AN: I've made a cover myself, but please don't let that stop you from making me some!! Yours are always better than my pitiful attempts, and you know I always use what I can and rotate them. I put any covers or artwork related to my stories into chapters at the end so everyone can admire them, and I always, always, credit you, so bring them on, okay?

🍭 🍭 🍭 🍭 🍭

Goldie tried to listen to Jeff and watch all three babies at the same time, noticing that the room was, indeed, baby safe. There was minimal furniture, and what there was had no sharp edges. All of the book cases, glass and knick knacks were in the other part of the room, separated by the raised floor and the railing.

"They have some toys in the box there, if you'll lift the lid?" Jeff called from the kitchen.

Goldie looked around and saw the box in question. She opened it and pulled out some toys, picking up the three crawling machines and gathering them in her lap, loving the soft, baby smell of them as she tried to keep them entertained with a stuffed giraffe until their father returned with their bottles.

She wondered how he handled feeding times. She could see the high chairs in the kitchen, but surely he didn't try to feed all of them at the same time by himself?

"Here we are, here we are," Jeff called, approaching holding three bottles. "Would you mind trying to feed one of them? My friend Kylie says they're old enough to hold their own bottles, but I like to do it, and I read that weaning them off is easier if they understand they're not in charge of them, you know? The bottles, I mean."

Goldie nodded and took a bottle and a baby. "Genie, right? Blonde hair and brown eyes?"

"Yes, wonderful," Jeff praised. "I don't know if she'll take a bottle from you—they're all pretty leery of strangers, but you getting her name right is a good start. The last nanny candidate I interviewed called them baby number one, two and three the entire time she was here." He made a mouth of distaste. "Now, let's see how you do with her.

He spoke to Genie encouragingly in between holding Jemma and Pippa expertly in his arms as they took their bottles. "There you go, darling, isn't that lovely? You have a nice new grown up to hold you while you take your bottle."

And Genie, to his surprise, was allowing it, looking up at Goldie with wide eyes as she lay in her arms, holding her bottle and sucking on it.

Goldie smiled at her, and Genie smiled back, leaking a bit of formula from her mouth as she did so.

"Well, will you look at that, she likes you!" Jeff exclaimed. "Marvelous. I'd say, based on Genie's response alone, that you're hired, Ms. Sorenson."

"Don't you want to see if the other two like me as much as she does?" Goldie asked, surprised.

"I'm sure they will." Jeff responded. "They seem to have some sort of triplet telepathy going on, you know?" He looked appealingly at Goldie, his brown eyes into her blue ones. "And to be quite honest, I'm at my wits' end. I need help desperately, and you're the eighth candidate I've interviewed. None of the others is even close to being acceptable, and, well, you're just wonderful, if I may say. Please say you'll take the position?"

Goldie nodded. "On one condition."

"Name it."

"Please call me Goldie."

"Done."

They finished giving the babies their bottles, then watched them crawl around and play with other toys from the bin as they talked.

"So, when can you move in?" Jeff asked.

"Tomorrow, I guess," Goldie answered. "Like I put on my app, I just graduated, and I'm taking a year off before I apply to grad school, so I'm all yours for the next fifteen months. Will that work?"

Jeff looked at her. "It does my head in to even think that far into the future, if I'm honest. Hopefully things will be a bit more settled by then. They'll be nearly two, which I can't even fathom." He shook his head.

Pippa crawled to where Goldie sat and pulled herself up to pat Goldie's knees, smiling at her and showing her teeth.

"Hello, beautiful," Goldie greeted her.

"Gah," Pippa responded, patting her knees some more.

"Where's your daddy?" Goldie asked. "Is that your daddy right there?" She pointed at Jeff. "Can you say 'daddy'?"

"Gah," Pippa said smartly, grabbing the sofa cushion and walking while holding on to where her father was.

Goldie looked up and saw to her horror that Jeff was crying.

"Oh my god, I'm sorry," she stammered. "Did I say something?"

"No," he assured her, picking Pippa up and hugging her before setting her on the floor and watching her crawl toward her sisters. "It's just, listening to you talk to her, it made me think, no, it made me feel so many things." He looked at Goldie with streaming eyes. "Under other circumstances, Pippa's mum, Maggie would've been the one to be sitting there, saying those things. But she's not here, she's missing all of this, and Pip and her sisters are never going to know her, you know? But I also realized that I've been drowning, literally drowning here, all alone, and that I haven't had another adult to talk to in months. I've been so bloody lonely—" and he covered his face with his hands.

Goldie didn't know what to do. She finally reached out a hand and put it on his shoulder. He covered her hand with one of his own, and they stayed that way for a few minutes.

He finally looked up and wiped his eyes.

"God, so sorry," he said. "Guess I just had to get the tears out."
Goldie just shook her head. "Please don't apologize," she said. "It's amazing you hung on for so long, it really is."

"I was also thinking that, without another person here, how would they even know to call me 'daddy,' you know? I'd just be the adult who took care of them." He shrugged. "I guess what I'm trying to say, very inarticulately, is that I'm very, very happy and grateful you're here, Goldie."

"Me too, Jeff."

They spent the next couple of hours sitting on the floor playing with the babies, and having a great time.

"Jemma! Jemma, look, look at the kitty!" Goldie called, holding up a stuffed cat.

Jemma looked and smiled, showing all of her teeth. She pointed at the cat.

"Yes, that's a kitty, isn't it?" Goldie said. She glanced at Jeff. "This job is going to be so much fun, I can tell already, way more fun than answering phones at the ACLU, which was my last job."
"That sounds pretty important," Jeff said. "Are you interested in the law?"
"I'm thinking about law school," Goldie admitted. "I just don't know if I want to spend that much time in school, only to spend the rest of my life with a bunch of uptight assholes all day, you know?"

"I do know a few attorneys," Jeff said with a laugh, "so yeah, I do know, as a matter of fact."

Goldie was heartened to see Jeff looking happy and relaxed, with no sign of the angst or sorrow of earlier. At least the babies didn't seem to have absorbed any of it. They were crawling all over each other, babbling happily in some language only the three of them seemed to understand.

"They're just beautiful babies," Goldie said sincerely, admiring their nearly translucent skin and fine hair.

"They are, aren't they?" Jeff said, looking at them with misty eyes. "They're the best thing I've ever done in my life."

Goldie looked at her watch and realized it she'd been there all afternoon. "I guess I'd better go," she said reluctantly.

"I promise, though, to be back, bright and early, with my stuff, okay?" she promised Jeff. "And I'll do my unpacking and all that when the girls are asleep, so I can hit the ground running and help you from the minute I arrive."

"Sounds grand," Jeff responded, a tired smile on his face.

"Actually, I still have an hour or so, you want me to stay and help you feed them their dinner?" Goldie offered.

But Jeff shook his head. "No, it's no big deal. It's just one more night, after all, and they're pretty good about staying in their high chairs still."

"Okay, I'll be back in about fifteen hours, then," she said, waving Jeff off as he began to rise. "Bye bye, babies, see you tomorrow."

She took the elevator down and quickly left the building, cutting diagonally across the street and calling an Uber as she walked. It was a hot, steamy June evening, and she was glad to get in the air-conditioned car. She sent a quick text as she sat back.

"I'm in. He hired me pretty much on the spot. I move in tomorrow."