I Hate, I Bake, and I Don’t Date! by Alina Jacobs

32

Beck

“But why do we have to go back to school?”

“You want to show off your new haircuts, don’t you?” Tess said to the girls as we stepped out of the car in front of the four-story brick school building.

“Please try not to fight,” I begged my sisters.

“I want to stay and do CEO classes with you.” Enola grabbed my sleeve.

“We have to work on our app,” Annie added.

“You can work on it after school,” I promised them. “Maybe you can brainstorm if you get bored in class.”

Tess and I waved to them as they walked into the building.

“I bet you a box of cookies they don’t last the week,” Tess said when we were back in the car.

I settled an arm on the back of the seat behind her.

What are you doing? She’s your assistant.

But it felt like more.

I had never wanted to date, had never really envisioned myself with a family. My father had been obsessed with dating and finding new sister wives. Part of my aversion to dating was that I didn’t want to be even remotely like him.

But between my sisters showing up and Tess moving into my house, it felt like we were an instant family unit, and I sort of liked it.

You can’t date your assistant.

But could you make out with or hook up with your assistant? Tess had been flirting with me off and on. And at brunch, she had hugged me and stroked my face.

That still doesn’t change the fact that she works for you. You are literally paying her to act that way.

But what if she did want more?

Tess leaned back and rested her head against my arm.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Tess said. “I’m so behind on work that I do need them to try not to cause a riot at school.”

I thought about lifting my arm, running my hand through her hair, pulling her close to me, kissing her.

But I didn’t.

It’s illogical. You simply can’t act that way with your assistant.

But I wanted to. I wasn’t sure why.

I sat in my office that afternoon, staring at her through the glass wall instead of working.

Every so often, Tess would lift a hand to twirl a curl around her finger. Or she would take a bite of the cookie or a handful of the cheddar popcorn she was eating. She seemed to have an endless supply of snacks.

I shook myself and clicked another tab on my laptop.

I needed to stop being obsessive. I didn’t want to end up like her stalker or like my father.

He would get obsessive about his potential new wives. He would love bomb the newest wife, make her think she was special. Then when she got pregnant and he got bored, he would move on to the next potential sister wife, leaving the last one bitter and angry, and she would take it out on us kids.

What if whatever sickness that was in my father was in me?

Tess isn’t blonde.

I was probably just obsessing over her because she was in my proximity and because I had saved her from that asshole stalker.

Remember, I told myself, you don’t even like her.

Except I had never disliked her. She was a perfectly fine assistant—competent, creative, sometimes even funny.

Her phone rang, and I watched her pick it up, leaning back in her chair. One bare foot slipped out of her dress shoe to tap against the side of her desk.

Then she immediately spun around, and I didn’t have time to pretend to be engrossed in my work before our eyes met.

Shit.

Had she known I was staring at her? She looked perturbed.

Fuck.

She hung up the phone and came into my office while I hastily prepared some sort of excuse.

But instead of saying something along the lines of “Why are you so creepy?” or “What are you doing looking at me like a stalker?” she said, “The girls have been suspended again.”

“Guess I owe you a box of cookies.”

My sisters were sitting,arms crossed, in the headmistress’s office.

“Honestly,” I said to my sisters, “you could have lasted one day. I do have work to do.”

That work did not include staring at Tess, even though that was all I had gotten done that day.

“What was it this time?” Tess asked the headmistress.

“Annie and Enola do not appear to be at the level emotionally that we require of our students,” she said primly. “They cannot contain their emotions. We expect girls to be kind, to be helpers, to make friends, and to share.”

“Do you expect the same of boys?” Tess asked hotly.

“Of course,” the headmistress said, flustered. “But boys don’t seem to mature as quickly.”

“Or maybe they aren’t held to as high of standards,” I added. “My younger brothers are not allowed to act that way.”

“You’re not enrolling more of your siblings here, are you?” the headmistress asked in horror.

“Of course not,” I said hastily. “I think we have enough Svenssons in one school.”

“I will not tolerate fighting in my school. The other girl had to go to the hospital. Your sisters are feral, Mr. Svensson. There was an out-and-out brawl in the cafeteria. They even attacked a teacher when she tried to restrain Enola.” The headmistress was furious.

Enola couldn’t contain herself any longer.

“They said we were cult kids, that we were messed up!” She jumped up, hands clenched. “Those girls were mean.”

“Did they make fun of your haircuts?” Tess asked. “Because they were probably just jealous.”

Enola made a disgusted noise. “No,” she said, practically shaking she was so upset. “They said that Beck was…” She looked at me.

“Was what?” Tess prompted.

“Enola,” I said sharply.

“They said that you moved us in because you were going to marry us just like Dad,” she said, starting to cry. “But you’re not like that. They didn’t have any right to say that.”

“Yeah,” Annie said, holding aloft a ribbon still wrapped around a tuft of hair. “And we made sure she was sorry!”

“You let that kind of talk go on at your school?” I asked the headmistress, fury flowing through me.

“I had no idea,” she sputtered.

“Bullshit!” Tess said, jumping in. “Teachers always know who’s bullying who, and you all just expect the victim to be quiet and not defend themselves.” Tess held out her fist to Annie and Enola. “Nice going, girls.”

“You can’t congratulate them for fighting,” the headmistress argued.

“They were defending a family member,” Tess said stubbornly. “Of course they should be applauded.”

The headmistress’s nostrils flared. “If that’s the kind of attitude you have toward parenting, then I don’t think this school is the right place for Annie and Enola. They can go to public school.”

“Fine! Screw you and your hoity-toity expensive private school,” Tess said hotly. “They’re better than this place anyways.”

“You can consider Annie and Enola expelled!” the headmistress said shrilly.

“They’re not expelled because I’m pulling them out of school!” Tess shot back. “Er…” She looked at me. I was still in a bit of shock.

Little girls were saying things like that?

I shook myself. “Tess is right. This isn’t working out. Girls, get your things.”

“I don’t have anything here I want to take back with me,” Annie declared, pushing herself off the chair.

I followed Tess and the girls to the car in a daze.

Tess patted me on the arm when we were back in the car. “Sorry,” she said. “I just got carried away.”

“Enola’s in fifth grade,” I said in shock. “There were fifth graders bullying her about her being forced to marry her own brother. That seems insane.”

“Ha! Tween school girls are the absolute worst. They’re all little sociopaths,” Tess said.

“I had no idea.”

“It’s not an anomaly, trust me,” Tess said, patting me on the shoulder. “Middle school was the worst time in my life.”

“You two need some sort of schooling,” I told the girls finally.

“They have CEO school, they have the apps that they have to work on, and I’ll sign them up for some homeschooling courses. Maybe we can rent you all some shared office space,” Tess suggested to them. “We can decorate it!”

“I’ll just tell Greg to give them a suite in the Svensson Investment tower,” I said, still feeling slightly sick.

Were people talking? Did people think that I had taken my sisters in to abuse them?

I was spiraling down. Clearly the bullying had been going on for a while. Those fifth-grade girls couldn’t have just made the rumors up themselves. Were their parents feeding them the lies? Were the teachers? What if someone called child protective services?

I could lose Enola and Annie. There was no way I was going to allow my sisters to be lost in the foster care system where they really would be abused.

I needed the adoption to go through.

“Or did you want to go somewhere else?” Tess asked.

“What?” I asked.

“We’re going to eat lunch. The girls are going to calm down, do a little bathroom yoga.”

“Bathroom yoga?”

“Quantum Cyber has very nice bathrooms,” Tess said. “Maeve and I do yoga in there when things get too rough or you’re having a particularly bad day and are being extra ‘I’m going to huff and puff and fire someone.’ So do you want to eat at a restaurant or at Sparrow and Thyme?”

“Holly’s bistro is fine.”

“Awesome! She made lobster bisque for the soup today, and I totally need a whole vat of it. Even though I brought a lunch, I can just eat that for my snack later.”

I couldn’t really eat during lunch.

Tess insisted that Enola and Annie give her the play-by-play of the whole fight. Hearing them describe the taunts and the awful things their classmates had been saying about them—about me, about our family—was sickening. Then they showed her all the messages on the various social media sites, and I felt even worse.

I didn’t feel any better that afternoon. I was pacing around my office when Tess brought me my tea.

“Maybe we need to move,” I said, feeling slightly panicked.

“Why?”

“Because,” I raged, “people are going to think I’m like my father.”

“They definitely are if you pack up everyone and move out to the middle of nowhere,” she joked.

“This isn’t funny,” I snapped.

Tess set the tea down and pushed me into my chair. “You can’t let a bunch of tween girls whip your psyche into a pink froth,” Tess said, rubbing my shoulders.

“There are messages online,” I insisted, closing my eyes and leaning back into her touch. “I need to have lawyers scrub it off.”

“You’re just going to bring attention to the matter,” she warned.

She spun my chair around so I faced her. “I’ll prepare a contingency plan just in case this blows up. The main goal is to make it seem like no big deal, just tween girls being awful, nothing to see here, folks. If anyone asks, we’ll say that those other girls were jealous of Enola and Annie because they’re blond and pretty and have a cool older brother who is more lenient and more engaged with them than their parents, and they don’t have a nanny. Those other girls are just starved for affection, and they act out. It will be no big deal.”

“But what if it is? I have competitors. My brothers’ companies also have competitors. People could drag us through the mud and make everyone think we’re evil like our father.” I stood up to resume pacing. “For fuck’s sake, I’m a single male with two young girls.”

Tess laughed. “Don’t forget you have a fake girlfriend. I will totally make out with you in front of a fancy restaurant if that will make all those busybody Karens shut up. Shit,” she added, “if we really have to up the ante, we can even stage a fake blow-job session in your car.”

The thought of her mouth on my cock was sandpaper on my already rough brain.

I swallowed. “Maybe we don’t need to go that far.”

“Then we’ll just keep it at the make-out session,” Tess said cheerfully.

She is flirting with you!my mind screamed.

I craved the connection, craved Tess because she was the only one who understood.

I reached out and pulled her close to me. “Do you want to practice now?” I offered, voice lowering an octave.

“Uh, um…” Tess said, sounding slightly panicked. “Making out is for emergencies only.”