The New Babysitter (Trent Reznor Oneshot)

The New Babysitter

There it went.

"Trent!" I called out after hearing another scream of a child needing attention.

"On it," he replied shortly, immediately tending to the child.

I sighed heavily, calming myself down, and turned back to the mission I had set up for myself: I was attempting to cook.

Trent seemed to do this so easily. I was surprised at how he casually and quickly knew what to do. I had always loved kids but never trusted my instincts. I didn't want to mess up badly. I didn't want to say the wrong thing or end up hurting feelings without meaning to. I was a timid co-partner.

Since we were both broke college kids, we had decided to team up as scrawny, makeshift parents and make side money babysitting the kids in town; although, scrawny more so described him. He was short, hair messy and unbrushed, and lost in life. He was a kid trying to live a dream he couldn't accomplish yet but was working towards which impressed, intrigued, and on the down-low, swooned me. He always rambled to me about how when he was with certain people he just had the purest feeling. Everything was about this purest feeling.

During these babysitting sessions, he was usually in charge of the kids, encouraging me to stop being so afraid but it didn't always work. I paid attention to every little detail, afraid to fuck anything up whereas he was a go-with-the-flow kind of person. Most of the time this encouragement he had towards me didn't work at all, and I succumbed to hiding, metaphorically that is, and allowed him to take over the situation as I watched and took mental notes of what to do. He was a good boyfriend; what made him good was his attention to detail and instincts, even if it didn't seem like it.

Shaking my head and shoving all of these thoughts to the back of my mind, I went back to focusing on the task at hand. I had pulled up a recipe from a handy book I'd come up with over the few sessions of babysitting and what kids liked. It was to be a simple pasta with sauce and a lot of veggies on the side. You could never go wrong with pasta.

This family was particularly large; "a whole herd of bitches," as Trent had commented when he had gotten off the phone with the parents who were out for the night for a trip to the movies. Trent was taking care of the baby of the bunch while the other kids played around on the game consoles he had set up in the living room. I could feel him watching me from the corner of his eye, making sure I was okay. Which I was. Or I would be, anyway.

I tried fooling him by straightening my back and acting confident. It seemingly laid him off. For now.

I took a good look at the recipe and right as I was about to start cooking, the only daughter out of the bunch ran up to me and started tugging on my shirt, giggling and grinning up at me.

"Crown! Crown!" she was babbling, showing me the plastic tiara she was gripping as if it were made of gold. She was presenting it to me proudly, holding it out for me to take. She had been babbling about this particular crown all day, so I was assuming it was her thing.

I turned around to look at her and grinned, allowing my scared demeanor to hide behind a mask for right now.

"Crown? Does our little lady want to be a princess for today?" I laughed, taking the tiara from her hands and placing it on her head perfectly, letting the combed ends gently secure a spot in her hair.

"Pwincess!" she shouted, her eyes sparkling and rolling up, her head tilted back, attempting to see the crown.

I smiled at the cute sight and picked her up, holding her with one of my arms secured around her, snaking around her body to make sure I was holding her thigh and she was safe in my hold.

"You wanna see the crown?" I took a handheld mirror that was lying nearby and held up to her eye level. "Look, a crown! Only the prettiest crown for the prettiest little princess."

At the sight of the tiara on top of her head, she let out an exasperated gasp, wiggling and squirming in my arm. "Crown! Imma pwincess!" she was shouting at the top of her lungs, the excitement taking over her body.