“Piggy’s! I want piggy’s!”
Xade laughs, throwing her back onto his hip before making his way towards the staircase.
“You’ve got your hands full now, do you want to do this another night?” I ask, starting to put everything back into my briefcase and already thinking about how long it’ll take Miles to call.
Xade glances over at me, squinting his eyes at my actions. “Do you hate kids or something?” I shake my head, trying not to smile as Poppy looks at her uncle then begins to squint her own eyes at me in a similar fashion, but just ends up closing them and pursing her little cupids bow. “Then we’re good, the files are up here anyway, come on.”
I follow them up, getting to the top and seeing that this looks like a whole other room, a giant library that runs all the way along the length of the office. Xade lowers Poppy to her feet and she immediately runs over to the shelf on the further side, pulling out one of the books from the bottom with excitement. Xade pulls down a box from one of the shelves in the middle and dumps it on the floor. Up here is a very different vibe to downstairs, the colour on the wood is warm and inviting, the floors are lined with different furry rugs and there's even some giant bean bags in the corner.
Poppy throws herself down on one of the fluffy rugs and begins to swipe her arms and legs like she’s trying to make fur angels.
“Come on Pops, I’ll read it to you downstairs, I don’t think Josh wants to sit on the floor with us.”
She props herself up on her elbows and glares at me with absolute venom, so harshly that I immediately drop down onto the floor and pull the box in front of me, which seems to satisfy her enough now that she knows she doesn’t need to move. If I’ve learned anything from all my years taking care of Heather, it’s that when a sassy little toddler wants something, your life will be much fucking easier if you just give it to them.
Xade chuckles at my obvious surrender to his baby niece, lowering himself onto the same rug that she sits on before she scoots back and places herself firmly between his legs, removing her shoes quickly whilst shoving the book into his hands.
“She usually only makes me read it three or four times before she decides to move on to something else, I’ll be with you in like ten minutes.”
I wave him off, I actually find it easier to get a lot of this stuff done on my own anyway. Pulling everything out of the box and laying it around me, I’ve seen a lot of these numbers before when I was doing my research but it’s still probably best to check it all through again.
Xade begins reading the story to Poppy and she eagerly wiggles her toes in front of him. Just as I begin to glance through the earliest documents I have, she lets out an overjoyed giggle.
“Then, this little piggy went to market.” Xade reaches over and takes her tiny toe in his fingers before tickling all the way around it. Poppy shrieks and cackles but only begs for him to do it again when he stops.
“Then, this little piggy stayed at home.”
He does it again with the one next to it and gets a similar reaction. I find myself losing all interest in my work as I look over at the two of them together. I remember so clearly Liam being that age, although he was never as confident as this little girl, he definitely had a lot more confidence back then than he does now.
By the time that the last little piggy has we we we’d all the way home for the third time, even I’m laughing along as Poppy vibrates and ricochets all over the rug trying to escape from the bubbling laughter that erupts from within her.
Xade hasn’t really notice that I’m even here whilst he’s been playing with her, but as she stands up and throws her whole body around his narrow toned chest, he looks up and catches me staring at them. The light that is fading away through the large windows seems to make the pair look even more angelic.
He said that he loved working with kids but now that I’ve actually seen him with one I can understand why he feels this world is not for him, he was clearly built to be around them. If he’s anything like this with his own ones, the guy that locks him down to be their baby daddy is going to be a very lucky man.
“She’s amazing right?” He says whilst holding her close.
“Yeah... She really is...”
As he predicted, Poppy becomes bored of this game and instead marches over to a set of drawers in the corner and pulls out a colouring book along with some colours. She hardly seems able to hold them in her tiny hand but it keeps her distracted enough that Xade can come over and sit with me, Taking one of the folders from in front of me and dragging it into his lap.
Neither of us say anything for a while, Poppy chops and changes between colouring on her own pages and running up to make Xade fill in the rest.
They are sweet together, really sweet.
Suddenly as Poppy returns with a new colouring book she switches direction from Xade and plonks herself down right in front of me, shoving two crayons into my hands. I watch Xade’s eyes flicker, wondering what I’m about to do, but what other choice do I have?
“This one, this one... here.”
Immediately I follow her instructions and fill in the princess's dress with a mixture of blues and purples. Xade seems to find it very amusing when she points out that I’m not keeping within the lines, despite the fact that those shoes that she coloured in first are an absolute mess!
“Chinese or Indian?” He asks, I literally have no idea what he’s talking about until I look up and see him waving a takeaway menu on his phone. “For food, Chinese or Indian?”
Shit, I wasn’t going to stay for food.. I told Miles I’d be back by...
Poppy coughs loudly, I try not to laugh as I look down to see she's pretending to use her crayons as chopsticks whilst trying to hide her attempts to take over my decision from her uncle.
I literally can’t stop smiling when I look at this girl. It’s kids like this that make me realise exactly what I want from life.
“Chinese.”
This was apparently the right decision, the little munchkin beams as she hands me her prized yellow crayon and allows me to colour in the princess’s hair.
She smiles at me when I finish, jumping up with her pretty picture and skipping her way back down to the bottom of the room to retrieve some different colours. She comes back but this time plants herself directly in my lap before putting the colouring book on the floor and attempting to use the crayons with her toes.
The worrying part is that she’s probably better like this than she was trying to colour it in with her fingers. I look up expecting Xade to be finding this as comical as I am but when I do I realise his eyes aren’t on her at all..
His smile is only directed at one person... me.
.
.
.
.
That's it for this upload my beauts 🙈 I just want to wish all my wonderful readers a very Happy and prosperous New year 🎆🎆🎆
2022 will see an end to The Forbidden Lust Series with book four 😭😭😭
But it will also bring a whole new adventure... I'm so looking forward to sharing that with you ❤
❤🎆 Happy New year my beauts! 🎆❤