Chapter One
Chad
Fuck, why are strollers so fucking hard to control?
I thought that with modern technology they would have made them easier, not fucking impossible. I bet my sister, Olivia, paid a small fortune for this fucking monstrosity. I was an IT guy, I built apps, developed programs, but that was fucking easy compared to trying to fold or unfold a stroller.
“Do you need a hand?”
A guy asked, as I parked outside the preschool for the last ten minutes trying to figure out how to unfold the stroller so I can take my nephew around in peace. I could just hold him. I had the carrier, but as I looked at that in the back, I decided that was just as fucking complicated as trying to unfold the stroller. When Olivia handed it to me, I told her that I wasn’t going to put myself in that straight jacket. Besides, I wouldn’t feel comfortable with Joshua being strapped to me. He was safer in a stroller. If I could fucking unfold the damn thing. Besides I was only an uncle, not a dad. Noah had taken on the role like a duck to water. He could write a book on it, along with Martin. They acted as if they couldn’t breathe if they didn’t know everything there was to know about being a dad. It was like a fucking disease with those two. They fed off each other about the latest bottle warmer, stroller and anything else that came out and they just had to fucking get it!
“I could do with a hand. These things are so fucking complicated,” I sighed and he looked at me in horror as if I had just spit on his fucking shoes.
Fucking parents, they hate cursing and anything that’s in line with the real world. I bet he’s already regretting trying to help me out. One button, one swift foot movement and the stroller unfolded so fucking easily. It was like watching Bumblebee from the Transformers change from a car to a robot.
“It’s easy when you know how to do it.”
He said it with a smug smile. And then he left my side to join his wife or girlfriend, whatever she was to him. The blonde version of a Stepford wife was covering her baby’s ears. As if he heard or even understood what I said earlier.
I nodded and said, “Thanks.”
He didn’t wait for my reply, as with the rest of the parents they started to head into the preschool like a colony of ants as if their lives depended on it. I stood watching them, forgetting that I was early when I came and now I had a feeling that I was late.
“Shit!”
I looked at my watch and realized that I was no longer thirty minutes early. If anything, it was nearly five minutes until the damn tour started and I said that I would help Olivia out today and do the tour of the preschool.
I suspected that she asked me because she was desperate. I wasn’t exactly daddy material, but she had it in her head that it would create a good impression for Joshua to see the place now. He was only six months old. I tried getting him to sit up last week and got bored watching him fall back about five times. I knew he wasn’t interested and as much as I love looking into his brown eyes and hoping that his smile was a result of us playing together. I knew that the only time he did smile was when he saw a bottle of milk. That was the only time that I saw him giggling and waving his chubby legs up in the air, ready to take his bottle.
I didn’t understand the whole thing, they’re only babies. It was as if society put so much fucking pressure on parenthood these days. All Joshua needed was a bottle of milk to make him happy. I heard the way Kylie and Noah talked about Richard, it was as if he was ready for college. They had a fucking map and once in a while they would consult Candy about it. She would simply nod her head and agree with them. She had no fucking choice. Every time I tried to talk to any of them about the pressure that they’re putting these poor babies, through, they would quote the same fucking line like robots, “The children are our futures. We need to make sure that we look out for their futures. Or we are all doomed.”
I grabbed Joshua in my haste and locked the door of the jeep. I was desperate to make a good impression seeing as I was taking tomorrow’s child around the preschool. I needed to make sure the six-month old was ready to sleep in a different place while I showed him his future. I couldn’t believe it as I strapped him in and started to head towards the doors.
Everyone had a fucking carrier, I was the only one with a baby in a stroller. It didn’t take long for the pretty dark-haired lady to point out the obvious. She was wearing a polo shirt and her hair was tied in a bun so fucking tight, I swear her eyebrows were a replica of Dr. Spock. It was fucking frightening.
“Hi, I’m Sandra Hope. The manager of The Hope School. I’m wondering if it’ll be easier for you if you leave the stroller in the car and you use a carrier like everyone else.”
I nodded my head, thinking that I feel like leaving the stroller and just getting in the car.
I fucking give up!
The reality of why my sister asked me was starting to hit home. Mom was on her cruise. I paid for it because she was helping Olivia out full-time and she was exhausted, the stress lines were written all over her face. Olivia told me off and accused me of being selfish. How was sending our mom on a cruise being selfish? So, I promised to help her out as a result of my selfish act.
I sighed and the woman whose husband was helping me with the stroller covered her baby’s ears as if she expected me to cuss again. I would do if I weren’t too busy thinking about how the fuck I was going to fold it again.
I gave Doctor Spock’s sister a fake smile as I turned around to get the fuck out of here. I wanted to take ‘tomorrow’s child’ to the ice-cream parlor while I had an ice-cream cone and I would give him a couple bottles of milk. That would be his treat for going out for the day and I would be showing him h
is real future… eating ice-cream whenever it was too early to have a bottle of beer.
“Come on Joshua, let’s put you in the carrier.”
Doctor Spock’s sister ran after me, “Don’t worry about that. Look, I’ve got a spare carrier, you can just put him in that.”
Again, I put on another fake smile as I looked at the straight jacket that was called a baby carrier.
“You can just park the stroller over there so it’s out of the way.”
I push the stroller to the door and I wasn’t looking where I was going, nearly bashing into another stroller.
She was tall and had dark hair and sky blue eyes. If I wasn’t pissed I would have tried to flirt with her, but I was fucking tired and it was only nine. Shit, I bet the ice-cream store isn’t open yet. Too damn early for all this shit.
I shook my head, “You can’t go in with strollers. I just wasted ten minutes trying to unfold mine.”
“I just spent fifteen minutes with mine. But you’ve got the new Bugaboo Donkey Mono Stroller. Nice.” She’s nodding her head, while I stood here wondering if she was speaking English or that secret language parents speak. But then I realized, as we both moved to the side, that she was admiring the stroller from hell.
“Yeah,” I stood so fucking close to her. Forgetting that I was here for Joshua and I was trying to make an impression.
Sandra rushed up to us as the mystery sexy lady locked eyes with mine. We stood in the middle of the hallway, not thinking about the tour, but obviously thinking about what we could be doing instead. Shit, with those breasts, all of a sudden I felt like drinking fucking milk.
“The pair of you are disrupting the tour. Can you just leave the strollers and hold the babies? I don’t have time for you to put on the carrier.”
The sultry dark-haired woman who I was standing next to smiled. The same way that I was doing earlier… fuck it’s infectious.
“Yes, we can do that.”
Sandra clapped her hands, “good,” then turned to face the other parents. The same woman who’s husband helped me with the stroller was looking and tutting at me. God, she hated me and she didn’t even fuck know me.
I smiled at the dark-haired woman and said, “Chad.”
She nodded, “Ivy.”
Even her name was fucking sexy. I was going to hate the tour, but now I had the impression that I was going to fucking love it. I had company. Not my baby nephew. But the hot seductress that was by my side. And her name was Ivy.