Who She Is

~45~

Alyx's POV

I wake up to the sound of the front door closing. I see my mom and Rachel come in. My mom slides her shoes off and sets her keys down.

"Were you all asleep?" Mom smiles at the sight of Amaya laying so close to me. "That's Maya. The girl I was telling you about," she says to Rachel.

"Ah, okay. How long has he been out?" Rachel asks me.

I look at the clock on the wall and see it's already five in the evening. We started watching tv again at noon. "A few hours. I'm sorry if he wasn't suppose to nap." I know some parents don't like for their kids to fall asleep during the day because they won't be tired around bedtime.

"No, it's okay. Did he behave? He's never caused any problems before."

"Yes, he was no problem at all." My mind drifts back to earlier. "Oh! He tripped earlier on his way to the bathroom and skinned his knee. I put a band-aid on it for him." I'm glad I didn't forget to tell her. That wouldn't have looked too great if she noticed after she got home.

"Oh, my poor baby." She pouts her lips, looking at him. "Thank you so much." She reaches into her purse and grabs her wallet. She pulls a few bills out and extends them out to me. "Here you go. I really appreciated this."

I stand up to take it from her and look at it, seeing four twenty dollar bills. Woah. Why the hell is she giving me eighty dollars?! "Why are you giving me this much?"

"That's how much I pay his other babysitter," she says with a confused expression.

"I can't take all this. Plus, we didn't even do anything most of the time but sleep." Hell, I didn't even feed him. I mean, he didn't ask for any food, and he was only awake two hours out of the seven he was here.

I try to hand it back to her, but she declines. "Keep it. It was sudden for you, too. I'm sure you probably had plans today with this beautiful girl." She nods toward Amaya still sleeping on the couch.

Heat makes its way to my face. "Uh, well, not exactly." I rub the back of my neck. "But thank you." I could actually take Amaya somewhere now. I wasn't expecting to get paid this much.

She softly smiles and bends down to wake up her son. He's groggy at first until he realizes who it is. He wraps his arms around her neck. "Momma."

"Hey. You ready to go? Say 'bye' to Alyx."

"Bye. Thanks for being nice to me."

I give him a smile. "It was no problem. I hope your knee gets better soon."

"Tell Maya I said 'bye'."

"I will."

"I'll see you tomorrow, Mandy," Rachel tells my mom. She grabs his hand, and he gives me a small wave before they walk through the front door.

"Bye. Drive safe," Mom says, closing the door behind them. She turns around and smiles at me. "Well, that wasn't so bad, right?" she asks with an excited smile. Okay. That really wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. He could have been a loud, obnoxious kid. Also, I can't believe I actually made eighty dollars that easily.

I place the money on the table and stretch my arms above my head before saying, "I guess not. He was a pretty chill kid."

"Would you want to do it again? His other babysitter is about to move away. You could become his regular sitter. That way, Rachel and I could carpool. What do you think?"

"Uh, I don't know, Mom. You two work random hours all the time."

"I know, but just think about it." She gives me a smirk. "You'd have some money to take her out." Her eyes drift to the girl on the couch.