Page 10 of Night of the Living Manny
“Text me if you think of anything you need from the store.” He lifted a hand to wave, feeling dorky as hell.
“This is totally weird, isn’t it?”
“It so is.” His nerves had him laughing, but it was good to know he wasn’t alone. “I got this. You just go fight the good fight.”
“Will do. Holler if you need anything.” Liam glanced back with a tentative smile and then headed out. It had to be odd, leaving a stranger alone in your house.
He was bonded and insured. That had to count for something. He glanced at Moose. “Well, you ate, buddy. That puts off our run for forty-five. Let’s clean up, huh?” He began stacking bowls and spoons. There was a dishwasher, and it was sparkling clean.
He needed to explore the television and movie options around here. The light housework wasn’t going to take him more than fifteen minutes. Maybe there was a housekeeper.
At least Brenden had his Kindle.
He grabbed a legal pad from his bag, then dug around for a pen. A grocery list first. All that canned and packaged food needed some fresh supplementation.
Lettuce and apples, radishes and cucumbers, grapes and carrots—real food. Shoot. Were they vegetarians? No, there were cans of Vegetable Beef from Campbell’s and of Dinty Moore stew. Okay, so maybe pot roast for supper.
He’d have to see if Liam would let him get an Instant Pot. His last family had one, and it had rocked his world.
Wiping down counters, Brenden hummed, wiggling as he scrubbed a weird sticky spot on the granite surface.
Had he given the kids his cell phone number? Did the kids have phones? He wrote that down on his legal pad. Shit like that would come to him all the time during the first week or so.
Brenden wanted to be able to get in touch, especially with Susanna. She’d be the one most likely to be with friends, and he wanted to check in from time to time, make sure she was in a good situation.
More notes. Allergies? Did the kids have them?
He searched the fridge. Lots of cheese, Cokes, lunch meat—mostly turkey. That was buildable; he just had to add carrots or peppers, maybe some low-sugar pickles.
The freezer had ice cream, Tater Tots, and a thousand boxes of chicken nuggets. Lord. He shook his head, smiling. “I bet they’ll like my baked chicken parm, huh?”
Moose wagged at him. Yeah, Moose liked his parm too. Brenden finally gave himself a tour of the rest of the house. Snooping on the kids always made him feel a little sleazy, and he never did more than give their rooms a look, but he could learn a lot about them from their spaces.
Susanna’s room was all silver and purple, with pictures of fashion models pinned up everywhere.Lord, look at all the shoes.
Peter’s room looked like a bomb had gone off. He had one of those low rocking gaming chairs, and all of his games seemed to be zombie themes.State of Decay.The Walking Dead.Resident Evil.
He dreaded looking into Brittany’s room, but when Brenden opened the door, he found it neat as a pin—horses and Barbies and pink and puppies. The bed was even made. Good girl. An organized mind would help.
He chuckled softly and shook his head. He liked this family already.
Should he peer into Liam’s bedroom? Hmm. Nah, that would be creepy. Besides, he could do that when he started doing the laundry. Liam made him so curious. A single dad, a hush-hush job….
And his gaydar was going nuts, which made less than no sense, because three kids and an adored wife. Dead wife, but still. He just needed to tamp down on his hormones.
Liam was lickable, but Brenden had to keep it under control. This was not a romance situation, it was a job.
By the time he’d made the rounds and unpacked his one bag, it was time to take Moose on a run and explore the neighborhood.
He needed to have that and the grocery shopping done before the kids came home.
“IT’Snot safe.” Liam was tired of arguing with Kimberly and Steven. His bosses weren’t hearing him. “We’re not ready to move on to human trials.”
“I think we have to.” Kimberly tapped her fingers against her chin. “We need to see what the side effects are on a much larger scale.”
“Are you not listening to me? The computer simulations aren’t working in my favor.” The simulations, in fact, were horrifying, indicating a spreading infection rather than a cure for sepsis.
“Then your program is wrong.” Steven waved at Liam’s stack of printouts. “We’re way further ahead in production than we planned to be.”
