YOUR P.O.V
Tonight, me and Reece are babysitting an 8 year old, a 5 year old and a 2 year old for a family friend. They're Reece's mum's friend's kids, so he knows them way better than I do.
We've been told that the youngest should be in bed by 6:30 and the middle child by 7:30, but the eldest will fall asleep at about 8ish of her own accord. Jamie is driving us to their place now.
We knocked on the door and the kids' father answered.
"Reece! Y/n! Thank you so much for helping! Come on in," he offered. I followed Reece inside, to the living room. The father pointed to the 2 year old, "this is Ellie." I cooed over the baby for a while before her sister interrupted. This would be the 8 year old, then.
"I'm Cindy!" She shouted excitedly.
"Hello Cindy! I'm y/n," you introduced.
"Cindy, leave y/n alone. That's Jack, over there," the father explained, gesturing at the young boy in the corner. He looked a little shy and overwhelmed, so Reece went to speak to him.
"Hi, Jack! Do you remember me?" Reece said softly. Jack nodded slowly. Reece sat next to him, playing with the toys he had on the floor.
"You two know the bedtimes, so I'll leave you to it. Thank you again, guys,"
"No worries, we'll stay as long as you need," I said, before the dad left to meet his wife or whatever.
"Are you Reece's girlfriend?" Cindy asked.
"Yeah, I am," I answered, while smiling at Reece.
"But Reece told me that I could be his girlfriend when I turned 10!" She exclaimed. You raised your eyebrows at your boyfriend.
"Well that was before I met y/n, and then I asked her to be my girlfriend," he said.
"But that's not fair!" She whined.
"Hey, Cindy. You still have two years to go, maybe I'm just his temporary girlfriend until he asks you," you suggested, wiggling your eyebrows. That seemed to shut her up.
It was approaching 6:30 so I went upstairs and helped Ellie get ready for bed.
"Fank yoo for looking after uss, y/n," she said adorably.
"You're welcome, Ellie. Do you want a bedtime story?" She nodded vigorously and I picked up the picture book next to her bed. It was something about princesses and dragons and I knew she didn't understand half of the words; this looked more like a book for 6 year olds than 2 year olds. It seemed to do the trick though, as she was fast asleep after the first 3 pages.
I padded back downstairs silently, and joined Reece in the living room with the other two.
"Did you get to sleep alright?" He asked.
"Yeah, she fell asleep after the first 3 pages of her story book, bless her," I explained. We swapped places - I looked after Jack for a while and Reece took care of Cindy.
Me and Jack played some games on the play mat. We messed around with his toy cars, pretending to speed over motorways or park in complexes.
Half seven rolled around pretty quickly so Reece took Jack to bed, leaving me and Cindy in the living room.
"What do you want to do, Cindy?"
"Let's watch telly. Can we put on cbbc?" I nodded and switched the channels, settling down with Cindy on the sofa. The cuddles into my side and sucked her thumb, laughing whenever they told a joke onscreen.
Reece came back downstairs a little while later to find Cindy asleep on the sofa, 20 minutes earlier than expected. "Should I just put her to bed?" He whispered. I nodded and he scooped her up, carrying her up the stairs carefully. I followed, just in case he fell. He tucked her into her bed and switched off the light, before wrapping an arm around my waist and kissing my temple.
"Movie?"
"I thought you'd never ask!"
We watched To All The Boys I've Loved Before on Netflix, as we had been allowed to use their account. We were about ten minutes in when I heard a loud cry from upstairs. Ellie had woken up. I went to get up but Reece stopped me.
"I'll get her, you stay here."
After a night of going up and down the stairs helping the kids sleep, the parents returned at about midnight.
"Thanks so much guys," the mum said, handing us a £20 note each.
"No worries. See you!"
We left their home and walked to the corner where our taxi was waiting for us, hand in hand.
"That wasn't as bad as I thought it would be," I said contentedly.
"Just please, don't get any ideas. We're not having kids any time soon," Reece pleaded.
"Absolutely. Let's stick to protection a little while longer," I giggled. He laughed breathily as we climbed into the cab, tired from the evening's events.
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Reece with kids: a concept.
xx
