I don’t know how I managed not to laugh, trust me, it was hard, but I didn’t. And that was probably a good thing judging by how red Naomi’s face turned at Shanti’s answer.
“Adults use the phrase, not kids.” She let out a frustrated, muted scream when Shanti didn't say anything else. “Okay, so, onto the sliding down a pole thing.”
In the history of conversations, I’d never imagined having with a kid, this was definitely one of them.
“Your aunts and I sometimes work out doing something called pole dancing—that’s the pole Jacinda was referring to. If you say it the way you just did, it sounds dirty.”
Tilting her head to the side, Shanti asked, “Why does it sound dirty, Aunt Naomi?”
Ah, hell. I was going straight to the gates of Hell because I couldn’t hold the laughter in any longer. Big bellows of it burst out of me, knocking me to my ass on the floor.
I didn’t hear what was said next because I just couldn’t stop, but finally, a little hand tapped me on my shoulder.
“Aunt Naomi said she’s going to get dressed, and you’re to get back to your damned work,” Shanti informed me, holding a hand out to help me up. “She also whispered something that wasn’t nice, but I don’t want to repeat it ‘cos she’ll whoop my butt if I do.”
Finally, something the kid wasn’t going to repeat.
Leaning in, I winked at her. “If you don’t repeat what you hear for the next month, I’ll give you twenty bucks.”
She considered the offer—or dare, depending on how you looked at it. “I can do that, but it means you won’t hear what Aunt Naomi said to Aunt Heidi about you.”
And that’s how I got schooled in how four-year-old kids thought today versus my mentality when I was her age. I also got schooled in being screwed over by a little kid because she wanted that money badly enough that she just kept making zipping motions over her lips when I begged her to tell me.
“I think you should get some of these,” Mark said as he squinted at the label with a photo of the fish and a description of them. “They’re called Mollies, and they look pretty with their spots and different colors. She’ll love them.”
I was aching all over after moving the tank inside the house onto the chest in the living room Naomi had told me to put it on.
Normally the water was put in once you’d put the tank where it was going, but because it was a surprise and I’d wanted the water ready for the fish, we’d had to carry a fucking heavy tank filled to the top. Fortunately, Bond, Canon, Reid, and Logan had helped, otherwise they’d probably have come home and found Mark and me out cold on the floor with fish tank debris all around us.
“I think she’d like those,” Reid agreed, looking over Mark’s shoulder. “Those look pretty, and I love the way you can see their poop through their stomachs.”
Agreeing, I asked the chick in the pet shop for ten of them and watched as she bagged them up with the rest of what we’d chosen.
“Let’s get them home and acclimate them to the temperature of the tank before Shanti and Naomi get back.”
This wasn’t what we usually did on our days off, but I think we were all enjoying it. There was something about setting up a surprise for a little girl that added more excitement to what we were doing.
Bond had even brought over a massive pink bow to put around it for Shanti—something I was kicking myself for not thinking about getting. Then again, he’d recently been educated on kids with Nemi, so there was that. I was going to have to ask him for lessons.
We’d just opened the last bag of fish and were watching them swimming around their new home when the door opened.
“Carter, Carter, I did it. I did my routine with no interruptions, and I didn’t say I was gonna shake my baby ma—” Shanti cut off when she saw the tank. “What’s that? Oh, there’s fishies in it.”
Squatting down and ignoring the guys' shoulders shaking at what she’d been saying before she saw it, I held my arms out for a hug. As always, she flew into me and almost choked me with her exuberance.
“Congratulations on your dance, Hubba Bubba Baby. I got you a present to celebrate.”
“They’re mine?” she breathed, still holding onto me tightly as she watched the fish closest to us swim around.
“Sure are. And we bought a mermaid that lets out bubbles to help the fish and a shipwreck, but I was waiting for you to help me set it all up.”
The look on her face was worth the damage to my body from today, and judging by the quiet throat clearings and intermittent sniffles behind me, the guys felt the same way. Shanti looked like she’d gotten the best thing in the world.