her husband?"
Luke shook his head, his long blonde hair bouncing about his shoulders. "He's deployed."
"Then fuck if I know," Gabriel answered as he reached forward and knocked on the door. "It's her business. Not all secrets are important."
Luke nodded. "They only look important because they're secret," he finished reciting the lesson Mr. Blackbourne taught them as part of their Academy training.
The door flung open, revealing a woman at least ten years older than the teens. As soon as she realized who they were, her expression relaxed from the stressed out state it was originally set in. "Oh, thank the gods. I knew I could count on y'all to be right on time." She stepped to the side and beckoned with her arm circling for them to enter the home. "Dinner is in the slow cooker, and you two are more than welcome to any snacks in the kitchen." As she spoke, she busied around the door, grabbing a purse to sling over her shoulder and shoving her feet into a pair of shoes. "All the important phone numbers are on the fridge."
She gave them no warning before she grabbed Gabriel by the head, stood up on her tippy toes to compensate for her shorter height, and assaulted him with a loud, smacking kiss on his cheek. Luke got the same treatment, leaving both boys standing still in shock, eyes wide and speechless.
"I freaking love you two. Good luck!" She flew out the door, closing it hastily behind her.
Luke and Gabriel looked at each other, flabbergasted.
"Don't give them sugar or caffeine!" the woman's voice sounded through the closed door before the engine of a car roared to life and peeled away, taking her from the home.
"What the flying f—"
Luke stopped Gabriel from finishing the expletive by pressing his index finger against his friend's lips.
They both sensed the presence of others not too much deeper in the house. The hairs on the back of their necks were standing on end from little stares boring into their backs. Together and in synchrony, Gabriel and Luke turned, slowly and cautiously to face their assignments for the night.
Standing in the middle of the living room were a little boy and girl. The girl was older, age six based on the file. Her eyes were several shades darker than her medium brown hair that fell about her shoulders. The boy was shorter with a stockier bone structure, age four. He looked like he was built to be a defensive linesman on a football team. His eyes and hair buzzed close to his skull matched the girl's colors perfectly. They were siblings, and they stared at the teenage boys with wide eyed curiosity.
The girl spoke first, breaking the awkward silence among the four of them as they observed each other. "Are you the babysitters?"
Luke dropped to his knees, putting himself on the same eye level as the girl. A smile easily graced his lips, making him appear friendly and approachable. "Yes! We most certainly are! You must be Molly."
The girl nodded her head.
Gabriel bent at the waist to lower his gaze to the little boy's. "And that must make you Tex."
The boy's head flopped up and down in a general affirmative gesture.
Gabriel looked to Luke from the corner of his eyes. "See? Piece of cake."
And Gabriel believed himself for the split second of peace before Tex took in a deep breath, making his chest barrel out. Suddenly, he released all the air he took in as an ear splitting shriek, making Luke fall back onto his ass and Gabriel wince into his shoulder.
It wasn't a scream of pain or fright. No, it was more a squeal of uncontained glee as his legs exploded into running away from the group and into another part of the home.
"What was that in his hand?" Gabriel asked.
"I don't know," Luke replied.
"Ketchup," Molly answered.
"Ketchup?" both teens said in unison as their eyebrows crept up their foreheads.
The little girl nodded. "He stole it while Mommy was giving me a bye-bye kiss."
"God damn!" Gabriel exclaimed. Molly gasped at his choice of vocabulary. "That was the whole bottle! Was he drinking it?"
"I got him," Luke announced as he followed Tex's trail, leaving the other two in the living room.
Molly shook her head slowly back and forth as she stared Gabriel down. "You said bad words. You have to go to the stop station now."
"Stop…station?"
Molly took Gabriel's hand with her own, tiny fingers, and tugged on him. Gabriel followed, hoping his curiosity would be answered with wherever she was taking him.
She led him to the dining area behind the living room, and then dropped his arm. In a corner of the room, a little laminated sign was affixed to the wall with brass thumb tacks. The sign was a line of clipart: a stop sign on top, a crudely drawn person with no hair on his head sitting on a chair just below it, and a similarly bald head with a finger over his mouth on the bottom. Molly took one of the chairs from under the dining table and scooted it to face the sign on the wall.
"Sit, please," she said to Gabriel.
Gabriel was pretty sure he figured out what was going on, but he didn't want to believe it. He asked for confirmation. "Why?"
Molly's hands planted on her hips as she scowled. "You said bad words. That's five minutes in the stop station. Sit, please."
He sat.
She set a large and vibrant blue hour glass on the corner of the table, well within Gabriel's line of sight. The cap on the top stated in an easy-to-read font "5 minutes."
The sand timer flipped, and the grains of blue sand started trickling through the narrowed passage at the middle of the bulbous glass to pile at the bottom.
"Are you serious?" Gabriel asked.
"No talking at stop station!" Molly reprimanded while pointing at the third clipart icon: the bald head with the finger.
So Gabriel sat, his crystal blue eyes glaring back and forth from that laminated print out to the blue sand steadily falling to the bottom of the timer.
Luke walked by with the bottle of ketchup in one hand and a squirming boy under his other arm. The blonde teen paused in his steps when he noticed his best friend sitting and facing the wall.
"What are you doing, Gabe?"
Gabriel's index finger shot out and pointed to the bald face, not bothering to turn his head.
While Luke was distracted, Tex managed to wiggle out of his grip and run off.
"Where's Molly?" Luke asked.
There was still sand in the top half of the timer. Gabriel furiously pointed at the shh man again.
Luke shrugged and headed to the kitchen. "I'll go ahead and serve up dinner," he said to Gabriel over his shoulder before rounding the corner.
Tex was found sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor with the jar of sweet pickle relish nestled in his lap. A spoon was on the way from the jar to his mouth.
"Ew. Gross, little man. Even I have my boundaries." Luke took up the jar and put it, along with the ketchup, back into the refrigerator. "You are obviously hungry. Let's get you some real food and eat some dinner, okay?"
Tex stood up and started jumping excitedly. "Yay! Dinner!"
"Thank God!" Gabriel shouted from the dining room. "That was the longest five minutes of my entire life!"
"Go find Molly, will you?" Luke asked from where he was searching for plateware among the cabinets above the kitchen counter.
All four sat down around the table to eat after Tex helped prepare all the toppings and garnishes. The crock pot held taco soup, and the boy absolutely refused to let anyone have any until the cheese was shredded, tortilla chips crumbled, sour cream dolloped, and cilantro sprinkled on top.
This soup was different than what Sang usually made. This kind had shredded white meat chicken instead of ground beef, but the two teens silently agreed with each other this version wasn't bad.
Molly talked the entire meal, and good lord, she could talk. Neither boy could figure out how she managed to eat her entire bowl of soup with how much her mouth was involved with the constant stream of words.
Gabriel and Luke desperately tried to follow along with her tale about some father, not her father, doing something with gummy worms, milkshakes, and something about a life class, but her words made little sense. When they asked her what she meant, she would simply repeat herself, leaving the boys wallowing in their ignorance. They eventually figured out she would just keep talking if they stopped paying attention, enabling them to eat their meal in peace. Their little plan backfired when Molly asked their opinion on something, and they could not provide an adequate answer. Thus, Molly started explaining herself all over again using the same exact words in the same exact order.
"I think I'm going to need some coffee to survive the night," Gabriel announced as everyone gathered up their empty bowls for post-dinner clean up.
"After dinner coffee? You have been hanging around Uncle too much," Luke quipped with a smirk.
Gabriel scowled at being compared to Luke's eccentric father-figure. "Shut up."
Molly gasped. "That's a bad word! Stop station!" She pointed to the sign on the wall.
"Merde! C'est des conneries!" Gabriel swore in French as he ran his finger through and ruffled his hair until it stuck out in various directions. He sat in the chair and glared at the wall as his coffee brewed.
With the dishwasher running its cycle and all of the glittering blue sand at the bottom of the timer, Tex tugged on Luke's sleeve to get his attention. "What's your name?" he asked innocently.
"We haven't introduced ourselves yet?" Luke asked as he sank to his knees.
Tex shook his head no.
Gabriel crouched next to his friend as he and Molly overheard and approached. "That's silly of us. I'm Gabriel." He pointed to his chest. "That's Luke."
"Gabriel? Can we go swimming?" Tex asked with absolutely no conversational transition.
The teens looked to each other, not having an answer readily prepared.
Gabriel placed his hand on Tex's shoulders. "One, it's against the rules to go swimming so soon after eating. You'll get cramps and drown." He knew the tale was more a myth than truth, but he was willing to play the card to help quell the boy's nearly overflowing excitement. "Two, the community pool is closed for the cold season already. Luke and I saw the cover on it when we drove by it today."
"What about the indoor pool at the YMCA?" Luke suggested. "I think they're still open now too," he added as he pulled out his phone and checked the website for confirmation.
Molly and Tex bounced on the balls of their little, bare feet.
Gabriel couldn't find a valid reason to say no. He knew his and Luke's overnight bags in the back of the jeep still had their own swimwear clean, folded, and ready to go since the summer was not that far gone, enabling them to join the munchkins in the water. "Why the h…h…" he stuttered as he quickly tried to catch himself from swearing in front of the impressionable youth, "…heck not? Go get your bathing suits on."
The children both squealed in unadulterated and ear piercing glee. Tex immediately stripped off all his clothing right there among them all, dropping the garments onto the floor in front of Luke and Gabriel's feet, and then pranced to his bedroom, bare butt and ding-a-ling jiggling in the open air.
Luke blinked after the boy. "I wasn't as creepy as that when I did it at his age, was I?"
"Yes, Luke. You were. You still are."
A few minutes later had two bundles of unbridled energy chasing each other in dizzying circles around the living room. One child demanded for the other to be the one to blow up the inflatable floatie rings. The demands evolved into shouts, then eventually an all-out argument. Luke had to step in between them as they prepared their skinny arms to start swinging at each other.
Gabriel came in from the outside. He was tasked to grab the overnight bags so the boys could prepare for the swimming excursion themselves, but Gabriel did not have them in hang. With his face solemn, he regretfully announced, "We can't go to the pool."
His heart shattered into a million pieces when he was answered by three lip quivering pouts.
"Why not?" Molly asked.
"Yeah, Gabe. Why not?" Luke echoed.
Gabriel took in a deep breath and released it quickly so his cheeks billowed out. "We don't have booster seats for the jeep. The law in this state says they're too little to ride anywhere without them, and their mom must have taken theirs with her."
Luke rubbed the back of his neck with the palm of his hand. "Kota and North will figure out we took them without the boosters, then skin us alive for doing it."
Gabriel sank to the floor in front of Molly and took her little hands into his own. "I'm very sorry, tiny bird. No swimming tonight. Go ahead and put your clothes back on, please." In truth, Gabriel was looking forward to a swim too. The craving to play in the water always seemed to strike him right after Nathan closed and winterized the pool in his backyard. However, the look of betrayal in the little girl's brown eyes moved him more than his own selfish desire. He felt like he just squished a kitten in front of her. Gabriel wanted to make up for it somehow
"Uh, where's Tex?" Luke asked.
They found him drinking the remainder Gabriel's coffee that was left sitting unattended on the dining room table.
Luke lifted the mug away from the four year old and held it up and out of reach. "Nuh uh, you little puppy. How about some milk instead? And since we can't go to the pool like we hoped to, I'll make it up to you with something yummy." With a twinkle in his eyes, Luke pulled out four foil-wrapped chocolate kisses from a pocket and placed two in Tex's open hand. He gave the other pair to Molly.
Twenty minutes later, Tex was not able to stay still, even if Luke sat on him. His little legs were constantly running circles around the house, punctuated with sudden shouts, squeals, and playful screams. The boy took advantage of every single moment the teens' backs were turned throughout the night. He managed to slurp up half a dozen Taco Bell hot sauce packets at one point. At another, he was licking pumpkin pie spice out of the container, which really puzzled Luke. The spice rack was well above their heads and certainly not within the child's reach.
The boys tried to occupy the children with a movie. First, they popped in Frozen, hoping to appeal to Molly. She talked through half of the movie, then huffed when the iconic song started and stormed off, telling the boys loudly that she was too old to enjoy that song anymore.
Gabriel sang the song, hoping to woo Molly back to enjoying the movie. She wouldn't have any of it. Luke teased his friend for five seconds for being so familiar with the song, but shortly joined in and sang along. The tune was so catchy and settled into the bones. Luke just couldn't seem to let it go.
To bait Molly back into the living room, Gabriel switched the movie to some episodes of My Little Pony. That worked. The girl came back in and proceeded to detail the entire history of the main characters and their town of Ponyville as the episode played on the television screen.
Tex didn't watch a minute of television. He was too busy bouncing off the walls. The boys eventually got him to sit down when they stuck an iPad in his lap. The four year old expertly navigated to the YouTube app and was enthralled with toy review videos. For some reason, the boy got a kick out of watching fully grown adults play with toys intended for toddlers in front of a camera.
Luke took the iPad away when Tex moved on from the toy reviews to fan made videos of the My Little Pony crew twerking and performing other sexually suggestive dances rife with Gabriel-worthy expletives.
Gabriel gave Molly a mini-makeover by pretending to apply make up to her face, brushing and braiding her hair into an elaborate style worthy of a fairy tale princess, then rummaging through her dresser and closet to assemble the best princess outfits that suited her.
Luke tried to engage Tex with books, stories, castle building with legos. But the boy was so wound up, he could not focus on one task for more than two minutes before darting off to find something new to get into. All Luke could do was chase after the child and try to clean up the mess in his wake.
Gabriel wound up at the stop station three more times.
When the sugar rush ended, the little boy and girl crashed, and they crashed hard. Luke and Gabriel crashed right with them.
When Jordiscy arrived back home, she found all four of them passed out haphazardly on the couch in the living room. Tex was sleeping in Gabriel's lap, his little thumb in his mouth. A strip of masking tape was over his shirt, the name "Dr. Hooves" written in black sharpie. Gabriel had a matching name label that said "Potty Mouth".
Luke and Molly were sleeping with the sides of their heads leaning against each other. His blonde hair was braided together with her brown, attaching them together. Molly's name tape said "Pinky Pie." Luke's said he was "Cupcake Sprinkles."
Jordiscy quietly snickered to herself and let them rest after she whipped out her smartphone and quickly snapped a picture, promising herself to request these two again the next time she needed babysitters.
A/N: This one is dedicated to all the moms who need a nap. Names have been changed to protect the identities of the underage and innocent. Okay, maybe the not-so-innocent.
