Petals and Thorns / l.h ✔️

1

~Juno's POV~

"Okay," My mom began to grab her purse hurriedly as she stood with me in the kitchen, the sun only just now starting to rise outside the window. "I've got to go. The babysitter will be here in fifteen minutes, you don't need to tell him anything because I've gone over it all several times with him." She said, causing me to nod my head. I was so caught up trying to feed Anais, my little sister, that I didn't even notice she'd referred to the babysitter as being a guy.

"Did you get that?" Mom pressed, evidently not having seen me nod my head. I tried to feed Anais the food on her plate, but she smacked my hand and pulled her face away, eyeing it with a frown. "Yes, I heard you." I answered, huffing with frustration. I wished she would just eat the food.

I continued to try to feed her, but she absolutely refused. "Mom, she won't eat." I groaned, looking over at my mom as she texted someone on her phone. She looked up at me and clicked her phone off, putting it back into her black purse. "That's okay. Just put it in the sink. The babysitter can try again later." She instructed, and I nodded my head as I got up off of the chair and walked into the kitchen. I put the plate into the sink after I dumped the food in the trash, heading back into the dining room where Anais was. I carefully picked her up out of her seat and held her in my arms as my mom came over and hugged me, placing a kiss on both my head and Anais'.

Mom left the house and I went upstairs with Anais in my arms, needing to get dressed but not wanting to leave her downstairs by herself. She was only two, after all, and I couldn't just leave her alone or she could get herself into trouble.

When I reached my room, I gently set her on the fluffy white rug that I had in the middle of my floor and let her play around with the fluff that was on it, which she seemed to like to play with. While she was playing, I began to get dressed, making sure she wasn't crawling around and potentially hitting her head on furniture or something.

After I was dressed, I put on some deodorant and brushed out my hair, which was still slightly damp from my shower that I had taken earlier. I looked at my icy silver hair after I brushed it out, debating whether or not I wanted to just leave it down in its natural state or style it. However, I eventually decided to just leave it as it was because I wasn't feeling up to doing it today. My hair now brushed out, I spritzed on some of my perfume and looked down at Anais, who was smacking her hands on top of my rug while she giggled happily to herself.

I smiled and sat down across from her on the rug, causing her to look up at me while she rocked back and forth and then leaned forward onto her knees. She stumbled to her feet and shakily made her way over to me, looking down at my hands and grabbing them. Like she often did, she began to play with my fingers, a habit she had with people. For some reason, fingers really fascinated her, even her own.

Anais cooed and played with my fingers, plopping down directly in front of me. She almost went falling forward onto her face, if it hadn't been for me catching her, helping her sit back up. It wouldn't have necessarily hurt too bad if she'd hit her face on the fluffy carpet, but it would've still made her cry and I hated when she cried. Ever since Anais was born, I had pretty much baby proofed my room, which is what this rug was now here before. Before she'd been born, I hadn't had it here.

At first, I hadn't wanted to change up my room and the decor, but I eventually grew to like it a lot as it now was. My room used to have a lot of things in it that she could've gotten into trouble with, like fishtanks and open outlets and some decor that I had to get rid of, like my old collection of glass blocks that I used to have on my dresser that had cute little pictures in them. Unfortunately, I had to get rid of them because mom thought Anais might've ended up breaking them, even though she couldn't reach the dresser.

My room was pretty nice now, though. The floors were a light brown wood with a big white, fluffy rug in the middle, which was the one Anais and I were sitting on now. My walls were painted white and I had purple fairy lights strung up high around the edges of the ceiling, completely out of her reach.

There was a faux fur lilac colored beanbag in the upper left corner of my room and my bed was in the middle, pressed against the wall. Its frame was white and the blankets on its were white with a pretty lavender floral pattern on it and on the pillow cases, with lilac colored sheets. To the left side of my bed was a tiny side table and then a nightstand on the right, with a lamp on top of it. My dresser was directly across from my bed, with my deodorant, my favorite perfume, a few decorations, and a jewelry box sat on top of it.

The doors to my bathroom and my closet were on my left wall, with my vanity table on the right wall, just a little away from my bed. It was white and had a little stool that had a lilac colored cushion and all of my makeup sat on the surface of the vanity. On the wall behind my vanity was a floor to ceiling length string of paper flowers garland, which was a purple ombre that started with white flowers and slowly darkened until it was dark purple at the end. Overall, I liked my room as it was. It was simple.

Anais was in the middle of playing with the rug again when I heard a knock from downstairs on the front door, so I assumed it must've been our babysitter. I got up and grabbed my backpack first, picking up Anais next and heading down the stairs.

When I opened the door, I had expected to see our usual babysitter there, a sweet girl named Nylah who was nineteen, only a year older than my eighteen years of age. However, that was not at all the case. No, instead I came to face a man, a very large man at that. He must've been somewhere over six feet tall, with a broad chest and broad shoulders. I gaped up at him, his large frame making my five-foot-three frame feel dwarfed. How did people even become so tall?

"Are you going to stand there and stare or let me in?" He asked, cocking a brow up at me. I raised my brows at the slight attitude he had, sticking my nose up slightly as I narrowed my eyes at him. Who did he think he was to demand to be let into someone else's house?

"Who are you?" I demanded to know, holding Anais protectively. He stared at me and raised his brows, looking at me as if I were an idiot. "I'm the babysitter." He said flatly, making me narrow my eyes at him in suspicion. I looked him up and down before meeting his gaze again, blue on blue. "That's funny. You don't look like her." I retorted, making him roll his eyes. "Did your mommy not tell you about me?" He asked, and I shook my head. "No." I admitted. She hadn't, or at least not that I could remember.

"That's nice. Now can I come in or what?" He pressed, looking at me expectantly, waiting to be let inside. I huffed and shook my head, digging into my pocket and taking my phone out. "No." I said simply, beginning to call my mother so I could be sure that this guy was actually the babysitter.

I knew it wasn't everyday a large man comes to your door claiming to be your babysitter, but I wasn't going to just take his word for it and let him come in with me and my defenseless baby sister. And I sure as hell wasn't going to be leaving her here with him. That wasn't going to happen unless I knew for sure that he was the babysitter, like he claimed.

While I called my mom, he looked at me with a frown on his face, which was actually quite handsome, now that I was looking at him. He had a sharp jawline and full lips with light stubble on his face, his blue eyes even prettier than mine. His nose was perfectly straight and his hair, shimmering like gold in the sun as it was rising behind him, was curly. It seemed to be just a bit long, wild yet tamed. He was very handsome.

"Honey, what is it? I'm going into work, so be quick." My mom answered the phone with, sounding rushed. I huffed and peered up at the man, narrowing my eyes at him with suspicion. "Mom, what's the name of the new babysitter?" I asked her, causing her to huff with frustration. "I've told you this five times now, Juno. Were you really not listening again?" She grumbled, and I awkwardly pursed my lips as I looked down at the floor. I didn't have to answer for her to know the answer, making her sigh. "His name is Luke." She answered, and I hummed, moving my gaze back up to him.

"Thanks mom, love you." I rushed out, hanging up my phone and shoving it back into my pocket. "What's your name?" I asked him, raising a brow expectantly. If he gave me the name my mom had, then all was well. "Luke." He answered, and I awkwardly paused. So he had been telling the truth.

I stepped to the side and gestured to him. "Okay, you can come in." I said, embarrassed that I'd gotten proved wrong.