Page 39 of Oddly Fine

“This is fucked,” Beckett hissed quietly, glancing between his boyfriend and the kids. “I’m not good with kids.”

“You’re great with kids. Your niece loves you and Chase’s daughter thinks the world revolves around you,” Hayes reminded him with an amused snort.

“Yeah, ‘cause I taught her to curse! They like me because we share a certain level of maturity! That sure as hell never, ever qualified me for babysitting!” Beckett might be an idiot, but he was a self-aware idiot. Check another box in the personal growth category.

“You’re overthinking this,” Hayes said, rolling his eyes like Beckett was being ridiculous. However, his demeanor transitioned from calm to alarmed at warp speed the second he turned around to find Lilac standing a few feet away, a makeup bag in one hand and a mirror in the other.

“I want to play Salon,” she said with a beautiful smile. She was wearing fluffy purple pajamas covered in sports paraphernalia—hockey sticks, basketballs, tennis balls, and footballs.

“I’m not sure—” Hayes began with a worried look at Beckett.

“Please,” she practically begged, already lining up her makeup supplies and several bottles of nail polish on the coffee table. “Daddy always lets me paint his nails,” she said with a slight pout.

Beckett automatically turned to check on the boys still lying on the couch. Jameson was entirely focused on the movie, while Nathan shrugged as Beckett’s eyes met his.

“He usually does,” Nathan confirmed with a nod.

“Just my nails. No big deal,” Hayes murmured softly to himself as he padded over to the coffee table and sat down on the floor. As soon as he’d found a somewhat comfortable position, Teacup ran over and jumped into his lap. The expression that crossed his partner’s face was priceless.

Beckett bit back a smile as he watched his Superman boyfriend capitulate to the demands of a 7-year-old. He had a brief and highly satisfactory thought that this had the potential of being good blackmail material some day.

“Can I get some popcorn?” Nathan asked Beckett, since his other manny was occupied.

“You already brushed your teeth,” Beckett pointed out. It wasn’t really a no. He was too fearful of what might happen if he came right out with a hard “no.”

“If I promise to brush them again after?” Nathan asked, batting eyelashes that had no business being quite that long. No Maybelline required for this kid.

“He won’t,” Jameson muttered—for which Nathan slapped the back of his head roughly.

“Hey!” Jameson whined, rubbing the back of his head. He turned towards Beckett, and—holy hell—were those tears in his eyes?

“You’re not supposed to hit people,” Lilac chastised Nathan while focused on pulling things out of her seemingly bottomless pit of a makeup bag.

“Nathan, tell your brother you’re sorry,” Hayes said, voice stern even as he fanned out his fingers on the coffee table so Lilac could easily apply the polish.

“No!” Nathan exclaimed defiantly, crossing his arms and jumping up to stand on the couch.

“Nathan, I’m serious. Hitting people is wrong. Tell your brother you’re sorry,” Hayes repeated, still calm but raising his voice a notch or two.

“No! He’s always snitching! Dad said it’s wrong to snitch! So he should say he’s sorry, too!” Nathan said as he jumped from the seat cushions to stand on the backrest of the couch. It was a precarious position, but somehow he maintained his balance.

“No standing on the back of the couch!” Lilac yelled at him, smiling with glee, obviously enjoying her role of sibling monitor. She turned to Beckett while pointing to her brother, and yelled with authority, “Papa said we could get hurt and that we should never stand on the back of the couch!”

Beckett held up both hands in surrender, overwhelmed by the chaos. Not even five minutes into this gig, and it was a goddamned circus. He just fucking knew this was a bad idea! Normally, he’d wash his hands of the chaos under the guise of ‘not my circus, not my monkey,’ but unfortunately, Gill’s kids very much were his monkey.

“Stop!” Nathan yelled at his sister, stomping his feet and nearly falling off the back of the couch. He caught his balance against the wall behind the couch and stood up straight again, crossing his arms over his chest with a mutinous glare.

“Alright, that’s it,” Beckett announced angrily, having had enough of this fucking nonsense. “Nathan get off the couch right now or you’ll get no popcorn, and it will be straight off to bed.”

The little boy seemed to take his measure of Beckett, trying to determine if he was bluffing or not.

“I’ll count down from three, and God help you if you ain’t down off the stupid couch by then,” he added, holding up three fingers in warning.

Nathan stared back defiantly, clearly willing to call Beckett’s bluff.

“Three——” Beckett waited him out. Nathan didn’t budge. “Two—” still no movement from him. “One——” Nathan jutted out his chin, staring Beckett down with a calm that was unquestionably just like Gill’s.

“Alright, that’s it, losers get boogers,” he said, stomping his way to the couch and snatching him up quickly. Nathan cried out in terror as he was swung backwards and over Beckett’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes.