"And none of that pervy shit you two do in front of my little girl, you weirdoes," Joey had told them at least 91 times, shaking his finger and trying to look stern, as if he thought he was their daddy too, before he and Kelly left for date night on the town that evening. "I'm serious. You get freaky in front of her, dudes, and scar her for life, and I will personally maim you both. Got it?" Snickering, Justin had ignored him again and proceeded to hug Kelly and tell her how fantabulous she looked in her stunning black dress. They'd simultaneously rolled their eyes and laughed together. JC had shoved Joey's shoulder playfully and smiled. "Dude, lay off. You'll give yourself a heart attack, Phat One. And you know pervy shit is only pervy shit if YOU'RE not the one doing it. Otherwise, it's you getting your freak on, and it's a-okay." "Yeah, yeah. But I don't want my baby seeing it. Gay or straight. You know what I'm saying?" "Don't worry about it, man. I hear ya. And plus, we already did plenty of pervy shit before we got here. You want details?" "No, Chasez," Joey had shuddered with Broadway flair. "No details. No fucking way. Keep it to yourself, man." "Fine. Bitch." JC had punched Joey's arm again and laughed before turning to hug Kelly when Justin unembraced her. "Now go on. Don't you have reservations or something like that? J and I have some tending-to-the-kid business to do. So scoot!" "Lord, have mercy on us all," Kelly had laughed, reaching for her small black purse by the door. "This kid has no clue that she's got the two most megafamous babysitters in the world. Man. The stories she can tell later." "And the two most expensive ones too. Know what I'm saying?" JC had winked. And Justin had whipped his neck around to his lover and narrowed his eyes. With only a slow shake of his head and easy lift of that cocky half-smirk, he'd said silently, "Don't even go there, sweetness. This gig isn't about getting paid. It's about having fun taking care of the Fatone missus. So just hush it. 'Kay?" JC had "heard" him and smiled back, nodding knowingly and licking his bottom lip. Again without words, he'd answered: "Okay, baby. However you want to work it. I was kidding anyway. And at the end of the day, see, I came here with you, and I'm leaving here with you." ~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~ "Dude! You are SO going to be the best checkout girl EVER at Wal-Mart when you grow up. I'm serious, man! Look at you go, girl, with that thing! You're hot!" JC giggles with bright, lively eyes and sits cross-legged on the floor next to where Briahna is playing in her huge playroom. Her toy of choice - for the moment - is the Fisher-Price supermarket cash register she'd gotten for her recent third birthday. It's rather authentic, for a plastic plaything - complete with a pop-out money drawer and currency, rolling rubber belt for various grocery items, a scanner to scan those items, and a small microphone to summon help if an item fails to scan properly. And, as JC can see, she's quite handy with the whole contraption. Justin stands in the doorway and watches them - smiling at how JC is as energetically fascinated with it all as the little girl is. If he'd been asked at that moment, he'd have to admit that, yes, the sweet scene gave him some definite warm flutteries in his stomach. "Oops! Hold up, dude! The chocolate syrup here didn't beep. Run it over that scanner do-hickey again, babe," JC tells Bri excitedly and flaps his hand in the air. She tries the object again. "No, not the broccoli! The syrup! This thingy here!" JC points, and she grabs the small plastic Hershey bottle before he can touch it. "See, I got to have the syrup, man, to put on my veggies and stuff. Know what I'm saying?" He snickers at the what?-are-you-crazy? glare she shoots up at him with her daddy's sleek, dark eyes. Then, with her other hand, she snatches up the little microphone from its cradle by the register, presses the button on its handle, and speaks into it with confident authority. "Price check, peeze! Price check! On chock-lat stuff for brock-lee. Price check!" JC laughs so hard and so spastically that he falls over on his side, holding his abdomen with both arms. "Oh, no she didn't! Price check? Dude, you are cracking me up!" "It's fifty-nine dollars," Bri stops and informs him, very cool and professional standing by the little picnic table, as if she has lots of other customers behind him waiting to be checked out and he needs to get a move on pronto. With his head on the floor, JC stares up at her and widens his eyes disbelievingly. "Fifty-nine bucks? That little bottle? For real? What the fu-? I mean is it, like, made of liquid gold or something?" "You still want it?" she asks, slowly batting her long eyelashes and trying to be politely patient. "What? Sure, I still want it! Got to have me some chocolate syrup. I'm all out. So toss it in my bag, dude." Bri smartly presses some of the register buttons, making bells and buzzer sounds. Then she looks at JC pointedly and says, "Total six dollars and eighty-three cents. How do you pay?" JC's still chuckling. He's so amused, he can't stop. He pulls himself back up to a sitting position again and drives his fingers through his tousled hair. Then he reaches for the small hard plastic credit cards on the table in front of him. "VISA, baby. Here ya go. Swipe me, mommy." Bri takes the card from him and slides it through the toy swipe device several times until a tiny "End of Sale" sign pops up in the register window. Satisfied, she flips rather than hands it back to him. "Thank you, sir. Have a nice day." "Hey, thanks, man. I think I'll be back in this joint to be purchasing all my food products from now on. You're awesome. I nominate you for Employee of the Month," JC tells her and keeps giggling. Justin saunters in the room now, grinning and holding a sippy-cup full of apple juice for Bri. "Well, aren't you two just wicked cute? I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Here, sweet girl. I brought you some juice your mama says you like," he coos, settling down next to JC on the carpet. "And, Jace, you'd better not be maxing out our charge cards on kinky chocolate syrup and junk, babe. I mean it." "J, she's hysterical! You should see all the shi- I mean stuff she knows how to do!" JC says breathily and circles Justin's arm with his own, snuggling closer to him. Bri glances up at them for a quick, nonchalant second and then returns to her new task of feeding her stuffed Pumba some Heinz ketchup from the plastic grocery items. "She's a smart little angel, I know," Justin whispers, leaning into JC. "But should you really be calling her 'dude,' sweetness?" "What's wrong with 'dude'?" "Maybe her mom would rather she not go to pre-K and be 'duding' everybody in her class. Ya think?" JC laughs softly. "Whatever. Hey, Bri! Whassup, girl? Is that good juice or what?" The toddler raises her eyes over the top of the sippy-cup, stops drinking, and says, with glistening pink lips, "Yes. Good. Thank you, Jussin." She'd mastered "JayCee" months ago, and she had no trouble at all with "Chris" or "Lance." But the tricky "s-t" letter combination in Justin's name still gives her a slight hassle. JC, of course, always finds the cute mispronunciation wildly charming. "Aww, that's too adorable!" he screeches, entwined around Justin's bicep and holding on. "Maybe that's the kick-as- I mean killer pet name we need for you, baby. 'Jussin.' I love that." "Um, more like pet name you need for me, Jace. I think you're getting confused about whose brilliant little idea that was." "Well, you'll be getting one soon, mister Jussin. So stop your whining." JC leans in and smacks Justin's cheek with a brief, uninhibited kiss. Open affection between them had always been the accepted norm. They were "out" to all of the inner circle, even Baby Briahna. It was that "pervy" bedroom "shit" she was forbidden to see. "Hey, Miss Gorgeous Girl. Show Uncle Jussin how old you are now! Like you showed me." Bri obediently sets her cup on the table, catches her breath, and deftly shoots up a few pudgy fingers on her right hand. "Tree. I'm tree years old." JC and Justin both laugh and applaud her, arm in arm. "Yes, you are sweet pea! Bravo!" Justin says. "Dude, I think she's smarter than Joe already!" JC giggles madly. "Jace!" Justin slaps at his boyfriend's thigh. "Could you tone down the snarky attitude in front of her? Jesus! Could you be a worse influence?" "I'm just saying. There's, like, sharper pencils in the box, baby. Fatone is special-class, short-bus material, man." Justin laughs and slaps at him again. "Shut up!" "Look, baby. That fu- I mean that freak Joe is always ragging on me about something. I can get in a shot or two on him once in a while." "Snarky," Bri interjects calmly, over their snickering. "JC snarky." Justin busts up out of control, howling with laughter, and it's JC's turn to punch him playfully. "And now who's the 'worst influence'? Huh, J?" "YOU are……….So just……….hush it," Justin gasps, bending forward to his knees with his fit of giggles. "Hey, hey, Bri! Show Jussin this, sweetheart. Show him what we were doing a few minutes ago," JC encourages her with bulging-wide eyes and a full grin and waves her over to him. "C'mere!" he whispers and raises his open palm in the air to greet her. "Okay," she says happily and gets up to join him. "Gimme five up high!" JC sings, and they slap palms in the air. "Down low! Way to go!" Bri smacks his hand with hers much lower to the floor. "On the side! Let it slide!" Perfectly coordinated, the backs of their hands bump against each other now, tiny fingers smoothing against longer ones, and it must tickle because they both snicker and then high-five again. "Awesome! You're sharp as a tack, girlfriend!" Justin claps for them and grins. "You two are quite the vibing team, I gotta say. Hey, sweetness. Did you see her itty-bitty bubblegum-pink high-top Keds? Are those precious or what? And the way she just skips around in them. The cutest." "Yeah, man. Those are some cool shoes that I gotta have. Can I wear 'em, Bri? Just for a little while?" "No," she says quickly, shaking her head and wrinkling her small brow. "You too big." JC cracks up laughing. "Okay. Maybe you're right. J, baby, can you get me a pair, you know, like in my size? Don't you have connections in that area?" JC winks at him. "Babe, Bri will SO laugh at you if you get some of those pink shoes and skip around in them like she does, Jace. Won't you, girl?" "Prob'bly." She cocks her head and raises her eyebrows. "So? Lots of cats laugh at the stuff I wear. Like I care." "JC," the little girl whispers at his side, tapping his arm. "What, mommy? I mean sweetie. What do you need, hon?" JC turns to her earnestly, pushing at Justin who has helplessly fallen over against him. "Story," she says, with a chosen book in her hand. "Story. Read. This one." "Read you a story? That one?" Bri nods, dark silky eyelashes brushing downward as she blinks slowly. And JC scoots back from the table so that he can get up to read her a story as she's asked. But before he can untangle his long legs out from under him, she whirls around and steps backward until she feels him behind her and then sinks down to the warm lap created by his crossed limbs, hoisting the book up for him to take from her. He glances at Justin for a second, and they exchange a smile bright with love. Then he gently presses forward against her back, his face close to the side of her small head. Breathing in the clean scent of her baby-fine hair, he feels her relaxing into the comforting heat of his body and rhythm of his heartbeat. Exactly where she wants to be at that moment. She folds her hands in her own lap, and he opens the book. Justin moves around and stretches out lengthwise on his side on the floor in front of them so that he can watch and listen. "Okay, baby girl. Let's read us a story here. Let's see……….Winnie the Pooh and the Hundred Acre Wood……….I know this story. My mommy used to read it to me when I was a little tyke like you……….Sit tight now 'cause here we go."