Chapter 9
Sutton
“What the fuck is wrong with you this morning?” Silas drops his dumbbells on either side of the bench and issues the sharp jab.
“Nothing. What the fuck is wrong with you?” I look at him through the mirror.
My youngest brother studies me before swiping his gaze to our middle brother, Spencer, standing on my left.
“Spence? It’s not just me, right? He’s being fucking weird.”
Spencer’s bored expression says he’d rather be having any other conversation. “Don’t know, man. We did just force a stranger into his home. Give him a second to adjust.”
“Thank you,” I mutter, returning my focus to my last set of hammer curls.
“It’s been more than a week. Almost two. You see her, what, five minutes a day? It’s not like she’s living with you,” Silas retorts.
Thank fuck for that.
“It would be easier,” Spencer says, patting a towel gently over the scars on his face. The evidence of the work accident that nearly took his life and sent him back to town gives me a sharp spike of pain in the gut.
“For who?” I grit out, finishing my last two. “Don’t answer that. It doesn’t matter. You set her up with a place to live, and she’s happy there.”
“Sure. Sucks she’s alone, though.” Spencer tips his water bottle to his mouth.
Fuck. Don’t ask. Don’t ask. Don’t—
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Spencer and Silas exchange a glance.
“I don’t know, man. Put yourself in her place. A single woman moving across the country to a strange new town where she only knows one person. On top of that, her new boss is a dick and works her so long it’s probably hard to get out and make friends,” Spencer says.
“She met Francine,” I grumble.
Spencer pins me with a look. “You and I both know that woman is nuts.”
“And living with me is supposed to make that easier how, exactly?”
“You’re right. You’re too temperamental to be friendly.” Silas grins.
“And now my brothers are insulting me,” I mutter, lifting my T-shirt to swipe at my forehead.
“Sorry, Sutt. It’s not a secret you’re about as trusting as a cornered skunk,” Silas counters.
“Highly confrontational and overly defensive.” Spencer laughs. “Stinks too.”
“I do not.” I frown, plucking my tee away from my chest for a whiff. “When the fuck did this turn from a gym session into a give-Sutton-shit session?”
“I call this my pre-workout.” Silas shadowboxes the air between us.
I shove his shoulder and walk over to the row of cardio machines. “Better cut the shit before I knock your ass out.”
“As if you could, old man.”
“If you want to test that theory, keep thinking forty-six is old.”
I fire up the treadmill and drown out Silas’s smart-mouthed reply. More like a personal attack.
The whirr of the belt spins loudly. Coupled with the heavy smack of my feet against the running deck, it’s the perfect excuse to end this conversation.
Unfortunately, I forgot my headphones at home, or I’d put those on too.
Nellie must have slipped them out of my gym bag and neglected to return them.
I fist my water bottle and pour a healthy stream into my mouth. Silas takes up the treadmill beside me.
“Who do you think that is?” Silas points out a small person lurking along the wall near the punching bag suspended from the ceiling. By the petite stature, I’d surmise it’s a woman. The black, baggy sweatshirt with the hood pulled forward to obscure her face completely cloaks her.
“Don’t know.” I ignore his curiosity to focus on finishing my two miles. Time is limited if I want to get in a decent workout before my shift starts at eight. Something I can begrudgingly admit that Ms. Thompson makes easier.
A figure moves in my field of vision, and I shake off some of the irritation from my brothers.
My best friend, Lee Powell, crosses in front of my treadmill and drops his gym bag at his feet.
He’s the oldest of the Powell brothers and runs the dog sanctuary in town. We’ve been friends since middle school.
“Haven’t caught you here in a while. How’s that new nanny working out?”
My mouth compresses. “You said it yourself. I’m here, aren’t I?”
Lee laughs. “You don’t sound too happy about it. Is she that bad?”
“She’s hot. Nothing wrong with a hot nanny.” Silas throws himself back into my business.
I punch the Stop button as the counter ticks over two miles. Fuck the cool-down. Silas’s comment has a surge of heat blasting through me. A mixture of anger and something else. Nothing will cool me down now but a dip in an ice bath.
“Don’t you have anything better to do?” I snarl at Silas.
“Not my business,” Lee says, holding his palms out in a placating gesture. “I just wanted to extend an invitation. A new country bar opened up last month in Hawk Ridge, and my wife and her girls have roped us guys into accompanying them.”
“You don’t sound unhappy about that.”
“Because I’m not going to pass up an opportunity to watch my wife twirl around in a pair of Daisy Dukes and cowboy boots.”
Guilt surges through me. There’s a strong chance that if I accept that invite, my nanny will be paying the price. Nearly everyone else I’d ask to watch my daughter will be hanging out at that bar.
What Spencer said about her being lonely fills my head. Followed by anger. This is not my place or my problem to be concerned about her social calendar. She’s my nanny, for fuck’s sake. Not my friend.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
The clock on the gym wall tells me this is a problem I need to sort out later.
“Talk to your nanny. I’ll text you the date and address if you want to come.”
“Sounds good.”
I bid my brothers goodbye and head to the locker room to shower.
Once clean, I have a few moments to spare. I’m waiting on Silas before we head over to the station together. I sit on the bench and pull out my phone. Logic tells me not to do it, but my gut wins over, and I open up the home security app.
Nellie and Ms. Thompson are easy to locate. They sit at the kitchen table. I squint at the screen, trying to make out what they’re getting into. It almost looks like some sort of craft project. I tap the interface to turn on closed captioning as I keep the volume low.
“What does this do?” Nellie asks, her body half on, half off the kitchen table.
“This measures my blood sugar.” Ms. Thompson holds out her finger, pushes what looks like a large marker against the tip, then touches her finger to the strip inserted into the glucometer.
“You have sugar in your blood?” Nellie’s voice is half surprised, half disbelief. A small smile touches my lips.
“You do too, kiddo. It gives us energy. But my body doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to, and sometimes I get too much sugar in my blood.
Other times, I don’t have enough. See? Right now, I have this much.
That’s a good amount. But if it goes too high, I have to give myself some medicine so I don’t get sick. ”
“Like a yucky drink?”
Ms. Thompson pulls her shirt up, showing Nellie the device stuck to her stomach. “From here. There’s a little straw that sits under my skin and gives me the medicine when I need it.”
“What’s this one?” Nellie touches the small device on the back of Ms. Thompson’s arm.
I find myself engrossed, learning along with my daughter.
“That one monitors my blood sugar all the time. It’s called a continuous glucose monitor.”
“Does that one also have a straw?”
“It does!”
“Does it hurt?”
Ms. Thompson begins packing away her supplies. “It does a little, but I’m really tough.”
“What if your blood is out of sugar?”
“Then I get to eat candy.”
“Whoa. Really?”
“Hey, you ready?” Silas emerges from the shower stall fully dressed. I quickly exit the camera, tucking away my phone as if I just got caught doing something I shouldn’t.
And maybe I shouldn’t have.
But seeing how she handles my kid makes me tolerate Ms. Thompson just a little bit more.