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He was hiding his junk with the Harper Presley-Paige cross-stitched pillow.
It was better than nothing.
He grinned like an idiot as Aria sauntered into the room with her iPad.
He held the pillow with one hand and propped his fist on his hip—going for creepy casual. “Hey, Aria!”
The little girl stared at Harper, then flicked her gaze to him and frowned.
He glanced at his wife and flashed herwhat should we doeyes.
She replied withplay it cool and act like this is normal.
“Are your friends here? We heard voices,” he asked, pretty damned proud of himself for keeping a straight face.
Aria’s gaze ping-ponged between her burrito-mummy aunt and her pillow-junk-covering uncle. “No, they’re on my iPad. We’re having a video call because we all woke up and heard weird sounds in our houses,” she answered, then turned so he could see the other kids, which meant they could see him.
Stay calm.
“At my house,” Sebastian explained, “it was so noisy in my dad and Mibby’s room that I thought the donkeys had gotten inside.”
“And at my house, there were popsicle sticks everywhere in the kitchen, and fruit from the fruit bowl was all over the floor,” Oscar added. “I took a bunch of pictures to show my dad and my Charlotte because I think raccoons or badgers got into the house.”
“My uncle Row and Penny have been trying to get a book off a high shelf for the last twenty minutes.” Phoebe cocked her head to the side. “Nice pillow. Is that a cross-stitch of Harper?”
He glanced down. “It is. The lady who makes them is pretty talented. The attention to detail is—”
“Heartthrob, zip it,” Harper called from the edge of the bed.
“Hey, Aria?” Oscar said.
“Yeah?”
“Why is your uncle holding a pillow like that?”
Aria looked him over. “Probably because he’s naked.”
“No, your aunt and I were having a pillow fight.”
The kid raised an eyebrow. “With no clothes on?”
“It’s called a naked pillow fight.”
“Landon,” Harper shrieked.
Dammit! He sounded insane.
“I was about to get dressed for…”
“The playdate at the playground at the school Aunt Harper went to when she was my age,” Aria supplied as the three children on the screen nodded.
“Yes,” he exclaimed, nearly dropping the pillow. “The playdate at the playground—where people wear clothes.”
Aria looked at him like he had shit for brains, which, at the moment, wasn’t that off the mark.
“All right, guys,” Aria said to her friends, “I need to get my aunt and uncle ready. Don’t worry. We’ll get to the park super-quick. My aunt Harper doesn’t wear underpants, so she’s super-fast at getting dressed.”
He glanced at his wife, who’d turned beet-red.
