“Mr. Rowan, you’re weird,” Kaira told him. “That sounds gross.”
After dinner, Jordy corralled them both for bedtime routine. Rowan hesitated, but Jordy’s raised eyebrow and quiet “What,you gonna do this without practice?” made him step into the bathroom.
He tried at first to stay back and observe, but Kaira wasn’t having it. By the time she was settled into bed, Rowan had been asked to inspect her teeth, given a tour of her bedroom, introduced to her menagerie of stuffed animals, and roped into reading a bedtime story.
“You can read three to me, and then Daddy can read three,” Kaira said magnanimously. She was snuggled in between Bluey and Elmo with Bilbo the Armadillo clasped to her chest.
“Yeah, nice try, kiddo. Two readers does not change the three-book rule. You can have three stories total from both of us.”
Kaira let out a gusty sigh, as if she truly suffered under Jordy’s outrageous dictatorial rule. “Fine. Two stories from Rowan and one from you.”
But after Rowan read the first Bilbo books with such an impressive array of voices, Jordy lost his spot in the lineup. Chuckling, he stepped forward to kiss her head. “Since Rowan’s doing such a great job, I’m going to clean up the kitchen while he tucks you in.” Rowan looked slightly alarmed, but Jordy just smiled. Rowan totally had this. “Good night, peanut.”
“Night, Daddy!” She reached up to give him a strangling hug.
At the door, Jordy glanced back and was gratified to see neither was watching him. They were too engrossed in the story of Bilbo’s bus-tour holiday.
Jordy was wiping down the counters, the kitchen tidied, when Rowan arrived, having escaped his charge.
“She manage to con you into any extra books?”
“Are you impugning my honor as a children’s librarian, a reader of books to small humans, by suggesting that I wouldbe unable to maintain a book limit?” Rowan asked with mock outrage.
“Yes.”
Rowan slumped against the counter. “Okay, so maybe she talked me into rereading the first book. But that was my fault. I forgot about his rocking chair, so clearly I hadn’t been paying close enough attention the first go-round.”
“Ah, so you’re a sucker.” Jordy nodded.
“Maybe,” Rowan agreed with a hint of a smile.
“You know your life is going to be easier if you stick to the three-books rule, right?”
“Technically we didn’t break the three-book rule—” Jordy shot him a look from his place at the sink as he filled two glasses with water. “Okay, okay, I know. But it was the first time, I figured a little rule-breaking couldn’t hurt just this once.”
“Guess you’ll find out soon enough when you’re home alone with her and I’m in another city.”
“Thanks,” Rowan said dryly.
Smirking, Jordy motioned for him to have a seat at the kitchen table and flipped open the folder he’d created after Janice’s announcement. He dreaded having to go through all this again, but now that he was faced with it, it didn’t feel so horrible.
“So, this is the contract Janice had. I figured we could start there.” He handed Rowan a clean copy and a pen. “For changes.”
“Changes?”
“Well, we already agreed that you can’t be the primary daytime caregiver right now, so let’s figure out what will and won’t work for you.”
Because Jordy’s lawyer was thorough—and because Jordy had what Emma called “control-freak tendencies”—the contract was specific about what household chores were and weren’t part of the job.
“There’s a clause stating that I’m only responsible for curbing the garbage when you’re not in the house?”
“What, you want the job full-time?”
“No, no. Just wasn’t expecting this level of detail.”
Jordy shrugged. “I want you to not hate me and quit in a huff because I asked too much or I’m not clear about what I need.”
Rowan hummed and kept reading.
