Bella The Babysitter: Chapter 3

Bella the Babysitter

Chapter Three

Edward Cullen POV

It had taken five days in total to make my best friend's home somewhat into my own. I still felt like a guest every time I sat a cup on the coffee table or took off my shoes by the front door, but we were getting there. Slowly but surely.

Like I had promised I picked up Lucas the day after the will was read and brought him back to the house. It broke my heart that he showed no signs of what was going on. He was still the same old babbling baby happy to play with his fingers and toes for hours. He wouldn't remember the wonderful people that his parents were and even though Vicky sort of wanted it that way, I knew I couldn't allow him to grow up not knowing about her and James.

We spent every waking moment together and sometimes when we slept. I had requested that my family give me some time to get used to fatherhood. They made an unneeded list of emergency numbers even though I already had them and tacked them in the kitchen just in case I needed to get a hold of my mother at her hair salon or my sister in law at her favorite boutique.

I had babysat Lucas for a couple of hours every now and then when James and Vicky needed a break. Nothing could prepare me for the three a.m. feedings and the seven o'clock wake up calls by a gassy infant. The first time he woke up before the sun came up screaming his head off, his face beat red I freaked out and called my mother as I hurried to get us ready for a drive to the local hospital. Luckily she was able to calm me down before I did anything drastic and inform me of the predicament.

How the hell was I supposed to know that adding powdered jello mix and warm water would help with that?

It took us four days to get a routine of sorts situated. I was tired and every so often would get a little frustrated but then I would remember Vicky's words. As a man I'll admit that the first couple of times that Lucas was completely inconsolable I broke down crying right alongside him. Eventually I learned to distinguish a cry for attention from a hungry sob.

After a couple of days I had started taking Lucas on walks down to the local playground and the shopping centers just to get us out of the gloom of the house.

Even though he had no idea what was going on I could tell that he enjoyed the sunshine, even if it was overcast half the time. We ventured inside each of the small shops on the street one by one and today we just so happened to enter a video game store that had been here since I was a kid. I somehow managed to maneuver the stroller through the door while holding it open awkwardly with no help from the guy sitting on his ass behind the counter.

"Welcome to Moe's. Everything in the bin is half the original sticker price today." the huge dude behind the counter said pointing to the large plastic tub in the middle of the store. He turned toward me when I didn't respond, his eyes lit up when he took in the stroller. "Aw, a baby."

Immediately the guardian in me recoiled from the creepy dude and his boy-like dimples. He hopped over the counter and trotted over to where I stood and peered over the hood of the stroller.

"Aw, it's a ginger baby." he cooed before looking up. "You know, children of the corn? South Park? No. Well he's a looker."

"Erm, thanks?" I stammered. "We were just looking around."

"Oh, well let me show you around." he strode over towards the clearance bin and straight back to the consoles. "We just got a Nintendo 64 in mint condition that I found on eBay, comes with a crap ton of games."

"I'm not looking to buy any games, like I said, we're just looking around." I looked inside the locked glass cabinet. "I've got too much on my plate at the moment to even think about video games."

"Oh, I know that look. Your woman won't let you?"

"I don't have a woman." I said just as Lucas started to whimper before he quieted down.

"Oh. OH. You're gay?" the dude said before taking a step back. "That's cool. Gay people are adopting babies all the time now."

"What? NO. I'm not gay." I snapped. "Jesus. This is my godson. Erm son?"

"Oh, Jesus. Okay so I only freaked out for a second. It's cool. My name's Emmett."

"Edward. This is Lucas." I flipped the sun shield up so that I could see Lucas better and found him quietly sucking on his hand.

"Hi Lucas." Emmett said giving Lucas a gentle fist bump. Lucas immediately took his hand out of his mouth and latched onto Emmett's giant paw.

I was surprised when Emmett pulled away giving a girlish squeal as he shook his hand.

"I'm cool I'm cool." he assured himself wiping his wet hand on his pants as a stunned Lucas started to bawl.

"You get used to it." I unclipped the baby and rocked him in my arms to calm him down.

"Well I'm about to close shop for the day. I'd stay open but your not here to buy anything so there's really no point. My roommates are cooking dinner tonight and if I'm late, they will flip shit." he winced and gave an apologetic look towards Lucas. "Sorry."

"It's alright. I'd better get him home anyways. His shirt's wet with drool and it gets pretty chilly out here."

"Yeah, I have no idea what you're talking about." Emmett said flipping the sign on the front door. "Come by when your back out this way, we're usually pretty dead during the week so having someone to talk to is pretty awesome."

"Alright, it was good meeting you Emmett."

"You too Edward." he shook my hand before awkwardly patting Lucas's shoulder. "You too little man."

I put Luke back in the stroller and walked us to the local deli to grab dinner before heading straight home. Once we got home, I fed Lucas his dinner bottle and ate quickly before getting him ready for bed. My mother had taught me how to bathe him in the kitchen sink until I was comfortable to have him in the bathtub.

Instead of reading to Lucas at night I had started sitting with Lucas in my bedroom and watching home videos that Vicky and I had made when we were younger. Tonight's entailed the three of us playing in a fort made entirely of wood we had stolen from a local construction site at night. We ended up getting fined for it when they caught us but it was worth it.

Lucas could care less about the movie playing and after a couple of days I found that I focused more attention to him than I did the TV screen. That was Vicky's intentions anyways but it still made me feel guilty later when I realized.

I had always found Lucas extremely cool but living with him was completely different. Everything he did surprised me and I found myself talking back to his random baby babble as he had his tummy time.

I put him to sleep in the crib at the foot of my bed keeping him close for the time being was important to me. I fell asleep quickly only to be woken up a few hours later by Lucas. I fed him his bottle and enjoyed some late night television before falling back to sleep.

Luckily Lucas slept in a little later the next morning. I was able to get showered and dressed before he woke up and my mother came over a few hours later to help me start on my search for a nanny for Luke.

"Hi sweetie. How are my boys today?" my mother asked as she sat across from us at the kitchen table. I had already set up my laptop and a pad of paper.

"We're good. Luke decided to sleep in a little today so I got to enjoy a shower." I sighed looking down at Lucas as he played with a rattle, smacking himself in the face with it and giggling. I grabbed his hand before he could hurt himself and shook it earning a gummy smile. "Goober."

"You're such a natural with him." my mom smiled at the two of us. "I'm so proud of you."

"Thanks." I said bashfully.

"I'm serious Edward. When your brother called to tell me what was going on, I thought you were going to ask to move back in with your father and I so that we could help you out. But here you are, making your father and I proud."

"I'm just trying to make Vicky and James proud." I said sadly. "They left him in my care and I can't let the two of them down. I'll die before I do that. Lucas is my life now and I have every intention of making a comfortable home life for him, here where his parents intended for him to grow up."

My mother started sniffling standing up and walking around the table to pull me into a hug. After a few minutes she was able to calm herself down and find her seat.

"I figured we could check with the local nanny agencies and other things online that we can find. I know you need to get some writing time in and until we find a proper caregiver, I'll come by every other day to take him for a few hours so you can get some work done." she said pulling out her laptop.

"Mom you don't have to do that. Lucas is my responsibility. I am hoping that we can find a nanny but until then I can comfortably take some time off and get my bearings back."

"Fine, if we can't find one in two weeks time, I'll start coming over to help out. Deal?"

"Deal." I smiled before cradling Lucas on my legs and opening my laptop.

Four hours later we had a total of twenty four interviews scheduled for the following day.

My mother left right before I set Lucas up in his bouncer on the kitchen counter so I could cook myself some dinner and wash some of his bottles. I had read that you should boil their nipples and spent some time making a few bottles of formula so that I wouldn't have to stop in the middle of the interviews to do the whole measuring of water and powder formula dance. I used to watch Vicky make a bottle in less than a minute while driving down the road and it took me almost four minutes to measure everything and shake the bottle while standing in the kitchen.

The following day was full of interviewing different potential nannies and after eight hours of talking nonstop, watching women fawn over the pictures that they saw of Lucas in the sitting area. Alice was watching him upstairs in his nursery every now and then I could hear her flit down the stairs, baby in arms to the kitchen to get something before quietly heading back upstairs.

Eight hours, and twenty four interviews later we were at a dead end. A majority of the nannies that we found that held the potential as a great caregiver for Lucas refused to be live-in. That was sort a necessity in finding a nanny seeing as I was a freelance writer. Sometimes I could hole up for hours in my office writing to no end where as other times I went a week or two without writing a word.

I sold my work to some local and some famous magazines, newspapers and websites so that also called for me to go out of town for meetings every now and then. The few nannies that were able the be live-in refused to do traveling.

I had taken five doses of Ibuprofen and half a bottle of Tums. My head was pounding and I had heartburn, so my mother offered to take Lucas home with her for the night to give me a break.

I tried to refuse but Alice had already taken upon herself to pack a bag for Luke and get him situated in my mother's car.

I ended up at my parent's house, sleeping in my old bedroom that was now converted into a fancy sewing room for my mother, it had a tiny little daybed but I slept comfortably with Lucas in his playpen right beside me.

I was growing into the whole fatherhood thing. Slowly but surely and all I wanted to do was make Vicky and James proud.