Stars Dancing [Dreams-To-Lovers Romance]

"Joey, what did we say about eating rocks?" I asked the toddler holding a handful of pebbles.

He smiled his "I'm gonna do it anyway" grin and moved that chubby hand to his mouth. But it never got there because his sister Malina smacked his hand right down. Alright, thank you Mal, but hitting wasn't acceptable either.

"Malina, can you think of a better way to get Joey to put down the rocks than slapping?" my friend Rhoda asked. I say "friend" loosely, but more on that in a minute.

"He can't eat rocks!" Malina pouted and folded her arms, sitting on the ground and sticking out her bottom lip. Oh boy, here we go. Please, please tell me we were not about to start a twin tantrum. Yeah, that's right, my two charges were three-year-old twins. I told you my day job sucked, didn't I?

And that wasn't the worst of it. In all honesty, I felt really sorry for Joey and Mal (yeah, that was what she wanted to be called, so I used her preferred nickname. Less tantrums that way). Why did I feel sorry for these kids?

Well, their dad was a cybernetics surgeon which meant he was often at the hospital for operations that took three days. So, they almost never saw him. I'd been their nanny for a year, and I'd only seen the man one time.

And their mom? She worked from home but had a strict "no kids from 7AM to 7PM" schedule. I nannied for eight hours three days a week, and when I wasn't there, another rotation of gals took care of the kids. When I left, another nanny was on the clock. When I got to their house in the morning, I switched places with the overnight guys who were security with nanny skills.

The whole scenario was weird, and I had no idea what Janelynn, the mom, did for work, but I suspected she was some kind of mafia boss.

Wouldn't that make a great book? Mafia Moms: Secret Stories From The Vaults Of The Underworld. Okay, yeah, maybe my imagination got away from me at times, but that's what made me an awesome writer.

Hmmmm. Maybe I'd need to loop back to that mafia moms idea tonight when I got home . . . Ping!

DAMMIT! My pad was binging again. Discord. I pulled it outta my pocket and switched it to silent, but too late.

"Got plans later? A date?" Rhoda smirked.

So, here's the thing with Rhoda. We met at this very park in central Cheyenne under the shade trees when I'd brought Joey and Mal for a picnic last month. The kids' probably-not-mafia mom, Janelynn, didn't like me to take her twins to fun places where there were other children because "little ones are germ factories" and, "If they get sick, they'll give it to me. And I can't afford to get sick, so your job is to keep them away from me while I'm working and make sure they don't bring germs into the house."

Can you imagine being three years old and never seeing your family and then not being allowed to go around other kids because you might pick up a bug that could infect your parents and prevent them from working?

Are you seeing why my day job sucked so bad? Anyways, I'd started taking the twins to the park for picnics since summer in Cheyenne was so nice: crisp, cool, dry air, but warm enough for t-shirts and shorts. Sunny days full of throwing bread crumbs to noisy geese and swinging on the swing sets.

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And one day, Rhoda and her son Filly, also three years old, had been at the swings the same time as us. Now, I'm not exactly a talk-a-mile-a-minute type of gal. Type a mile a minute? Yes, but talk? No.

Rhoda, on the other hand, had no problem striking up a conversation right there by the swings, and she assumed that the twins were mine. So, I let her believe it. Why not?

She'd been a bit confused when Joey called me "Sam" instead of "Mom," so I told her that after my wife left me for a man, I'd decided to raise my kids very progressive and not use outdated words like, "Mom." She totally bought it.

Admittedly, when that went down, I thought I'd never see her again, but lo and behold, guess who was at the park the next time I strolled in with my two charges? You guessed it! Little Filly and his mommy Rhoda, ready to chat and chat and swing and swing and picnic on my blankets with us.

Oh, you want me to back up and explain "Sam?" That's my actual name: Samantha Mooneyhan. My pen name is Ayela Scarsdale, but I didn't bother to go into all that with Rhoda. She just swallowed the bit about my ex-wife and went on chatting.

So, now we were playdate friends, and I liked Rhoda and her son quite a lot, but keeping my story straight was a little like keeping my books in order. Yes, she knew I was gay, but she thought I had an ex-wife who left me to raise two kids on my own, and that I was a successful author supporting myself by writing love stories at night while the kids slept.

Oy vey, I had to rehearse the story every time we went to the park.

Remembering to laugh about the pings my pad was making and reminding myself of why Rhoda might think I had a date, I waived her off, "Course not! No dates! I'm too busy! Kids! Books to write!"

My stomach turned over. This whole scene was getting out of hand, and I hated all the lies.

"Well, if you do go looking for companionship, don't do it on Discord. My cousin met a guy who was a charmer. Poured it on thick. She thought he hung the moon, and guess what happened to that?"

She piqued my interest with talk of Discord. "What? True love? Did they get married? Was he Prince Charming?"

"Ha! No! It was a bot. Not even a real person! Got her heart broken over a no-body, no-thing NPC."

I laughed, pretending like I had a clue what she was talking about. "Serves her right for trusting someone on Discord," I scoffed, trying to keep my face in an "I'm so cool" smile, but inside wondering WTF an NPC was.

She snorted, "You got that right! Don't fall in love on Discord, first rule. Second rule? Never tell anyone who you really are."

Okay then, maybe Rhoda could accidentally school me in the wily ways of Discord so I could start my romance-author-world-takeover career. Oh! Nope, that thought went by the wayside because Mal tripped and face-planted in the dirt, screaming bloody hell.

"Aww, honey, come here," I soothed, picking her up, hugging her and dusting her off. "Let's have a look, oh good, not bleeding. How about your hands, lemme see. All good, no boo boos. Whaddaya say to getting some ice cream on our way home?"

That calmed her down, and I wrangled the twins into the porter waving goodbye to Rhoda and Filly.

Yeah, we had a porter that belonged to the twins parents. It was a sweet ride, floated above the streets and the autonav took us everywhere we wanted to go. In Cheyenne, Wyoming in 2859, most people had their own porters. There wasn't much public transport because it was such a small town. On the University Campus there was a hover-bus system, but the rest of us got by on two legs or porters.

My gran had a porter that was ancient, but I pretty much walked everywhere since Cheyenne was small, and I was perfectly healthy. Thankfully, Joey and Mal's house was only seven blocks from my apartment, so it was an easy trek.

Lemme tell you, if you've never lived through a Wyoming winter, then you don't know how crazy it can be to need to walk to work: yet another reason my day job sucked. But I hadn't yet resorted to getting a driver to take me to the baby-sitting gig, so it'd gone according to plan so far.

And on summer days like this one, it was perfect. I could take the kids wherever we wanted to go in their parents porter, and that day it was ice cream then back home just before nap time.

While they were sleeping, I pulled out my pad, ready for Discord time. I mean, a two-hour nap for the kids meant a nice, long Discord session for me. What could possibly go wrong?