Chapter 387 - Like A Fly
Cameron hollered that the food was ready so Keeley and Jennica stood up to coax their reluctant children out of the kiddie pool to come eat. The table and chair set Keeley made Aaron buy when she first moved in only seated six people so as time went on they ended up buying a little plastic play table and chairs for the kids to sit at when they had guests.
Aaron rushed over to where Keeley was trying to bend and lift a protesting Kaleb out of the pool. "What are you doing? Go sit down; I'll handle this."
He gave her a sweet kiss on the cheek and she rolled her eyes behind his back. She wasn't a complete invalid and it was annoying being treated like one. June 17th couldn't come fast enough.
She sat next to Jennica as Aaron made up hamburgers for the twins the way they liked them. Kaleb preferred cheeseburgers with multiple condiments but Violet only wanted ketchup on her plain patty.
"You weren't kidding about the overprotectiveness," her friend whispered. "Does he let you do anything?"
"No," Keeley replied sourly. "I hope he snaps out of it soon."
"No kidding; I would go crazy. How are you going to get away with taking the twins to do anything now that school is out?"
She wasn't. That was the problem. She would have to keep them entertained at home for the next week and a half.
"Have you come over every day?" she suggested hopefully. "Noah can keep them occupied for hours."
Jennica grinned. "I'm down with that. He begs me to go see 'pretty Violet' every day anyway. If things keep going this way we might end up as in-laws someday."
"Oh, stop," Keeley laughed.
Matchmaking kids this young was all fun and games but she didn't expect it to actually happen. People outgrew their childhood friends. She certainly had. She didn't even remember her supposed first crush, a boy named Zack Bolton who had lived one floor down in her building when she was four.
Her father had brought him up at the twins' fourth birthday party watching Violet and Noah play. She thought Aaron would be jealous but he blew it off with a cocky smirk.
"Why would I be jealous of someone so insignificant you didn't even remember him?" he said when she asked later that night.
He had a point. She knew he was thinking about how she hadn't been able to stop thinking him even after their five and a half years apart, even though they were negative thoughts. Aaron had been branded onto her heart even if she had been too angry to realize it at the time.
Once the kids were taken care of, he hovered over her a bit like a fly. "Do you need more water? Some ketchup? Pickles? I know you always need pickles when you're pregnant. I already put four on your burger but is that enough?"
Keeley bit back her annoyance at his smothery fretting and smiled at him. "I'm fine, honey. Thanks."
At the pet name Aaron instantly relaxed and sat down across from her. She had started calling him that a few months after she told him she loved him and meant it. He had been so pleased that his face had been pink for nearly thirty minutes afterwards.
Ah, that sap. It was so easy to make him happy. Sometimes she liked to tease him by seeing how much it would take to make him blush. She never got tired of seeing that adorable look on his face.
"Hey Keeley, did you finish your research paper?" Cameron asked when he finally joined everyone else at the table.
"I did! I already submitted it to my boss and it should be in next month's issue of the DOMA medical journal. There were a few slight differences from mice to rabbits but the overall effect was the same. I get to move onto dogs next," she said happily.
Everything was going great. At this rate, she would move onto human trials within the next decade. She would finally be able to help people like Kaleb. She was sure he was cheering her on from up in heaven.
They all chatted about work for a while. Cameron and Aaron obviously knew what was going on with each other's work since they worked together so closely as CEO and vice president but Keeley hadn't known what was going on with Jennica. Apparently she had been given a small role in a commercial that called for mothers and newborns.
Keeley had no idea commercials even did things like that but she supposed there was a casting call for everything. She was happy for her friend; she knew Jennica missed acting and hadn't been able to do a show since before Noah was born. A commercial was but a tiny taste of what she was capable of but it was better than nothing.
The topic eventually switched over to the kids and specifically the differences that would be happening once Kaleb and Violet went to kindergarten at an elementary school once the meal finished and the kids went back to the pool. Aaron kept a watchful eye on them as everyone talked.
The kids had gone to the preschool with the best rating in Manhattan at Aaron's insistence because he wanted them to have the best experience. Keeley didn't mind since she figured that preschool was preschool no matter where you went. They didn't run into any disagreements until it was time to sign the twins up for kindergarten.
Aaron wanted them to go to the best private elementary school in the city but Keeley was worried that they would be surrounded by snobs trying to suck up to them because their last name was Hale. He was absolutely against public school, which she didn't mind because she knew private schools tended to give children better educations.
After all, she had gone to private schools her whole life because of the trust. In elementary and middle school it wasn't so bad because there were plenty of kids from upper middle class families who attended and were fairly normal.
But once she got into Westwind Academy, which was the most prestigious high school in the city, things got much more cliquey. Keeley didn't want her children to get sucked into the world of the ultra-rich. Aaron knew that but he wanted them to have a quality education so they could go to any college they wanted.
In the end they compromised. They chose an elementary school with a good rating that didn't cost as much as the one Aaron had looked into. This way, high society children would be much less likely to go there.
She also made him promise their children would never go to Westwind. Too much drama happened there. She wanted them to live normally as much as possible and he had promised her before they got married that she would call the shots on how the baby would be raised.