"Better let them have the bench, right?" he said.
"Sure," Bailey told him. He liked that Matt was so thoughtful. "You're going to be a good role model for Joey."
"Me?" Matt said like that genuinely surprised him.
"Of course. You're considerate and hard working." Bailey stopped himself because other compliments were coming to his mind and they had nothing to do with Matt as Joey's manny.
At the furniture store, Matt helped him find a bed for Joey. Bailey would have missed it because it looked kind of plain, but then Matt told him, "Check it out. This bed has a blackboard for a headboard."
"So Joey will stay up all night drawing on it?" Bailey said but he was taking a closer look at it. "This might be good. Itwill let him get creative and he won't outgrow it as fast as his current spaceship bed. We can take it with us when we leave." That reminded Bailey that Matt would only be with them for the summer. Their time with him was sure to go fast. To Bailey, it already didn't seem like enough.
When they moved on past the kids' stuff, Bailey told Matt. "Pick a bed for you too." He only planned for a new mattress but now he wanted to get him a whole new bed before he moved in tomorrow.
"What's already there is fine for me," Matt told him.
Bailey picked one for him anyway and now Matt was telling him, "You should get a bed too. You can fit a bigger bed in there."
"The bed is big enough. It's just for me," Bailey said but he couldn't help thinking how two men might fit in it, Matt and him, for example. But only if they were pressed together tight, or on top of each other.
Matt was thinking about more than just Bailey in his bed too. He leaned in to say, "You need to plan ahead."
For now, Bailey couldn't imagine that he needed to worry that a big, muscular guy like Matt might end up in his bed.
Done with shopping, they went together to pick up Joey from swimming class. As soon as he stepped out, he peered into the car to see what they bought. "Did you buy me a race car bed?"
"No," Bailey told him. "A regular bed." Of course it wasn't really a regular bed, but he wanted that to be a surprise.
Matt went along with it without having to be told, and Joey looked a little disappointed. But he was excited about swim class and chattered to them about it as they went to have lunch.
Bailey saw a place that looked interesting. It was called Seagull Bistro. "Do you know it?" he asked Matt.
"It's kind of out of my league," Matt said.
"I'm sure their lunch menu isn't too pricey," Bailey said and he was right.
They ate at one of the outdoor tables with an umbrella to give them shade. They almost had a beach view. They could only glimpse the ocean between two buildings, but the sea breeze did reach them. Joey had veggies with a cheese dip. "This cheese is making the veggies so good," Joey was saying.
Matt liked his food too. He had ordered a sandwich with a crab bisque and he called it, "The best soup and sandwich combo I ever had."
"I'm glad you're enjoying it," Bailey said.
"I do like seafood, but I would be OK with anything, even canned soup," Matt said.
"I think we have some of those," Bailey told him.
"Just so you know you don't have to spoil me," Matt said.
"I'm spoiling all of us then. Most days I would be too busy to do this," Bailey told him. "That's why I need you." Saying that, Bailey felt like he was trying to convince himself that he hired Matt for practical reasons, not because he liked spending time with him. But as they were all sitting there together, he was noticing Matt's tanned and muscular arms. Then he looked up from them, and all he could see was how blue his eyes were.
Chapter 9
On the day Matt was moving in, Bailey had offered to pick him up from Gwen's place, but he said he was all set. Then Bailey and Joey were coming back from breakfast and doing some food shopping when they found Matt on the porch with about a half dozen boxes, none of them too big.
He was putting down one last box and looking apologetic. "Sorry. I wasn't going to bring too much, but Gwen ordered me to get this stuff out of her place," he said as he moved some boxes out of the way.
Joey was already eyeing some of his stuff with a lot of interest. "A basketball!" he said spotting it on top of an open box.
"And I have a hoop somewhere in here that I used to hang on my door," Matt said. "We can hang it outside if that's OK."
