Started with a babe

"You can call me if you have any problems with anything. Help yourself to any food in the fridge and feel free to use our tv!" Lauren tells me while she and her wife head out the door with their luggage. 

"Yes Lauren! Y'all have a great trip and don't worry about anything. I'll take care of it!" I yell as they get into their cab. 

I go check on Olivia to find her still sleeping. Well it is 5 a.m. so I don't blame her. 

I switch the tv on to find something to watch on Netflix. I settle on Brooklyn 99 to drool over a 40 year old man. Lol. I'm kidding. Or am I... 

---

I wake up to a loud bang and I jump up to see a very sweaty Wilder. He was in his workout clothes and god did they do him justice. I move my eyes up from his well defined abs painfully slowly and meet his eyes.

"Done checking me out?" he says with a smirk.

"I was not- don't flatter yourself buddy." I  retort, hoping I wasn't blushing as much as I felt I was.

"Your cheeks say otherwise babe." He says as he makes his way up the stairs.

Shit.

I turn around to look at the time and it was only 6. Olivia only needed to be woken up at 7. I sigh. I guess I have some more time to kill.  I make my way to the kitchen and look around. Maybe I could whip up some pancakes before Olivia wakes up. It's not part of my job description but hey, who doesn't love waking up to some blueberry pancakes?

It doesn't take me too long to find all the ingredients and look up the recipe. I found one that seemed easy and not too long after, I had a stack of pancakes! I keep some aside for Olivia and start digging into the rest myself. As I'm barbarically devouring the delicious fluffs of goodness, I hear footsteps approach me. I look up with a full mouth to find a wet-haired Wilder looking down at me. I raise one eyebrow at him as he looks down at my plate. 

"You didn't make any for me babe?" he asks with puppy dog eyes and a pout.

"Firstly, stop calling me that and secondly, I'm babysitting Olivia, not you." I say after swallowing some pancake.

"If you'd like we could babysit a kid in about 9 months." he smirks.

"Yes daddy~" I joke. His eyes widen in surprise and a small smile plays at his lips. The smile goes as quickly as it came and he cleared his throat and started smirking again. 

It was like he'd taken his mask off for a brief second  but then slipped the mask back on as if he'd done something wrong. 

He turns his head away, "Olivia has plans with her friend today."

I look at my watch: 7:00 am.

Frick he was right. I quickly wake Olivia up and see her sleepy eyes light up with pure joy at the mention of pancakes. Then she looks at me deep in the eyes and says, "I like you."

I snort with laughter. "Well I like you too." 

She flips her hair, "Yeah everyone does." 

Pfft I can see how she's Wilder's sister. I hear a snicker behind me and I turn around to see Wilder leaning against the door frame. He clears his throat, "Uhm Olivia's late."

Before I can say anything Olivia responds, "Shut up Wilder, this is the only one of your girlfriends that I actually like. Let me bond with her." 

Wilder and I both start sputtering, "I- we're NOT"

 "YEAH NO I DON'T-"

 "I'D NEVER-"

"Oh. Too bad. she's the only one who's not a skank." Olivia says sadly.

"Language!" Wilder and I both say at the same time. We looked at each and look away at the same time. 

Olivia cuts the awkward silence, "Not dating huh?" she says with a small smile. 

What is up with this 7 year old??? I think as she happily digs in to her pancakes.

---

"If anything goes wrong and you need me to beat someone up just ask for someone's phone and call me okay? I'll beat up all those lil punks for you." I hear Wilder say to his sister. By the look on her face, she's heard this speech before. He smiles at her and gives her a quick one-armed hug before we get into the car.

I didn't know Wilder had a soft side. By the looks of it it's only reserved for his sister, especially with the little speech he gave. He sees me smiling and watching the whole interaction and  glares at me. It was only a glare but it was basically saying, "If you tell anyone about this, you're dead." Bold of him to assume I had friends. Oh wait there's Iris. But I haven't really talked to her much so I consider her more of an acquaintance. But she seems really nice though so we probably will end up being friends. If she likes me. She will. Wait that's kinda narcissi- oh we're already at the house.

-

I hear my phone ringing.  I groan as I get up and check the time: 12:00pm. Oh I must've fallen asleep. I check the caller ID and see that it's Lauren. 

"Hello?" I answer trying to sound as awake as possible. 

"Oh I'm so sorry honey were you asleep?" Lauren asks.

Well, guess I didn't do a good job. "No don't worry about that. Did something happen?" 

"No no I just wanted to tell you that Olivia is going to be staying over at her friends place for the night. So your job's been cut short, honey. You can go home."

"Oh."

"Is something wrong?" Lauren asks worriedly.

"Umm no it's just that my mom is out for the night but it's no problem Lauren, I can find a place to crash." I say, trying to think of a place I could stay. My mom's going out tonight and she was wearing Jennifer! I thought I'd never live to see the day that happened.

"Oh no honey I'm sure Wilder would be happy to have you over for just one more night." she offers.

"Are you sure? I don't want to be a bother..." I don't want to be a bother but I have no friends. Well there's Iris but I haven't really talked to her much so I consider her more of an acq- oh I've already had this chain of thoughts before. 

"Oh please you wouldn't be a bother, I insist!" she says.

"Oh alright. Thank you so much Lauren!" I say gratefully.

"No problem hun. I'll stop bothering you now." She says and ends the call.

I get up to make lunch for myself. I find some pasta in the pantry and decide to just wing it. I mean how bad could it be? Famous last words.

I spot the dirty dishes from earlier this morning and think back to the time Wilder almost showed some real emotion to me. Something about that moment made me start making a pasta dish for two. 

---

I make my way up to Wilders room and try my best not to spill anything. I take a deep breath and knock on his door.