Page 39 of SEAL'S Baby Surprise
It’s a glorious feeling.
Afterward, Austin cuddles me and gives me little nibble kisses down the side of my neck while we stay hooked together as long as our bodies will cooperate. It seems like blissful hours, but it was probably only a few minutes before Austin slips out and sighs.
He snuggles me in his arms a minute or two longer, then he says, “I’m afraid we are going to have to get up if we don’t want the kids to find us in bed again.”
I giggle, kiss the side of his neck because that’s as high up as I can reach and say, “Okay. What’s for breakfast?”
“Pancakes, I think,” he says. “We don’t have enough eggs to make bacon and omelets for everyone.”
“All right,” I say, snuggling in closer, and not making any attempt at getting up or letting him up.
“Come on, Lady Mermaid,” he says, gently disengaging. “Kids. You know, Julia and Bobby, and the way-too-wise for her age, Betty.”
I laugh at that last part. Betty seems to know a lot more about mommies and daddies and what goes on in the night than I did at her age. In fact, Mrs. Turner has taken to sending the kids over to us some nights when Mr. Turner is at home.
I guess they like to have a little privacy, too. Last time, Austin had shown everyone how to set up a pup tent, and the kids each had the equivalent of a room of their own for the night.
Of course, that had meant we had to sleep outside, too, which was cool because we’d had this big inflatable bed and a two-person pop-up tent. Only neither one of us felt private enough to make love in it, but it did mean we were on hand in case the kids needed us.
I sigh and let go. I know we have to get up. “First dibs on shower!” Austin calls, heading down the hall. I grumble under my breath, but I don’t argue. Austin is always good about leavingenough hot water for me, and besides, he’s the one who has to make the pancakes.
Since he’s in the shower, I make up the bed, and I’m careful to make sure I bury the used condom in the trash. It’s one of those icky aftermath things that seems to go with making love. And Austin makes love, he doesn’t just have sex. He makes me feel special in so many ways, both in bed and out.
I wonder if it’s real. If he’s telling me how he feels.
Or if this is just who he is.
“Lady Mermaid,” he calls out, “Your shower is ready!”
One time, we had gone to a truck stop to get showers because there had been something wrong with the water delivery system at the beach. He uses exactly the same intonation as the mechanical voice at the truck stop when it would say, “Customer number _____, your shower is ready.
I laugh, then hurry down the hall to get cleaned up while Austin gets dressed and goes outside to make breakfast.
I am dried off and just running a brush through the short fuzz on my head, when I hear the children’s voices. By the time I get outside, Austin is serving the kids pancakes.
The minute I appear, he says, “Why don’t you go to school with the kids today? Mrs. Hubbard sometimes likes to have help, and I’ve got a lot of online work to do.”
I’d never been to the school, so I agree.
It is pretty cool, really. Mrs. Hubbard greets each child as they arrive. She calls each one by the pronoun they prefer, which I thought was interesting.
One youngster addresses the man who dropped him/her/them (I have trouble with the pronouns) off at school as “Mom.” Mrs. Hubbard introduces the child as “Jean” and uses the “they/them” pronouns for the youngster. They wear a unisex outfit of jean shorts and a “save-the-whales” T-shirt.
The kids play some sort of complicated flag-and-chase game until Mrs. Hubbard blows a whistle; then, they line up for snacks, followed by story time. I’m not sure what kind of story to expect, but it is an old fairy tale about a table and some goats. It is the gritty version out of Grimm’s, not one of the cleaned-up kind printed out in picture books.
Then the kids and I help make lunch. I ask, “Don’t the kids usually go home at lunch time?”
“Some of them do,” Mrs. Hubbard says. “But most of them are here all day. Freedom Beach has moms and dads who have jobs in the village or in the city, so they need a safe place to be while their parents work.”
I think about this for a little while. “Do you ever take babies?” I ask.
“I don’t,” Mrs. Hubbard says. “But Anna May, who has a toddler of her own and lives two doors down, watches babies. She’s full up, though. She’s watching two infants and a toddler as well as her own little girl.”
“Oh,” I say, turning this over in my mind.
After lunch, the kids have a choice of lying down and listening to the soft music, or lying down, listening to the soft music, and reading books. Mrs. Hubbard motions me into her office, turns on a super-duper baby monitor that seems to have cameras in every corner of the nap room, and closes the door.
“It’s not any of my business,” Mrs. Hubbard says, “But are you making it with Austin?”
