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Shuffling the pile, he saved pizza coupons. Tore a vacation giveaway sweepstakes. Flipped over a flyer on a local women’s clinic, complete with stats on infertility and other birth control factoids.
He ripped that sucker in half. “Where was this when I could have used it eleven years ago?”
Daniel pitched the rest of the stack back onto the coffee table, brochures and flyers skidding into a fan across the glass top. A quick glance at the clock told him Spike wouldn’t be up yet. Of course, the guy would have come by the night before if there had been any more on the voicemail, since he’d turned the tape over to the CIA for analysis.
He had to hope his father had simply called about Mary Elise and not anything related to his death the next day. Otherwise, the international implications in an already rocky region boggled his mind. As if the military wasn’t already maxed from the recent conflicts. Just what they needed, another Afghanistan on their hands.
Feet shuffled down the hall, easing Daniel back to the present, home life overriding big world. He glanced up and found…a buck-naked Austin.
He sighed. Another load of laundry. Who’d have thought two kids could quadruple the wash load? The math defied logic.
Austin danced from bare foot to foot. “I gotta go.” Uh-oh. The potty dance. No arguing with that.
Sprinting across the carpet, Daniel scooped his brother up under his armpits. No direct pressure to the bladder. And face the kid forward. He’d learned that one the hard way. Nope, he didn’t plan to add his own clothes to the packed hamper before he’d even finished breakfast. “Why’d you take off your pull-ups, pal?”
“Gotta go.”
He sighed. Hard. He didn’t even want to check out that bed. His revamped budget would have to stretch to cleaning help as well as a nanny.
Daniel sidestepped discarded pj’s and performed a military pivot round the corner into the bathroom. He plopped Austin on the tile floor in front of the neon-green plastic attachment to the john.
Yep, his bachelor digs now sported a training seat. He liked the kid and all. Even Trey wasn’t a major pain in the butt anymore, his snotty attitude having downgraded tominorpain in the ass, with the occasional quip that actually had Daniel laughing the minute the kid left the room.
He was managing. Doing okay. But that training seat pushed it.
Austin climbed up the step and took aim. Daniel leaned against the doorjamb and waited. And waited. Man, the kid was going like a racehorse. Daniel snagged the footed pj’s off the hall carpet along with the pull-up.
Huh?
Well, what do ya’ know? The thing was dry.
He spun back to Austin. “Way to go, bud.”
“Oo-rah.” With a big-toothed grin, Austin reached over the sink and pumped purple soap from a dinosaur dispenser.
The spare room door cracked open, Trey stepping out, his yawn closing into a frown. Big surprise. Not. “Wanna hold the party down? Some of us are trying to sleep.”
Austin’s smile faltered, and Daniel vowed he’d slip peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches in the kid’s lunch for a week if Trey didn’t ditch the attitude at light speed.
“We’re celebrating Austin staying dry through the night. And so should you, pal, since Austin sleeps on the top bunk.”
A grin tugged Trey’s somber face. He held up a high-five palm.
Austin launched off the footstool and smacked his brother’s hand, shouting, “Oo-rah!”
“Hoo-ya,” Trey parried with the Navy grunt, anything other than a nod to the Air Force.
Yesterday Trey had chanted an Army cadence as he circled the pool. The day before that he’d taped a computer printout of the “Marine Hymn” to Daniel’s bag of licorice—a bag that was suspiciously light.
Trey let loose another hoo-ya. Daniel snorted on a chuckle. Trey turned, a wicked glint sparking his brown eyes. The way would never be easy with this kid, but at least Trey had found his sense of humor.
Daniel burrowed a hand into a laundry basket—of clean stuff, he hoped —and yanked free a pair of Austin’s shorts and a T-shirt. Once they passed a quick sniff test, he tossed them to the little guy. “What do ya’ say we head out to IHOP for breakfast before I swing by base so Mary Elise can sleep in?”
Guilt bit over how he’d kept her up late more than once grilling her about where she’d go. What she’d do. Of course, now he wondered if maybe she did have a plan and just didn’t care to share it with him.
“Can I have pancakes?” Austin cheered, pushing his head through his wrong-side-out T-shirt.
“IHOP?” Trey echoed with a shrug and an almost disguised grin. “Yeah, I guess that’s okay, even if it is a regular hangout for you Chair Force dudes.”
