Page 8 of Falling Together

“Really?” Nolan’s eyes went wide as he jumped up and down. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

Erin stopped and put her hands on her knees. “Thank you,” she said as she struggled to catch her breath.

Blair smirked. “No big deal.”

It was a big deal, though. At least, to Erin it was. “You know, for someone who claims to know nothing about kids, you did a great job with him today.”

Blair shrugged, but the cocky smirk remained on her face. “It helps that I’m still a child and have the maturity of someone his age. I just thought about what I’d want and offered it to him.”

“You’d want someone to carry you on their shoulders?” Erin asked with a laugh.

“Hell yeah!You wouldn’t?”

Erin laughed once again. She wasn’t sure when the last time was that she had laughed this much. “If you still want the job after spending the whole day with him, it’s all yours.”

Blair bounced up and down the same way Nolan had when she offered to carry him on her shoulders. “Getting paid to act like a child? Of course I still want the job!”

Instead of feeling excited, Blair’s response made Erin nervous. While her naivety was cute, it also worried Erin. “He’s not always as well-behaved as he was today. There’s a lot more to it than just having fun.”

“I’ll figure it out. Don’t worry.” The smile that remained plastered to Blair’s face didn’t ease Erin’s worries one bit.

“I just…” Erin stared down at her feet as she walked. If she really wanted to get her point across, she needed to be completely honest. “It’s too late for him to enroll in daycare for the summer, and I really can’t afford the other babysitters. If you end up realizing it’s too much or not what you expected and quit, I’m screwed. I need to know that you’re serious about this.”

“Erin.” When Erin looked over at Blair, the smile was gone from her face and replaced with a look of sincerity. “Listen, I’ve never been serious a day in my life, so I can’t say that I’ll be serious now.”

Great.Erin looked away from Blair and over to where Nolan was waiting for them.What are we supposed to do, Little Boy?

“But,” Blair’s voice broke the momentary silence, “I promise I won’t quit on you, no matter what. I might be an immature trust fund baby, but I’ve never broken a promise. Seriously. I mean it.”

When Erin looked at her once again, that sincerity was still there. She might not actually know this woman, but she believed her.

The smile returned to Blair’s face as she bent down to pick up Nolan. “Plus, he’s three. How hard can it be, right?”

Now it was Erin who was smiling. Thisimmature trust fund babywas in for a rude awakening.

Chapter 4

Blair

“Airplane!” Nolan shouted as he jumped on Blair’s back for what must have been the fiftieth time since she arrived two hours ago.

“Seriously, dude?” She looked at the clock and sighed when she noticed it was only 10:30. Was 10:30 too early to eat lunch? Erin had left her a list of directions and it explicitly stated that they shouldn’t go to the pool untilafterNolan ate, but Blair didn’t know how many more times she could run around the house making airplane noises while this kid hung on her back.

“Airplane! Airplane!” Nolan continued to shout as he wrapped his arms so tightly around Blair’s neck, she could barely breathe.

“Fine. One more airplane ride and then we’re eating lunch.”

“Yay!”

She did one more lap around the house, then sat Nolan at the kitchen table. “Time to eat,” she said as she struggled to catch her breath.

She walked to the refrigerator and took out the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and strawberries that Erin left in there for her and Nolan. She put the food onto plates for them, then sat down next to Nolan.

Nolan stared at the plate in front of him, then looked over at Blair with his nose scrunched up as if he was disgusted. “No.”

“No? What do you mean? Are you not hungry?”

Nolan crossed his arms in front of his chest. “I want chicken nuggets.”

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