Kellen and Elizabeth Babysit

“Doesn’t he smell amazing?” Beth inhales deeply as she holds Arlan. We’ve been begging Maddie and Liam to let us babysit him for months. I tried not to feel hurt when they trusted Cal to watch him before us, but Beth talked me down, explaining more about how often babies have to nurse. Cal lives in a condo right across from a cluster of trendy restaurants. 

We can’t offer that, but Beth promised if I was just patient, Liam would likely trust us to keep Arlan longer once he started eating some solid food. So here we are, taking turns sniffing him for about 8 hours while they go off to a friend’s wedding. 

Jake wanders over to smell the baby and makes a face. “He just smells like skin.” Elizabeth pulls him tighter against her chest and sniffs again. I know what she’s smelling. That magical new smell that all babies have. It somehow has a different impact on me now in my 50s. Instead of just smelling like potential and wonder, Arlan smells like accomplishment and pride, my decades of loving his father. 

“Can I go to bed now?” Jake is spread out on my couch, moping. We spend a lot of time at my house, but sleep most nights at theirs. Beth and I are both committed to the long haul together, but she doesn’t want to uproot Jake to move again and I’m not yet ready to let go of my house. 

“Are you really asking if you can go to your room and play video games in there?” Beth raises a brow at Jake, who grins. 

“They’re educational. Cal says building mods will really raise my chances of getting accepted to  a computer science program.” Jake looks at Beth like he knows she’ll say yes to late night screen time. 

I feel myself hoping she’ll say yes, too. With Arlan passed out like that and his parents not due for another few hours, I have some ideas about what Beth and I can do with that time if she’s had enough sniffing the baby. 

Jake hustles home and Beth looks up at me, making a face that says she’s on the same wavelength as me. I extend a hand to help her up from my couch and she kisses the baby’s dark head, setting him gently in the pack n play while I pull the curtains shut. 

“We’ve probably got at least an hour,” I tell her. “We want to have some buffer to get dressed in case they leave the reception early.”

“Good thinking.” She sashays down the hall and I follow, but by the time I reach the bedroom, she’s already stripped and spread on my bed, fully naked.

“Beth,” I breathe. My voice catches and my heart skips at the sight of her. She chews on the tip of one finger and points at me with the other hand.

“Strip,” she says, as if I weren’t already halfway there. I dive onto the mattress, meeting her as she locks her arms around my neck. As I taste her, I feel my heart beating the rhythm of our love, syncing with hers. I swallow her moans of pleasure, tracing her skin with my fingers and teasing out the pattern I know will make her feel good. 

Beth fumbles for the nightstand and I make a deep sound of excitement. Part growl, part prayer, I groan out my approval of what her hands are doing to my body as she drizzles the new warming lube on my skin. “How does this feel inside you, Beth?” 

I nip at her neck and ease home, gliding in the heat of our connection. “Oh, god, Kellen, so good,” she moans. Beth starts to move, tentatively at first and then frantically, thrusting wildly as we slam together. “Faster,” she says.

But this time I shake my head. I don’t want fast. “We have forever,” I tell her, gliding slow and long and deep. 

“Oh, Kellen,” she breathes as I feel her clenching, shuddering. I tumble over the edge with her, my love pouring into her along with my release. After, we lay together quietly, listening for Arlan, holding hands. Eventually, we get up and change into pajamas. I bought Beth a robe to keep at my house and she got us matching slippers, so we move to the couch to cuddle in our matching loungewear.

We sit in the semidarkness watching Arlan breathe and I’m sure both of us are remembering nights spent watching our own babies sleep. Maddie pokes her head in the front door, cheeks flushed from dancing I hope, and swats at Liam. “Look at him sleeping,” she says.

She rushes over to the pack n play to scoop up her baby, plunking herself in the chair in my living room. “My boobs are bursting,” she says with a shrug. To the baby, she says, “Did your grandparents wear you out?” He coos and starts eating, not bothered by his abrupt wakeup call. 

Liam fusses as he gather’s up Arlan’s things, asking us how many seconds we submerged the bottle of milk in the hot water, asking about the quantity and contents of Arlan’s diapers. My mind is still on the word “grandparents” that Maddie dropped so casually. This family is loud and grouchy and unconventional as the day is long, but we’ve got love to spare. 

Beth kisses my cheek and curls up against me as the trio departs for their own cozy house. She peeks out the front window to make sure Jake isn’t still sitting up playing video games in the living room, and nuzzles her head against my shoulder. “Let’s make our way across the street, Grandpa,” she says. 

This isn’t the life I was expecting, but as I dash across the street in my robe and slippers, holding hands with the woman I love, I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Continue the Brady Family series with Cal and Logan in Vibration: An Accidental Roommates Romance.