“You’ll do a great job with that.” Shooting me a beaming smile, he bounced around the kitchen. “I need help with lots of boundaries.”
I still wasn’t sure how his boundaries had become my responsibility, but he couldn’t do it on his own and he’d been polite.
“Alright, but you have to give me the list so I know what to enforce.” Trying not to sigh as he bounced over and threw his arms around me, I hugged him back. “Let’s find your goodies first and then we’ll find where your boundaries have wandered off to.”
Then I’d figure out how to protect them all.
I couldn’t remember running into his family before, but his description of them sounded like they were chaos on two legs. They also seemed judgmental and nosy, so if he didn’t want to talk about his Little side with them, he didn’t have to.
“Thank you.” Nearly bouncing again as he stepped back, I could see his Little side taking over. “Now what?”
Now it was my turn to be even bossier?
“Let’s see where we can put your cups and plates.” They were red flags when it came to encouraging nosy people to ask questions. “And we need a small box to put the other stuff like your binkies in.”
“Yes.” Hurrying around the room, he was focused on searching for a good box, so I decided to rehome the plates.
Perfect.
Rhodes had incredibly tall upper cabinets compared to mine, but that meant the small cabinet over his fridge was damned near impossible for anyone under six feet to easily reach. It was the perfect place to put everything he wanted to keep private.
He thought so too because he nearly giggled as I put the last of the cups in the tall cabinet. “Yay. Good job.”
“Thank you.” Turning around, I chuckled when he held up a small box, still beaming at me. “You did a good job too. Let’s find your stuff.”
Binkies, weird keychains, and one naughty coffee cup later, we had the box packed and all his mail hidden above the fridge.
“One more thing…” It wasn’t quite enough, so I searched until I found a box with a small stand mixer in a closet. “This is heavy enough we’ll notice if they move it.”
As I set it on top of the fridge, he watched excitedly. “I don’t know where to put it so I put it in the closet.”
“We’ll figure that out later.” His kitchen was big enough it wouldn’t be a problem but he was the type to ignore it until it was impossible.
Like when his family started invading.
“You’re a good helper.” With his goodies protected, he looked like he was walking on air. “Now what?”
“Now we protect the rest of the house.” Reaching out my hand, I smiled as he giggled as he took it. “It’s time to show me around.”
The tour didn’t take long but we did find a few blankets and random stuffed animals that he said were private, so we took them upstairs and put them in his playroom.
I could see why he wanted to keep it away from his family. “You’ve got a nice playroom, Bouncy.”
Bright-colored toys were stacked on low shelves and he even had one of those rugs with a city on them. The walls were a bright yellow and he even had a big Daddy chair over in the corner, but there was no way to pretend it was anything other than a playroom.
“It’s fun.” He was barely holding back the urge to throw himself into playing and almost vibrating with excitement. “I did it. I made it pretty.”
“You did and I can tell you worked hard at it.” Setting down the random stuff we’d found on the oversized chair, I did my best to keep him focused on our to-do list. “We’ll come back and play later once everyone leaves.”
“You’ll play?” He didn’t wait for me to nod before pointing to his bookshelf. “You’ll read?”
“Yes.” I was just going to ignore how illogical all of this was. “But we’ve got to finish our plans first.”
Straightening his shoulders, he frowned like he was pretending to be a full adult. “Got to defend the castle.”
From the invaders.
“We can do it.” Mostly because he’d never made me promise to be nice about the invasion. He might want to make them happy but I didn’t have that drive.
