Nico, Jasmine and Kayla

It was all going to be all right. Eric had to keep telling himself this. As it was children scared him. Just as badly or possibly worse than a horror film. Since he could always tend to get through something like that with a laugh. But these were kids, and he was going to have to talk to them.

And sure enough. "So, you are Ellie's boyfriend." Kayla who was younger, around eight, grabbed his hand first as if she would take it from here. And she did. She plopped him right down on the couch next to her.

"What's she like?"

"Shut up, Kayla, don't ask him stuff like that." Jasmine put her hands on her hips and gave her little sister a very stern stare. "I can make her go to her room, if you want."

"No, no, no..we're all going to get along lovely, right?" Yeah, it was act. He wasn't sure what act it was. A nice act. A perfect one night nice act. He could go to his room to night and cuss all he wanted, but not here. "Its all right, Jasmine. Its great to talk about Ellie. She's great. Just great."

"She's funny too." Kayla was all smiles, but her little chubby fingers wouldn't let go of him. It just felt freaky. Not so much that it was chubby, just it was her hand. Babysitters didn't hold hands with children, did they?

He wasn't going to ask what they did when Ellie was here. They probably would give him some outlandish tale where they put on a puppet show or dressed up as divas.

"So everyone got there homework done, right?" God, he hoped not. They could do that. Couldn't they. He could read while they did that.

Of course, Jasmine had math and Kayla had nothing to do.

"I want you to draw me a picture." Eric ordered.

"Of what?"

"Who's your favorite celebrity crush?"

"It better not be Hannah Montana." Jasmine gave her sister the evil eye.

"Its not." Kayla barked back.

"Let her decide. Its her picture." Eric didn't want a fight to break out between the two. "Don't you have homework?"

Enough said.

Kayla was thinking. Jasmine was off getting the math done in her room, and there sat Nico all by his lonesome on the loveseat next to the TV, all quiet which surprised Eric. Ellie always went on and on about how he was a handful.

"Are you feeling OK?"

Nico nodded.

"OK, so what's up?" Eric couldn't figure this one out.

"Nothing."

"Girl troubles at school?" Eric wondered.

"No." He hugged himself.

"Something must be wrong. Should I find a thermometer and check to see if you have a fever?" Eric shrugged.

"I'm not sick."

"OK." Eric walked away then to check on Jasmine to see how the math was going. Kayla mentioned she liked Nick Jonas better than Joe because Nick had curls, but she didn't know how to draw curls.

"Well, make a lot of these." He made some curly lines then with a black magic marker on a scratch piece of paper. She liked them. She told him she would.

Jasmine was being very studious. She informed him she always made good grades. Her sister nor her brother never did as well as she did. "Well, maybe you'll just have to show them a better way of getting stuff done, so maybe they can make good grades too."

It was tiring, to come up with this, but he did so with a smile.

He went back to Nico then. Brought him some watered down juice to drink.

"Maybe you're thirsty," Eric said.

"I'm not suppose to like you," Nico informed him. "So I better not drink that."

"All right." Well, at least he wasn't having a fit of some kind. "Why are you not suppose to like me? If you don't mind me asking."

"Because."

"And?" Eric caught himself from laughing.

"Because you're Ellie's boyfriend. I'm supposed to be her boyfriend." Nico gave him a serious look.

"Oh." This was not going well. This was a bad idea being here, he guessed. "Well, I could call Kyle, you know, if you want. And I could go."

"I told Mom I wouldn't ask you to do that." He sighed. "She won't let me watch television, either, cause, I like to put on Grease and she says I dance to dirty and she doesn't like for guests to see that."

"Well, I can turn it on if you want. Just for a little while."

"Better not, I live with the biggest tattle-tales, you know."

"All right."

"You can read to me, I guess."

"But don't you read? "

"Not that good."

"How about if I read a page and then you read a page."

"That sounds awful."

"All right. How about I read aloud using pirate voices."

"Really?"

"We can try it and see what happens. You might want to try it too." Eric picked out a Bernstein Bears book from the pile of books by the TV, and sat himself next to Nico.

There was a picture of Papa Bernstein on the cover carrying a barrel of apples.

"You ever get to see your Dad much?" Nico asked.

"Not that much. He lives in England."

"My Dad just lives in Chicago. I'm the only one who'll talk to him on the phone. My sisters won't." Nico told Eric.

"Sisters are like that sometimes, but thats nice you two talk."

"Don't you talk to your Dad?"

"Its been a while." Eric left it at that. He didn't need to talk to his Dad. Maybe one day Nico would feel the same way about his. Eric hoped not.

"Well, lets get this story going," Eric cleared his throat. It had been a while since he'd sounded like a pirate. Of course, his Dad had one of the best pirate voices around.