Dreaming of His Snowed In Kiss - Jessie Gussman Page 0,36
clothes off.
What did shock him was that the discarded clothes were in the toilet, on top of what looked like an entire roll of toilet paper which had been unwound and stuffed into the toilet bowl. Basically, the toilet looked like it had become a confetti gun, jammed with toilet paper, with the two-year-old’s clothes sitting on top.
“I had actually been dreaming about the kid sitting on the toilet and pooping in it. I’m hoping now that entire dream is wrong.”
Basically, he was saying he sure as shooting hoped the toilet water was “clean.” Because he was pretty sure he was going to be cleaning that mess up.
“Trevor. You’re bad. You’re in a lot of trouble,” Warren said, his hands on his hips and his head shaking.
He turned and looked at the adults behind him. The look on his face was apprehensive, like he wasn’t sure how the big people in his life were going to react to this latest development. There was also a bit of superiority there. Like, at least this time, he wasn’t involved, and he knew he wasn’t in trouble.
Trevor, on the other hand, had not yet realized that what he had done had been so egregiously bad that the wrath of God was about to descend upon him at any second.
Frustration and anger clogged up West’s throat. How could a kid who couldn’t even string three words together, who could barely stack two blocks without knocking them down, make such a huge mess?
He wanted to grab the kid by the scruff of the neck and toss him into a corner while at the same time he wanted to force the kid to stick his own hands in the water, which he didn’t seem to have had any problem with because his hands were shiny wet, and clean everything up.
West certainly didn’t want to have to do it.
“All right. Looks like breakfast is going to be even later than we thought.” The cheerfulness that defined Poppy was loud and strong in her voice.
“How can you sound like that? This is a disgusting mess... Oh, never mind. I know how. Because I have to clean it up.”
It was his house, after all. And he knew his words were mean and petty and angry and frustrated, but he couldn’t help himself. Seriously? This was not what he signed up for. He hadn’t signed up for anything. Someone had forged his signature.
This mess was a very good Exhibit A on why he didn’t want to have children.
Not that he had ever decided to line up exhibits, but if he were, this would definitely be at the forefront. Along with the pooped underwear.
Raising kids was nothing but going from one mess to another cleaning them up.
Poppy smiled, almost benignly. “What if you take the girls, and Garrett and Warren, and go get me a big garbage bag so I can put this stuff in it.” She looked around. “Do you have rubber gloves somewhere?”
“No. I don’t.”
“Maybe we can invest in a pair. They come in handy.” Her grin was lopsided, and it eased some of the tightness in his chest.
This was not funny, it wasn’t a happy moment, but he could see how her reaction was a little better than his.
It made him want to be better. Mostly.
So he swallowed. “We’ll get you a garbage bag. Do you need anything else?”
“Maybe we can get a basket of dirty laundry that needs to be washed and throw this outfit on top of it. We can get it in the washer and get moving on that.”
Laundry wasn’t even something he had tried to keep up with. It seemed overwhelming to do everything else. Clean clothes hadn’t seemed important when he was trying to keep the kids from starving to death.
“I’m on it.”
“Thanks.”
Their eyes met across the kids, and despite the mess and beyond the surface irritations, he could feel something stirring in his chest. Something that had been preceded by the warmth and the odd tightening, and now it grew bigger, expanding his heart and making it thump low and slow, and shifting the way he had thought about himself, and her, and even the world between them.
It was scary.
He hated feeling afraid. So he fought the feeling. It wasn’t what he wanted. Although the pull was tempting.
Somehow, he knew being with Poppy would be fun. And right there, that represented a huge shift in his thinking.
Being with Poppy?
Where did that idea come from?
He pulled his gaze away and shook his head.