I opened my mouth to speak but she cut me off.
"But here's the deal. You can't live like that. And, I can't have my nephews living like that. So, here's what I'm gonna do for you."
I closed my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose and sucking in a deep breath, knowing I was about to hate whatever came out of her mouth.
"My new show is taking off and we've just been renewed for a second season. The test audiences love it. Love it, Erik. I have a free month come Friday. Instead of taking off to Fiji like I planned, I'm gonna pack up my girl and bring her and my team to you. We'll spend the month doing our thing and get you all sorted."
Liv paused for effect. "You can thank me now."
I counted to three slowly before responding. "Liv, you know I love you –"
"Oh, I know."
"—but," I continued. "I'm fine. The boys are fine. We're fine. It's just been a busy week."
"Uh, no. Rune found a dead rat in their nursery."
I shot straight, "what?"
"Check family chat."
I pulled the phone away from my ear, fingers rapidly navigating to our family group chat. Sure enough, after a bunch of responses, including one from my mother threatening to immediately come home, there was the picture. A dead rat next to Mr. Snuggles.
I gagged, then bit out a curse. "Fuck."
"Yeah," Liv agreed. "Now, I have the solution."
"Tell me."
"The Queen of Clean."
I frowned. "Huh?"
"It's the show I was telling you about at Christmas, remember?"
Nope.
"Vaguely," I lied.
Liv made an annoyed sound. To be fair, Christmas day was when the twins were handed over to me – meaning everything else from that time until right this second was a bit of a blur.
"I found Laura on Instagram. She was posting a bunch of cleaning videos for her family's business. She's a fourth generation cleaner and they do everything. As in crime scenes, domestic houses, commercial, you think it, they clean it. The videos are addictive. She even made me want to clean."
Well that's a goddamned miracle.
My sister wasn't exactly known as a domestic goddess.
"So, I reached out and found this amazing personality on the other end. Bro, she's awesome. Like crazy pretty, hilarious, smart and never, not once, shames people for their cleaning practices. She just comes in and wants to help. It's like… if Mary Poppins and Tina Fey had a baby."
What?
"Uh-huh," I muttered, running a hand through my hair. "So, you're gonna bring her here?"
"And get your house ship-shape. You need a hand; Laura is the person to do it."
"I don't know," I muttered, thinking of the piles of dirty onesies and my never-ending laundry basket. Not to mention the dirty dishes and bottles that took up just about every surface in the kitchen…
"Erik, there was a rat in your house."