Page 53 of The Kiss Keeper
“Four!”
He swung Toby around and held the kid out in front of him like a brick of dynamite, ready to blow.
“Three!”
“The bush, Jake! Get him to the bush!” Natalie called.
“Two.”
Kicking up bits of dirt and pine needles, he sprinted to the cluster of wild blackberry bushes and set the boy down.
“All you, Toby,” he called over his shoulder, scrambling away to avoid a direct hit.
“I can’t get my shorts undone,” the kid whined.
Jesus Christ on a Cracker!
He spun around and went back. Operation No Tree Pee could not fail. As quickly as possible, he assessed the situation.
“Toby, it looks like the standard button zipper combo.”
The boy looked at him with desperation in his eyes. “But, my underwear is stuck in the zipper.”
Dammit!
“I’m going to talk you through it. Undo the button, and then you’re going to pull the zipper as hard as you can.”
Toby had gone beet-red from clenching. “Okay, here goes.”
With a growl, Toby yanked the zipper, and his shorts fell past his knobby knees to his ankles. Without a second to lose—because he didn’t want to get squirted with pee—Jake leaped over the bush, limbs waving wildly as he made a mad dash back to the group.
Natalie pressed her hand to her heart. “Were you hit?”
He caught his breath and dusted a few errant pine needles from his clothing. “No, I’m good. I made it out just in time,” he answered before realizing that she was messing with him.
“See, you’re good with kids,” she replied with that glint in her eyes.
He pulled a bit of tree bark from her hair. “Just the ones bursting with urine.”
“Pretty good teamwork back there, don’t you think?” she asked as his hand lingered in her hair.
He stared into her eyes. His kiss keeper’s eyes. He’d always wondered what color they were. But his imagination couldn’t hold a candle to what it was like to gaze into the real deal.
“Please, tell us you’re not going to kiss her, Uncle Jake!” Tucker said.
He and Natalie glanced at the kids and found all but one child covering their eyes.
“We’re absolutely not going to kiss,” Natalie answered, but she didn’t pull away.
“You look like you’re going to kiss,” cooed Annabelle, who happened to be the only child who didn’t look totally freaked out.
“Kissing must be so gross, right, Uncle Jake?” Finn added with his hands covering his eyes.
He shared a look with Natalie. “I wouldn’t say it’ssogross.”
Maddie peeked through her fingers. “Aunt Nat, do you like kissing Uncle Jake?”
“Um, sure, I like it,” she answered, catching his eye with a what-the-hell-are-we-supposed-to-say expression.
