Finally (Neighbor from Hell #12) - R.L. Mathewson Page 0,15

first open doorway.

“I was thinking that we could have those for breakfast,” Charlie said absently as she glanced into the brightly lit bedroom and spotted Devin passed out on the large bed in his boxers with a small stack of papers loosely held in his hand.

“With bacon?” Dustin asked, sounding hopeful.

“With bacon,” Charlie said with a firm nod as she gestured for him to stay where he was.

“Be right back,” she whispered as she quietly walked into Devin’s bedroom to make sure that he was okay.

She didn’t know Devin well, but she knew that he was an amazing father. Everyone at Bradford Creations knew that he was dedicated to his children. Over the past five years, she’d caught glimpses of his children when he’d brought them upstairs for a snack or when he was playing outside on the playground that he’d built for them and saw the way that his face lit up when he was with them. She’d also knew that he put his children first and had heard the tales that most of the female employees shared with heartfelt sighs.

God, he looked exhausted, Charlie thought as she took in his handsome face and the whiskers lining his jaw as she reached for the blanket folded over the chair near the window and gently tossed it over him. She pulled the blanket up to his shoulders before picking the stack of papers off the bed and set them on the nightstand next to the framed picture of Dustin and Abbi smiling, noting that they were articles on trying to teach a child how to read. Such a good dad, Charlie thought as she reached over and turned off the lamp before heading back to the hallway and quietly closed the door behind her.

“Let’s go get you cleaned up,” Charlie said with a warm smile as she took Dustin’s hand in hers and followed him into the bedroom across from Devin’s.

“My bed is wet,” Dustin said as she reached over and turned on the light, noting that Dustin loved dinosaurs, the stack of children’s books by his bed, and the picture of Devin smiling down at the small baby in his arms on the wall.

“Why don’t you grab a new pair of underwear and we’ll take this downstairs and get everything clean?” Charlie suggested as she made quick work of stripping the bed, relieved when she saw the bed pad covering the mattress because she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to get pee out of a mattress.

Once she had his blankets and sheets balled up in her arms, they made their way back downstairs to her apartment. After throwing everything in the washing machine, she started a bath for Dustin and couldn’t help but smile when Dustin stripped out of his undies and quickly climbed into the tub with a satisfied sigh and a mumbled, “Bubbles?”

“I guess we could do that,” Charlie said, selecting a bottle of bubble bath off the counter and poured some in the tub as Dustin helped himself to a facecloth off the stack that she’d placed by the tub, grabbed her soap, and set to work.

An hour later, Dustin was wearing a fresh pair of tighty-whities, his snack was cleaned up, the blankets were in the dryer, and she wasn’t all that surprised when he climbed into her bed and curled up on his side. Deciding to call it a night, Charlie took a quick shower, changed into her pajamas, and crawled into bed next to the sweet little boy that had stolen her half of the peanut butter jelly sandwich when he didn’t think that she was looking.

Just as she was about to close her eyes, Abbi walked into her room and after a slight pause, she climbed into bed next to her brother, curled up and went to sleep with a sigh. They were so damn cute, Charlie thought as she closed her eyes only to smile when Dustin snuggled closer.

*-*-*-*

“Damn,” Devin managed to get out on a groan as he rubbed his hands down his face, wondering when the last time that he felt this well-rested was.

Definitely before the twins were born, Devin thought as he turned the bathroom light off and headed back into his bedroom, absently going over everything that he had to do today. He needed to get the kids up, run to the store, and-

Couldn’t help but frown when he noticed that it was still dark outside. Trying to make sense out of what he was seeing,