Just Sign Here~ MewGulf Imagine

Chapter 1

One

"Daddy!" Julia shrieked.

I ignored her and placed her luggage by the elevator, then stalked into the kitchen to grab her sippy cup and snack pack. I was in desperate need of a shower, but a look at the clock told me I'd lost my opportunity around the time I was cleaning oatmeal and applesauce off the floor. After which, Julia had promptly thrown her sticky spoon right in my face.

"You dumb!" she yelled at me.

I gritted my teeth and drew a deep breath. We had a flight to catch; Victoria would be here any minute, thank God. She could deal with my little terror's tantrum.

Whoever said that toddlers were adorable had never met mine. Something had happened when she turned two—almost overnight. It felt like she hadn't stopped screaming since. Four months until she turned three; we'd find out if I lived to see the day.

She let out a wail and started tugging off her clothes in the living room, and I stopped with my luggage in hand and merely stared at her. There was always something wrong. Her dress, her hair, her shoes, how her bed was made, the scent of her shampoo, whatever she ate, and, once, how her teddy bear had looked at her.

Truth be told, I missed her. She'd been there for me, whether she'd wanted to or not, while I grieved the loss of her mothers. She'd been a sweet baby. Quiet. She'd slept through the night from an early age. In short, she'd made my first year of fatherhood very easy. Until her second birthday. My penthouse had become a war zone. Vases had crashed to the ground, same with picture frames, and there wasn't a single piece of furniture she wouldn't use her crayons and markers on. If she gave me a hug that lasted more than a second, I considered myself lucky.

"Are you finished?" I asked impatiently.

There she stood, a naked little ball of fury, fire shooting out of her brown eyes, her face red, and her dark hair pointing in every direction.

The sight of her made my heart clench. To think, I was only supposed to be her godfather.

"I don't wanna fly," Julia snarled. I suppressed a sigh and grabbed the tie I'd left in the hall. "You love flying, darling."
"Not now!" she screamed.

Thankfully, the elevator dinged, and Victoria appeared as my daily savior.
"Tell me you have more resumés for me to read through on the plane," I said. "If I don't find a good nanny soon, I... It doesn't matter what I do."

She smiled in sympathy and tucked a piece of her blond hair behind her ear, and her heels clicked on the floor on her way into the living room. "That bad, huh? Oh my. Good morning, Julia. Let's get you dressed, shall we?" She turned back to me. "You go wait in the car."

"Thank you." I didn't waste a second. I loaded the luggage into the elevator and headed down.
I blew out a breath and rubbed my temples. Right, my tie. I faced the mirrored wall and tied it.

I had a nanny for Julia, technically. But Victoria had her own family and couldn't take care of my daughter past work hours. And to make matters worse, my PA quit last week. She'd told me she was going back to school—in May?—but the gossip at the office said otherwise. She'd found me too bossy.

I'd been her boss, goddammit!

If she only knew how much I held back these days. Once upon a time, control had been everything to me. I still craved it every damn day, but I wasn't likely to get a taste of it again anytime soon.

Soon-to-be three-year-olds didn't obey as well as submissive adults.

I nodded in greeting to Paul, who opened the door for me.

"Good morning, Mr. Suppasit. Your car is here."

"Thank you, Paul." I aimed straight for Mathis as he popped the trunk. He was responsible for all my transportation, including air travel, and I was happy to have him with me. He was the only one who'd been with me for longer than five years. More than that, he was the only one who didn't have a higher position in his sights. He was perhaps a year or two younger than me, and he'd reached his goals. He got to travel as a work perk, which gave him the opportunity to see the world and catch up with friends from his past in the Army. "Good morning, Mathis."

"Morning, boss." He took care of the luggage while I got in the car and pulled out my phone.

I was still unfamiliar with keeping track of my own schedule, but I'd have a six-hour flight to sort through all the meetings I had this week. Hopefully, our West Coast people would shed some light on the problems we were facing here in Boston and at our other East Coast locations.

Four years in a row, our hotels out here had received slightly worse ratings than the previous year. We didn't know why, although I had my suspicions, and I had sent several teams to figure out the issues—to no avail. This time, I was going myself, starting with the West Coast, where Jongcheevat remained a popular choice for business travelers and continuously received good ratings.

A moment later, a scream filled the car as Victoria arrived with Julia.

"She says she's hungry," Victoria told me.

"Perhaps she shouldn't have thrown her breakfast on the floor," I muttered, sending a quick email before pocketing my phone. I sighed and watched Julia struggle against Victoria, who buckled her into her booster seat. "She wanted toast for breakfast, so I made her that. Then she changed her mind and wanted oatmeal." Mainly because she loved applesauce, which I put in her oatmeal. "That resulted in a tantrum," I went on. "In the end, she ate a yogurt cup while I mopped the floor."

"Sounds to me like you're testing your father's limits, sweetie." Victoria touched Julia's cheek, wiping away her tears.

I lifted a brow. "Testing them? She's driving a pink bulldozer all over them."

Victoria let out a laugh.

"Let's call these three for interviews when we get back to Boston." I placed the three resumés on the hallway table in our hotel suite for Victoria. "They're the best of the worst."

"Good grief," Victoria decreed. "Remind me why I let you recruit me to be a traveling babysitter?"

"I believe a substantial raise played a part," I replied, adjusting my tie, and she nodded and tapped her nose. I mustered a smirk. "I'll see you tonight."

Soon, I was back in the car downstairs, and I felt marginally refreshed after my shower.

It was the second year Victoria had played nanny for Julia when I was on the road, and with a bit of luck, I'd steal her away next year too. Back home, things were different. She worked part time in HR with the company and only a couple hours a day for me personally.

I sat back in the town car and glimpsed the last of the Seattle lunch rush outside the window.

Wanting to relax for a moment before my first meeting, I asked Mathis to turn on the radio. It would help keep my work-related headache at bay.

"...and with us today, we have our own Gulf Kanawut, a hotel manager here in Seattle. Welcome to MommyTalk, Gulf."

I snorted under my breath. Perhaps a radio talk show about parenting could tell me what I was doing wrong. And why I didn't have the same stories to share as all the parents online. I may have stayed up several nights, scouring the internet for help. All I got were these sickeningly sweet tales of how amazing their children were, how adorable they were as they developed, and how funny they were when they got into trouble.

I wasn't laughing.

A masculine voice replied, letting me know Gulf probably wasn't a mommy. "Thank you. It feels good to be on a show that isn't constantly on the verge of being shut down due to declining listeners."

The female host laughed. "That's right, Gulf is part of the WX family and hosts his own show here on Channel 8 called Throwback, and it airs every Thursday at ten PM," she said. "If you like history, make sure to tune in." She paused. "So, as mentioned before, Father's Day is coming up in a couple weeks, and that's why we're switching it up a little throughout May. Instead of listening to us mommies, we want to give the floor to all the wonderful daddies out there. In this case, it's a brother. You single-handedly raised your younger sister, Gulf. You were only nineteen when you got custody. That must've been difficult but rewarding."

"Still waiting for the reward," Gulf joked. My mouth twitched. "But yeah, for a few years. Anna was a year old when I started taking care of her, and I was all she had until she turned seven."

"That's amazing," the woman gushed. "How old is Anna now?"

"She's sixteen."

That made Gulf thirty-three. I couldn't help but wonder where the mother and fath—

"Boss, would you like me to change—"

"Shh! No. Thank you." My pulse spiked at my own outburst, and I had to take a breath. Christ.

It was just a radio show. No reason to get dramatic.

"...but to be honest, it was freaking hard," Gulf was saying. "I was understandably clueless about children, and Anna was a demon. I don't think I went to work a single time those first two or three years without a food stain on my clothes. Most days, I was fumbling in the dark and just doing my best. There were a lot of downs before I had any ups."

I enjoyed his voice—and what he was saying. Honesty about the hardships of parenthood was always refreshing in a world where everything had to look perfect on social media.

If I saw one more mother with a blinding Colgate smile after spending the day with her four kids and making cinnamon rolls, I was going to call my lawyers and sue someone, because it had to be bullshit.

The radio host chuckled, a sound that didn't sound entirely genuine. "It's true. We do struggle at times—of course—but after a little bit of rain comes so much sunshine."

I let out a hmpf.

"Sometimes," Gulf replied uncertainly. "Thing is, I don't understand why we have to glorify raising children. I love my sister beyond words, and we will always be close, but she was by no means easy to take care of. Are children supposed to be? I don't believe so. What I believe parenthood consists of—at least when the children are young—are sleepless nights, stained clothes, chaos, and occasional headaches. And this doesn't mean it's not worth it—the opposite. We love our kids to the point where it's worth all those sleepless nights and all the anxiety."

I smiled.

"A toddler smiling and sitting pretty in the cart at the grocery store isn't proof of good parenting," Gulf went on. "Same with all the blogs and social media accounts where we get bombarded with pictures of perfection." Christ. Had he read my mind? "It's wonderful that we get those memories too, but it's become a contest to show who's happiest. Who's succeeding the most. Meanwhile, the tough moments are hidden away and suppressed. We don't talk about it, because we're afraid of being judged."

I released a breath, unable to describe the emotions that surged forward. But he was saying everything I needed to hear.

"Parenthood isn't picture-perfect," Gulf said, "and I don't want it to be. I'd rather look at my sister now and see the headstrong girl I raised. I can think back on the times I tried to make cookies with her, and we ended up with a flour explosion in the kitchen—not to mention some slammed doors because she was furious when the cookies looked like something that'd been eaten and thrown up."

I laughed softly.

"But she's a perfectionist today," Gulf added with a smile in his voice. "She's ambitious and creative, and she's learned from several years of mistakes and projects gone wrong. She's learned to control her temper a bit too—thankfully—because she's experienced how quickly she can mess things up by blowing her fuse."

That was the type of person I wanted to help me with Julia.

"I'm not saying we should hide the progress our children make. I'm just saying we shouldn't be afraid to showcase the struggles," Gulf summed up. "Today it's even worse, too. Ten years ago, I could at least go online without thinking that everyone was perfect and I was the screw-up who failed to take care of my sister."

There it was. I'd thought similar things before, especially after searching for help online. It could be alienating to read all the success stories.

Gulf worked as a hotel manager, didn't he? I remembered the host saying something about that in the beginning of the show.

"Boss, we're here," Mathis told me.

"A moment." I pulled out my phone and texted my cousin back in Boston.

I need a favor. Can you have your assistant find a Gulf Kanawut for me? He works as a hotel manager, presumably in Seattle. 33 years old.

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Author's Note:
Hi y'all! Hope you like the first chapter! Don't forget to vote, comment and share!