After a lazy Sunday morning spent watching movies with Caroline and doing chores around the house, Blake and Caroline packed up Sunday afternoon for a trip to the gym with the cousins. The facility had a babysitting service, which consisted of a room with a solid glass wall, so he could look in on her at any time. He didn’t like leaving her with someone he didn’t know, but he’d kept his eye on the place during his last couple of visits to the gym. The kids seemed to have fun in there. What he hadn’t considered was that his daughter would see her honorary uncles the moment they stepped through the door and all bets would be off.

“Uncle Micah!” Caroline pulled her hand out of Blake’s and took off toward his cousin. Fortunately, Micah had enough time to drop the weight he was holding before he was hit in the legs by a Caroline-shaped blur.

“Hey, Caroline!”

She lifted her arms and Micah obligingly picked her up, neither of them wasting a breath before going into detail on the book they’d read over video chat at bedtime the night before. Micah nodded in all the right places, weaving his way back through the equipment to Blake’s side. By the time she finished her speech, she’d noticed Abe walking in and let out another screech of joy.

Abe dropped his duffel bag on the floor by the gym’s entrance and plucked her away from Micah. Blake couldn’t help but laugh. She had each and every one of them whipped and he loved every minute of it.

Micah bumped their shoulders together, drawing his attention away from Abe and Caroline’s extremely important discussion on why pink flowers were better than orange ones.

“We trying the babysitting service today?” Micah asked.

“Is this the royal we?”

Micah scowled. “I’m going to go look around first. Make sure they’ve disinfected everything appropriately. It’s very important. They should be following the state guidelines for daycare facilities, even if they—”

“Micah, breathe. I checked it out, okay? I called earlier in the week and talked to them about the service.”

“Can’t I just—”

“Really?” Blake crossed his arms and waited.

“I know you’re a great dad, Blake. Please don’t misinterpret my concern. It’s just… do you know how many germs kids spread around?”

“I’m very familiar. Fine, go sniff the table and make sure it’s clean. Let me know when you’re done.”

Micah took off toward the room, and with a shake of his head, Blake turned his attention back to his daughter. Abe shot him a pleading glance so he decided to be nice and rescue him from whatever promise Caroline was trying to wheedle out of him.

“What’s going on, Mouse?”

“Uncle Abe needs to come to the park today with us, Daddy. You said!”

He really hoped she grew out of this phase before long. Her pediatrician assured him that terrible twos was a misnomer, and that three was the age to look out for. He hadn’t been wrong.

“Caroline, what did I actually say?”

She sighed the put upon sigh of a child accustomed to getting her way. “You said we could ask my uncles if one of them would like to come to the park after you work on your muscles.”

“And I believe I also asked if you would practice using your manners today by asking nicely.”

She turned the full power of her brown eyes back to Abe. “Uncle Abe, would you pretty please with pink flowers come to the park with me?”

Abe sent another pleading glance Blake’s way before turning back to her. “I’m sorry, Caroline. I can’t today.”

Her face began to fall, her eyes growing glassy with tears.

“But,” Abe blurted, “I can come over to your house one night this week and we can play!”

That caught her attention. “Tea party?”

Abe gulped and Blake smothered a laugh.

“Sure. We can play tea party.”

“Okay!” She beamed and turned back to Blake. “Daddy, we can have a tea party with Uncle Abe!”

“We sure can. It’ll be fun. You ready to go play now?”

She nodded so Blake plucked her out of Abe’s arms. Micah was deep in conversation with the teen-aged boy in the playroom. The poor kid looked terrified.

Blake opened the door and sat Caroline down.

“Uncle Micah! Are you going to play with me?”

“No,” Blake said. “Uncle Micah is going to go out with Uncle Abe right now before Daddy has to have words with him.”

“Uh oh,” Caroline said. “That means you were naughty, Uncle Micah. Were you bad?” She seemed sympathetic to his plight.

“Uh, no. I just wanted to make sure they had fun stuff in here. And they do! So I’m leaving now. Have fun!”

Micah scurried out the door, leaving Blake and Caroline. The young sitter still looked half-scared. “Don’t worry. They’re all new uncles. The novelty will wear off.”

Caroline caught sight of the toy box in the corner and ran toward it.

“She has a snack and a cup of juice in her bag if she needs it. If she needs a bathroom break, just wave me down and I’ll come get her, okay? She should be fine as we went just a little bit ago.”

“Okay.”

“And if you don’t see me, you can get any of the Bartletts. You know who they are?”

He nodded again.

“Let me know if you need me. Caroline, I’ll be right outside. Back in a little while, okay. Be good.”

“Okay, Daddy!”

She was already elbow deep in a box of fake food that went with the little toy kitchen set along the wall.

More of the cousins had arrived while he was occupied with Caroline, and they began their workout a few minutes later. Both Micah and Abe warned him of how dangerous his kid was going to be.

“Just wait until she’s a teenager,” Josh added. “That kid isn’t going to have a date until she’s thirty if I have anything to say about it.”

Blake shook his head and ignored them.

“No one better ever lay a hand on her,” Abe growled.

Blake snorted out a laugh. “This from the man who just promised her a tea party to avoid saying no to her. You really think you’re so scary?”

Abe growled again.

“I can’t wait until you guys have kids. It’s going to be awesome.”

All of them blanched.

“That’s right, boys. You’ll all be going through this yourselves one day and I’m going to laugh and laugh and buy them drum sets.”

Micah shook his head. “I’ve decided not to have children.”

“We’ll see. Now can we actually break a sweat now? That’d be great, you know, if you guys think you can manage it.”

They all began a good-natured bickering back and forth, competing to see who could do the most reps. An hour later, Blake finished up and shook out his tired muscles. “I’m going to go grab a shower. You guys’ll keep an eye on Caroline for me for a few?”

“I will,” Micah promised.

Blake had a feeling Micah wouldn’t take his eyes off the small room until he’d gotten back. He hurried to clean up, and sure enough, Micah had sat down on a bench, doing a few bicep curls, but his eyes were trained on the daycare room.

“I thought I was bad,” Blake said as he gave Micah’s shoulder a squeeze.

Micah looked up at him with a sheepish grin. “How do you do it? I don’t want to let her out of my sight. What if something happened to her? What if she got hurt?”

“It gets easier, but honestly, I think I’ll always worry. She’ll be fine, though. We have to let her explore, and get a few bumps and bruises so she learns.”

He left Micah to his thoughts and went to pick Caroline up. After signing her out and letting her yell out bye-byes to all of their relatives still in the gym, they went to the grocery store. Another errand done, they went home and put food away before making a much needed trip to the park.

Growing up, Blake couldn’t remember many trips to the park. They’d mostly played on backyard swing sets, and with a family full of construction workers, most of theirs were pretty impressive. Blake realized he should see about getting them to build one for her in their new backyard. But then again, these trips to the park were really fun for both of them.

Caroline made a friend within minutes and they were running around laughing and playing. Blake sat on one of the benches until his presence was again required. Every few minutes, Caroline would run over to him to make sure he watched her do some trick or another. He cheered and waved, happy to see her carefree and having fun. She hadn’t asked about Michael as much this past week, and it broke his heart a little to think she was forgetting about him.

His phone pinged, and Blake forced his melancholy thoughts aside to open his message. It was from Linc and brought a smile back to his face.

Hey. You busy?

At the park with Caroline.

Having fun?

Yep.

Linc didn’t respond again for a while so Blake went back to watching Caroline. He agreed to push her on the swing and she was practicing moving her legs back and forth when his phone pinged again.

He checked his messages and saw another from Linc.

Turn around.

Blake did, and found Linc standing at the edge of the park holding a balloon and a gift bag.

He grinned sheepishly at Blake, as if asking for permission to come over. Blake waved for him to come closer and Linc began walking his way.

“Daddy, can we slide now?”

“Sure, Mouse. You want to say hi to Linc first? He stopped by to visit us.”

She hopped off the swing and turned to see Linc still walking their way. She squealed with delight and ran toward him.

“Is that for me?” She pointed at the balloon as she jumped up and down.

“If you like it?”

She squealed again, answering his question. It had a mouse and a piece of cheese on it and was tied with pink and purple ribbons. Linc looped the strings around her wrist. She bounced her arm and laughed when the balloon danced on the end of the strings.

Caroline’s new friend came over, and after they admired the balloon for a minute, Blake convinced her to let him hold it so she could go on the slide.

Linc stepped close, his hands tucked into the front pockets of his jeans. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“I don’t,” Blake promised. “I wondered when I’d get to see you again.”

“Well, I didn’t have a chance to give you your birthday present last night, so I thought I’d bring it by.”

Butterflies fluttered in Blake’s stomach. “You didn’t have to get me anything, Linc.”

“I know.” Linc held out the bag to him and Blake accepted it.

Inside, he found a framed sketch of him holding Caroline, both of them laughing at something. It was the most beautiful drawing he’d ever seen.

“I love it,” Blake said. He ran his fingers over the image. “It’s beautiful, Linc.”

Linc flushed a little. “I’m glad you like it.”

“So, I was wondering,” Linc began, hesitating only to turn to face Blake, “if I could take you and Caroline out to dinner.”

The butterflies continued their dance. “Yeah. That’d be nice.”

Linc grinned and turned back to watch Caroline playing chase around the park.

“Good. They have a great kids menu at the diner. The mac and cheese is homemade.”

Blake laughed. “Checked that, did you?”

“I’ve heard about her fondness for it. Wanted to be sure she wasn’t traumatized.”

“She’d survive. I do make her eat things that aren’t cheese, you know.”

Linc grinned as Caroline ran their way. She roped Linc into taking a turn pushing her on the swing, and Blake stayed back to watch them playing.

Dinner ended up being a big success. Caroline was on her best behavior and devoured the mac and cheese, much to the delight of the grizzled chef behind the grill who came out to meet her when she pronounced loudly enough for all the diners to hear that it was the best macaroni on the planet.

Blake didn’t really want the evening to end, so he invited Linc back to his house to watch a movie. Caroline cheered and named a half dozen movies she wanted them to watch. They settled in with her favorite mermaid, and Caroline curled up between them on the couch.

Luckily, she fell asleep half way through the movie, so Blake carried her to bed. He found Linc flipping through the channels on his television when he got back.

“Alone at last,” he whispered as he climbed onto the couch and straddled Linc’s lap.

Linc dropped the remote and ran his hands down Blake’s sides and to his ass. He squeezed, then ran his hands up Blake’s back.

Blake leaned in and lowered his lips to Linc’s.

They made out for several minutes before Blake pulled away. “Uh, before things go any further, I’m not quite ready to have a sleepover yet while Caroline is here.”

“I understand. I don’t think I’m ready to fuck you while your kid is in the other room. And that thought just killed my boner.”

They both laughed and Blake pressed their foreheads together. “I’m glad you understand.”

“It’s okay. There’s something I wanted to talk to you about, too.”

Blake sat up and searched Linc’s gaze. Linc looked away, as if gathering his nerves, then lifted his eyes to meet Blake’s again.

“I know Abe and Carter were only joking around last night, but it got me thinking. I’ve spent a lot of time with your family over the past few years. They really do treat me like one of the family, especially since I became a foreman. When we started hanging out, I didn’t think that I could be putting that at risk. I really like you, Blake, and I adore your kid, but I’d like to have your family a little less involved, if that makes sense? I mean, right now, my future is really connected to working for your family’s company, and I know in my heart that it’s not a risk dating you. But in my head? My head is kinda freaking out about it.”

Blake frowned, but reached out to grab Linc’s hand. “I hadn’t thought about it like that. Uncle Henry would never fire you if things didn’t work out between us.”

“No, I know. But maybe, until we decide this thing is more serious or whatever, can we keep it just to us? God, that’s awful, to say. I just, I don’t want to stop seeing you but I don’t want to mess up my job either.”

“I understand. I’ll do what I can.”

Linc reached up and captured Blake’s lips again. “Thanks,” he said once they’d separated. “Now let me see if I can suck your brain out through your cock, birthday boy.”