Love, Dad

15. New Dream

Babysitting. Not too much of my life had been dedicated to learning the patience it required to watch other people's kids. Perhaps it was because I was an only child and didn't have the obligations that Levi had with his siblings, or perhaps it was because I simply never wanted to do it. Still, when Linda called and specifically asked if I would help Levi with his sisters—making absolutely no sense considering he'd been doing this for years—I knew I couldn't tell her no. In reality I wasn't exactly opposed to it, it wasn't like I would be stuck with random children. No, I knew these three girls, loved them, and I'd helped Levi watch them before when we were growing up. So I went into it just thinking that we were hanging out.

"If anything happens, give me a call on the cell," Linda was rifling through her purse while she rattled off to the both of us as we followed behind her.

"I know, mom." Levi knew what to do already, he was no stranger to this task.

"Don't give Julianna any pop, no matter how much she begs—I'm trying to keep an eye on her sugar." She continued on, walking down the hall.

"I know, mom." He repeated, more impatiently.

"Oh, and no TV—"

"For Haylee because she's grounded. I know." Levi physically shooed her out of the door, unable to close it because she caught it with her hand.

"One last thing, have fun. But not too much fun, remember, the girls are home." Linda winked at me.

"Goodbye, mother." He peeled her fingers away and shut her off from us with mortification. "Anyways, now that she's gone, let's watch a movie. My sisters are all occupied in their rooms and I just want to relax." With a smile he took my face in both his hands and kissed me before leading me to the living room and placing me on the couch while he put something in. Honestly, I couldn't have cared less about whatever action movie he wanted to watch, I was only interested in melting into him so that I could concentrate on the heat of his flesh, the smell of his cologne.

Though it became hard to focus on that, because when the first climatic scene of the movie happened—around five minutes in—the noise attracted all three of the girls, who wandered their way into the room to watch with us. Levi had specifically been given the direction to not let his oldest sister watch TV, but he said nothing to her as she came to sit directly beside me opposite her brother. The other two plopped down on the floor in front of the set and remained motionless for only a couple seconds before deciding that they needed to act out everything they saw on the screen.

Ten minutes later, Julianna and Daisy were running around us in circles, screaming their heads off while Haylee tried to tell them to stop, too cool to join in since I was there. Instead she had slowly fallen over until she was leaning into me the way I was leaning into Levi, and I put my arm around her so that she would be comfortable there. All along, Levi kept giving me amused yet apologetic looks for the massive chaos that I had been thrown into. But I wasn't sorry.

While he was over there fretting about that, I was right here thinking about how much I was actually enjoying this. Evening time cuddled up next to the man I loved, a baby on one arm and two more having as much fun as they could around us. It was perfect, and I couldn't help but to imagine that different life again—the one I seemed to keep going back to. In this life he and I had a family of our own, and it was just like this. Normal, average, natural. I didn't understand my need to nest lately, but it didn't make me uncomfortable so I allowed myself to dream.

Levi had no way of knowing what was in my head, so he only tolerated his sisters being there with us for a short time before kicking them out and making them return to their rooms. They grumbled about it, as they always did, but they knew better than to disobey him as they complied with his demand. Once we were alone again he shifted on the couch, laying back and turning his body so that I was no longer in his side, but flat against his chest, on top of him. There I could feel the rise and fall of his breast, and it made me want to do things I knew I couldn't right then.