Page 1 of Omega Dragon Manny
1
BEAU
The smoke alarm was already blaring by the time I made it to the kitchen.Dammit. In the two minutes since I'd gone to the bathroom, the boys had decided to turn breakfast into an arts-and-crafts project. The pan I’d used to make their omelets was now coated with melted crayon and egg crust. “What’s going on?”
I tried to remind myself that it could be much worse. No one was hurt, and the alarm wasn’t indicating an actual fire. That was something.
Jason was attempting to air out the kitchen by swinging a towel like a lasso as he galloped around the kitchen. “Giddy up, Beau. We made a wax omelet for our art teacher.”
There was no way their art teacher wanted any part of this. I sucked in a deep breath. Getting angry wasn’t going to make any of this better. If anything, it was going to make it worse.
“But don’t tell Mom.” Jaxon and his brother were both trying not to laugh at the continued chaos they caused for me.
As if this was something I could hide.
“Why?” I poked at the melted wax and burned the tip of my finger. There was no way that pan could be salvaged. “Did your teacher ask you to do this?”
I knew the answer but needed to hear it from their lips as I figured out how we got here.
“Nope.” Jason tossed the towel at me, and it landed on my head, covering my face.
“See ya!” Jaxon followed his brother as they both bolted for the stairs.
“But you haven’t eaten— Never mind.” They hardly ate anything in the mornings anyway. “Have your shoes and backpacks on in two minutes. We need to leave!”
As I was opening the window, Mrs. Donohue walked in and went straight to the ruined pan to investigate it. “What happened here?” She turned to me with the look of hatred in her eyes. “Weren’t you watching the children?”
“Yes, of course.” I grabbed a spatula and tried to scrape some of the wax off the pan. “But they did this when I was in the restroom.”
She couldn’t be mad that I had to pee. She hired me because her kids were out of control. It wasn’t as if I made them this way.
She just shook her head and sighed. “Beau, you’re a nice guy, but I don’t think this is working out.”
That was the understatement of the year. “They’re just spirited boys who like to push limits. I get it. I was like them when I was little. We just need a bit more time for them to respect me as an authority figure.”
I wasn’t sure why I was fighting this so hard. The job was stress built upon stress. And the money wasn’t even that good. But still, the idea of failure had me trying to cling to the position.
“I’m sorry, but they’ll never respect you. My boys are alphas. You’ll never be an authority over them. I just need to trust that they won’t burn my house down, and now I’m not even sure about that.” She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at me for a full minute.
I’d learned months ago that her silence didn’t mean she wanted me to speak. Unless she asked a direct question, I was to wait for her to say her piece. Which usually involved several awkward pauses.
“Having a dragon manny was fun at first, but it has just fueled their pyromaniac tendencies, and it’s becoming dangerous. If you were able to do more around here, it would be different.”
I was not the reason for their pyro-tendancies. That was beyond ridiculous. I cooked, cleaned, shuttled, tutored, and played therapist for her undisciplined spawn, and she had the audacity to say I didn’t do enough. “Yeah, maybe you’re right. This doesn’t seem like a good fit anymore.”
A lot of promises were made during the interview, but after I moved in, nothing was quite as it had been presented. They didn’t even pay me enough to buy my own food. Pocket change and “room and board” wasn’t a lie, but when I was expected to be up by six a.m. to make breakfast and lunch before waking the boys up and not being off the clock until they were both passed out on their tablets at ten p.m., I could have probably made more money selling lemonade on the corner.
Weekends and holidays didn’t exist for me either because I was supposedly part of the family. The part of the family who was responsible for keeping the house and children tidy at all times. It was too much on day one, and having an out of that place suddenly felt like a gift. “I’ll pack my things after I drop the boys off at school.”
“Nonsense. You can finish out the day. This kitchen needs to be put back in order, and Jason left a situation in the tub that you’ll need to take care of.” She poured herself some coffee, and I slipped away without making any promises.
If I was being fired, I wasn’t gonna clean her house on my way out. I’d taken the job because I was desperate for a place to live and stayed because the kids needed actual attention and care. But every day that went by was getting harder to justify the abuse I put up with.
I hadn’t flown in weeks, and my dragon was getting cranky. If I didn’t let him out soon, he’d let himself out…and that never ended well.
Finally forced to make the change I’d been avoiding, I grabbed the kids' lunches, double-checked their bags, and marched them out the door. I didn’t want to abandon them, but I didn’t know how to say goodbye.
So, I took the coward’s way out and didn’t say anything.
