Zero expectations, p.2
Zero Expectations, page 2
I let out a heavy sigh. “You’re right,” I finally said. “You’re right.”
After a second, he said, “Okay, I’m making an executive decision. This Friday night, we’re showing up at your place, me and Alec, and we’re going to crack open a few beers and get you to calm the fuck down.”
My first instinct was to argue, but when I realize that I was very close to walking back into that classroom and taking my kids home, I said, “Yeah, sounds good.”
Chapter 2
Haven~
On days like today, I felt like a goddamn superhero. I felt like…like, if I were a Care Bear, I’d be Superstar Bear, or maybe I Care Bear, not sure. Do-Your-Best Bear was also a possibility. I mean, not everyone had what it took to work in customer service. In fact, in some instances, it was even helpful if you actually liked customers, though that was rare these days.
Still, weighing the pros against the cons, it was no contest. The company that I worked for was a satellite communications company, and they paid very well. They also had health benefits that were pretty decent, and an employee perk package that was supposedly pretty snazzy once you made senior manager status. As for those of us who had no aspirations to manage anyone, the Christmas giftbox was still nothing to sneeze at. I’d been working for Future Communications for over five years now, and these people didn’t mess around with their customer service. They gave back to their customers in savings and appreciation, and it was no wonder that they were in the top five in customer service in the world.
The world.
That’d be Earth.
At any rate, I’d done a kick ass job today, and it wasn’t bragging to be proud of a job well done. It wasn’t being conceited to acknowledge your talents. Besides, what was wrong with being your own cheerleader? As long as you weren’t an obnoxious, condescending, arrogant asshole about it, why not get that horn out and toot the hell out of it? Plus, if you were able to feel good from within, then you didn’t need validation from other people.
Luckily, I’d been raised by two very down-to-earth, level-headed, hard-working people. My father, Cole Oslind was a retired city worker, and he’d been proud of the work that he’d put in all those years. My father had been the head of public works, and that man had taken his responsibilities seriously. Now, had he been finding the cure for cancer? No. Still, not everyone needed to save the world to be considered a contributing member of society.
Now, my mother, Amber Oslind, was a poetry author, and as wild as it sounded, the woman was extremely successful. I’d lost count of how many published works that she had floating around out there in the world, and she was constantly booked on podcasts and whatnot. She was also able to do most of it from home, which worked well since Dad believed that Mom was the oxygen that he breathed.
At any rate, both of my parents had taught me to be proud of myself whenever I felt good about something I did. They’d taught me how to recognize that my self-validation was way more important than other people’s thoughts of me. While I still knew how to conduct myself in public, my parents had also instilled enough confidence in me to recognize my worth, my capabilities, and what made me happy.
Of course, it’d been easy for them to spend all that time nurturing my self-confidence because I’d been an only child. I had no brothers or sisters, but I’d had plenty of cousins growing up, so I’d had plenty of kids to play with during my childhood. Plus, sports had been my jam in school. I had played them all and had sucked at every single one of them. Still, that hadn’t stopped me. I hadn’t let my lack of athletic ability stop me from enjoying the nature of the games.
Now, while I didn’t have any siblings, I did have two best friends that rocked the hell out of their best friend duties. When I had moved here two years ago, the first thing that I had looked for was a beauty salon because, sometimes, I just needed someone to rub my damn feet. Single as a leper exiled onto a sinking island, I didn’t have anyone at home to rub my feet when I just wanted to feel cherished. So, with that being said, I had to pay for it, and salons were legal and legit.
Anyway, that’s when and where I’d met Morgan James and Shiloh March, and it had only taken them a few months to stop fighting the good fight and become my best friends.
Okay, that wasn’t true.
We had become instant best friends, bonding over how much we hated reality television. We had bonded over our love of sports, books, movies, and books that’d been turned into movies. We had clicked, and it’d been as simple as that. Now, while most people would think that was stupid, I didn’t. I knew how hard it was to make genuine friends, and those two ladies were as genuine as you got.
Morgan actually owned the salon where we’d met, and according to her packed appointment book, her salon was a successful one. It helped that Morgan was freakin’ stunning. She was thirty-six, five-foot-two with blonde hair, green eyes, and she had a body that even had me thinking things whenever I saw her in a bikini. Just kidding, though I wasn’t kidding about her being positively stunning. Morgan was also not one to be trifled with. The woman owned a successful business for a reason.
As for Shiloh, she was thirty-five and a third-grade schoolteacher. Though happily single, Shiloh absolutely adored kids, and she loved spending her days shaping their little minds. She was also a stunner with her dark auburn hair (swearing that it came from some random Caucasian ancestor somewhere in her bloodline), brown eyes, and curvy figure. If you asked her, she’d say that she was chubby, but I didn’t see her that way. I saw her like a ray of sunlight after a storm. Shiloh was the very definition of happy, and she wasn’t afraid to shove a crystal in your pocket to ward off bad vibes or bust out with the spell book to get even with someone.
Nevertheless, even as beautiful as my two friends were, it never felt as if they were dimming my shine. Yeah, I wasn’t blonde and a business owner, or curvy and shaping young minds, but it wasn’t like I was two-day leftovers, either. I was thirty-six, five-foot-three, had black hair, hazel eyes, and my smile was decent enough. My body was rather average, but average was good. It worked for my frame, and clothes were never an issue for me. We were all very different, but we were also all confident enough to know that we each brought something to the table.
So, back to why I deserved to be an honorary Care Bear, this week was when most of the kids were going back to school, and I had taken so many calls from so many worried and frazzled parents, and I hadn’t had one person hang up on me, cuss me out, or ask to speak to my supervisor. In the world of customer service, that shit felt like coming in first, second, and third at the Olympics.
Shutting down my workstation, I headed to the kitchen, and that was probably the best thing about my job. I worked from freakin’ home. While I had to sit at a computer desk all day, I got to do it in my pajama pants, so that alone won all the arguments against working from home.
When my phone rang, I answered it as soon as I saw who was calling. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Did you do it?” Shiloh asked.
“Why are you whispering?”
“I’m not whispering,” she denied, her voice a little louder this time.
“Yes, you were,” I countered.
“I’ve been…feeling off lately,” she finally admitted. “Like…some bad juju is stalking me or something.” Shiloh was very serious about her vibes. “I’m not sure, but I feel like something’s coming.”
“Please say we’re winning the lottery,” I pleaded. “I could really use a few million dollars.”
“Wouldn’t that bring on happy vibes, instead of bad juju vibes?” she questioned.
I snorted. “Not considering that the love of money is the root of all evil.”
“You got me there,” she murmured.
“Still, I wouldn’t turn down a few million dollars,” I added.
“Okay, okay,” she said. “Let’s get back to why I called.”
I grinned. “Yes, I did it.”
“Oh, my God!” she squealed. “I’m so excited for you.”
“Right?” I replied. “I’m going to pick them up tomorrow, then take them to their appointments, and I’m just so freakin’ excited, Shy.”
“Have you picked out their names yet?”
After tomorrow, I was going to be the proud parent of two Boxer puppies, and I couldn’t be more excited about it. Since I worked from home, I’d be able to give them the attention that they needed. Sure, it was going to be hard at first, but I was up for the challenge. Besides, animals were so much better to spend the evening with than a guy that expected you to pick up from where his mother left off.
“No,” I admitted. “I still haven’t found anything that rolls off the tongue.”
“Well, you still have time,” she said encouragingly. “I mean, the last thing that you want to do is saddle those poor puppies with horrible names.”
“Well, maybe if I spend a couple of days with them, I can gauge their personalities before naming them,” I suggested. “I want them to feel loved, not like a last-minute decision.”
“You’ve been thinking about this for over two years, Haven. This is definitely not an impulse buy.”
“Well, I’m picking them up tomorrow, so you and Morgan can come over this weekend and meet them. We can make it a girls’ night.”
“Ooohhh, I like that,” she quickly agreed. “Since it’s the first week of school, I’ll probably need quite a bit of wine by the time the week’s over.”
“Oh, c’mon, you love those children.”
“Oh, I do,” she rushed out. “But some of their parents are just horrible.”
Poor woman, she wasn’t wrong.
Chapter 3
Roman~
After what had to be the longest day of my life, I was finally home, working only a half-day today because the kids had gotten out of school rather early. I’d been told that the first week of school would be short days, but next week, the kids would be going full steam. While they’d still get off of school before I was done working for the day, I had a plan for that. Starting last year, I had begun doing all my site jobs and appearances in the morning, saving all the administrative crap for the afternoons. I figured that I could pick the kids up after school, then they could hang out at the office with me until it was time to go home. After the first six months that I’d had them, I had expanded my office to include a playroom for them, though early on, it’d been for their cribs.
So, now that I had my children safely back where they belonged, they were waiting patiently while I unbuckled them from their booster seats. As soon as I had Zach freed, he reached over to unbuckle his sister, and I stepped back, making room for them to jump out of the truck. The male chauvinist in me loved seeing Zach jumping from the step, but I always cringed whenever Zoey did the same thing. I knew that it was something that I was going to have to get over if I wanted to raise a strong daughter, but that was easier said than done.
I reached inside, grabbed their backpacks, then handed them to each kid. While I could easily carry them both, I was big on teaching my children how to clean up after themselves. Responsibility was a big thing with me, and it’d gotten even worse after Naomi had pulled her bullshit on me.
As soon as we rounded the truck, I lost Zoey.
“Puppies!” she squealed, and I barely caught her at the sidewalk before she ran into the street, nearly giving me another fucking heart attack, making it two in just one day.
“Goddamn it, Zoey,” I rushed out. “What have I told you about crossing the street?”
“I wasn’t going to cross the street,” she lied. “I just wanted to see the puppies, Daddy.”
“You can’t cross the street without me or Daddy, Zoey,” Zach chided, though he was totally wrong on that. “You also said a bad word, Daddy.”
“Neither of you are allowed to cross the street without me,” I corrected, ignoring Zach’s chastising. “You need an adult with you.”
“Daddy, can we go look at the puppies?” Zoey asked, looking up at me like saying no would ruin her entire life.
I glanced across the street, and my neighbor was in her front yard, letting two puppies sniff around every bush and blade of grass that decorated the front of her house. They were both on leashes and it looked like they were familiarizing themselves with their new surroundings, though I kind of hoped that they weren’t. The twins wanted a pet so badly that I could see them wanting to play across the street a lot if the dogs were staying.
Now, it wasn’t that I didn’t like my neighbor; in truth, I didn’t even know her. Hell, if I were being completely honest, I didn’t know any of my neighbors beyond a cordial wave of hello. It wasn’t that I had anything against getting to know my neighbors, so much as I just didn’t have the time. Between owning my own business and raising two kids, I barely had enough time to sleep, much less attend neighborhood barbecues or whatever it was that neighbors did.
There was also the fact that my across-the-street-neighbor was hot as fuck, and I just didn’t need that shit in my life right now. While I hadn’t gone around introducing myself to my neighbors, I’d seen a lot of them during their regular life activities, and my neighbor across the street hadn’t been any different. I’d gotten a good look at her a couple of years ago when she had moved in, and it’d been enough to keep me on my side of the street.
At around only five-foot-three, she had black hair that fell to her ass, a face that reminded you of those porcelain dolls that people collected, and she had a tight, toned, sexy frame on her. I had no idea what color her eyes were because I’d never seen her up close, but there was no doubt that the woman was beautiful and sexy. Still, no matter how tempting, the last thing that I needed was to fuck around with a woman that lived right across the street from me and my children.
Now, that wasn’t to say that I was a monk, because I wasn’t. Though I did my best to give my children all my free time, I still had needs. So, whenever I allowed my parents to take the kids for a couple of hours, I did what I could to satisfy those needs, then move the fuck on. I also did my fucking around in the next town over. I refused to bring trouble to my doorstep, so the farther away that I found my pussy, the fucking better. As far as my children knew, I was a goddamn saint.
Taking the decision away from me, Zoey nearly blew my eardrums out when she yelled, “Can we see your puppies?”
My neighbor’s head turned, and when she smiled at my child, I knew that all was lost. There was no way in hell that Zoey wasn’t going to want to see the puppies every damn day. First, I had to deal with them going off to kindergarten without me, and now I was going to have to get them a damn dog.
“Sure,” my neighbor called over. “If it’s okay with your dad.”
Oh, sure…make me look like the asshole if I’m not okay with it.
“Can we, Daddy?” Zach asked, and I just looked at my son, mentally calling him a traitor because everyone knew that it was supposed to be guys against the girls.
“Sure, bud,” I replied, doing my best not to sound irritated.
As I grabbed their hands, I knew that this wasn’t about the damn dogs. It’d been a long ass fucking day, and all I wanted to do was get my kids in the house, talk about their first day of school, help them with their chores, make dinner, eat with them, do some bookwork, get their baths ready, then spend some quality time with them for a little bit before putting them to bed.
That’s it, that’s all.
I didn’t want to be meeting my neighbor. I didn’t want to meet her dogs. I didn’t want to make small talk. I didn’t want to hear her ask about my children’s mother. I didn’t want to talk about what I did for a living, or what she did for a living, or where her husband was, or who her parents were, or who my parents were, if we had siblings…I didn’t want to waste my time talking with someone that I wasn’t interested in meeting. I just wanted to go into the house and be with my kids. As unhealthy as that sounded, that’s all that I wanted to do. Naomi had left a seriously bitter taste in my mouth, and I wasn’t interested in getting to know anyone outside a quick fuck at some random motel room.
Nevertheless, I plastered a smile on my face, then walked my kids across the street like I wasn’t dead inside.
Okay.
That was an exaggeration.
I wasn’t dead inside, so much as a bit wilted. Naomi had left her mark, and that scar ran pretty fucking deep. Plus, it was going to last forever. Now that my children were in school, someone was bound to ask them about their mother, and then what? They were going to start to understand that their family was different, and I had no idea how they were going to process that. Would it be a good thing or a bad thing? Was my mother and Phoebe going to be enough for Zoey? Was Zach going to have a healthy view of women? Hell, maybe I really was dead inside.
When we finally reached my neighbor’s yard, she walked up to us with her puppies in tow, and I could see that her eyes were a bright hazel as she reached her hand out to shake mine. I could also see that she wasn’t just beautiful, sexy, or hot as fuck; she was goddamn stunning.
“Hi, I’m Haven,” she said, introducing herself, and why wouldn’t that be her fucking name. “Haven Oslind.”
I let go of Zach’s hand, then took hers in mine. “It’s nice to meet you,” I lied, ignoring how her hand felt in mine. “I’m Roman Scott, and these are my children, Zach and Zoey.”
Haven immediately squatted down. “Hi, Zach and Zoey,” she greeted. “I’m Haven.”
“Hi, Haven,” Zoey greeted back. “I like your hair.”
Haven’s smile widened. “Well, I like your hair, too. It’s a very pretty color.”
“Hi, Haven,” Zach chimed in. “I’m Zach, Zoey’s older brother.”
Haven looked up at me with a twitch in her lips. “He’s a minute older than she is,” I explained.
Haven looked back down at Zach. “Well, that does make you her big brother, doesn’t it?”
