Chapter Three Lily
Chapter Three
Lily
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I asked, peering over Maggie’s shoulder.
“Yes,” she answered with an emphatic nod.
“I guess we’ll find out when we get to the bottom.” I tapped her arm. “Helmet.”
“Do I have to?”
“Oh yeah.” I tucked some hair behind my ears. “And you guys do this at home?”
The kids shared a look. “Yup,” they said in tandem.
“Why do I feel like I’m getting manipulated right now?” I muttered.
Bryce handed his sister a bike helmet—the one he’d snagged from their garage about thirty minutes earlier, when they’d convinced me this was the best idea ever—and she tugged it on, buckling the strap under her chin.
The moment they turned those big dark eyes in my direction, I was a fucking goner. As a kid, this was exactly the kind of thing I would’ve wanted to do, if our house had an entryway like this.
The staircase was big, the kind of sweeping, grand thing that dominated all the homes built in that time period. Scott and Patty had told me to make myself at home when I arrived.
Was this what they had in mind?
Highly doubtful, but with Maggie’s concussion risk minimal and me holding her tight from behind to bear the brunt of any unforeseen carnage, I decided this was exactly what I’d be doing if I were babysitting two adventurous preteens in my own home.
I mean, my home didn’t exist, because the nomad lifestyle didn’t really jibe with a mortgage, but if I had a home, and if I had a big-ass staircase, I’d do some mattress surfing in a heartbeat.
“Ready?” I asked.
She wiggled herself farther down onto the mattress, nodding over her shoulder. “Ready.”
Bryce must’ve turned up the music, because the heavy pop bass echoed through the entryway as I pushed us off from the top step. They were fun kids, but holy hell, the music choices of this generation left something to be desired. I’d have to pour bleach down my ear canals before the night was over.
I pushed off, and Maggie squealed as the mattress slid down the wooden steps, the jarring bounce, bounce, bounce left me laughing breathlessly and in possession of a bruised tailbone when we came to a halt as the front of the twin mattress hit the ground.
We toppled forward, ass over teakettle, and Bryce pumped his fists in the air, running down the steps after us.
“That was awesome!” he yelled over the music.
I flopped onto my back with a groan. “I’m too old for this.”
“Can we do it again?” Maggie’s face hovered over mine, her grin almost impossible to resist. “That was the funnest thing I’ve ever done.”
As I pushed up to a seated position, I gave her a droll look. “I thought you did this at home.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, um, yeah, but our staircase isn’t this big.”
“Hmm.” I rolled over onto all fours and took stock of the bruises I’d likely feel the next day. “I’m not convinced, young lady.”
A sound came from the front door, a tapping barely heard over the music. “Bryce, can you turn that down, please?”
The music cut off immediately.
Bang, bang, bang.
“Oh shit,” Maggie muttered.
My eyebrows raised. “You allowed to say adult words like that?”
“No,” she hedged, her attention fixed on the front door. “Bryce,” she said in a resigned tone, “I think we’re about to get grounded for life.”
“Your dad?” I asked. Maggie nodded. “He can’t be too mad, right? You told me he’d be fine with you staying here.” My gaze darted between them. “Totally cool. The coolest. Those were your exact words.”
They didn’t answer, and boy, that did not bode well for me.
Exhaling heavily, I stood up, hopping over the edge of the mattress.
In the mirror on the wall, I couldn’t help but groan at the mess of my hair, half falling out of the braid I’d done that morning.
There was more angry banging at the door, which meant I was going to meet the dad with shitty-looking hair and the fresh knowledge that his kids had totally played me.
“Coming!” I yelled, almost tripping on one of the dog’s toys. “Bryce, can you hold on to him so he doesn’t run when I open the door?”
Both kids were sitting at the bottom of the stairs, Bryce with a firm grip on Larry’s collar. Larry gave me a droll look. Please, that look said, like I’d go anywhere.
I took a deep breath and pulled the door open, pasting a friendly smile on my face.
It dropped immediately because Oh shit was right.
The man standing at the door was big and hot and frowning. I had to admit, his resting bitch face was even more frightening than mine, because boy oh boy, there was intent behind it. When he leveled those eyes on me, I had to fight every instinct not to take a step back.
His gaze traveled to his children, and the momentary relief on his face was the only thing to convince me that I didn’t need to be all that intimidated.
“Hi, Dad,” Maggie said quietly. “Did you have a good day at work?”
“Maggie, Bryce, get your things.” A muscle in his jaw twitched. “Right now.”
They didn’t move, and I cut a quick glance over to Hot Angry Daddy.
God, he was a specimen, wasn’t he? Sharp jawline.
Straight nose. Long eyelashes. Dark hair in need of a haircut.
A broad chest and heavily muscled arms covered by a black quarter-zip with a sports logo on the chest, the kind that a million dude bros would wear running errands on Saturday.
Tall too. All in all, he was exactly the kind of man one would think of when you said he was climbable.
Not that I wanted to; it was just a general observation. There were all sorts of people in the world who liked to climb things. Mountains. Stair machines. Tall people. Sounded like way too much work to me, thank you very much.
His gaze didn’t move from his kids, probably because they were doing an excellent impression of children who did not want to go home.
“I told Bridget where we were,” Maggie insisted. “It’s not like we hitchhiked across town or anything.”
Bryce muttered something about a flight under his breath, and she elbowed her brother. Hard.
Hot Angry Daddy was not particularly swayed by this argument. “As much as I’d love to trade stories of the things you have done the last year, I am not in the mood right now. I had to leave work before I was supposed to because I was worried out of my mind not knowing what happened to you two.”
Guilt gnawed at my stomach, but I kept my mouth shut.
“But I—” Maggie interjected.
“Now, Maggie,” he said firmly.
The kids stood, even though their movements were sluggish and slow, and when Bryce let go of Larry to get his backpack, the dog did exactly as I’d feared, darting straight past me to march up to our newest guest and let out a growly little bark.
Larry’s bitch face wasn’t bad either.
“Larry,” I admonished, “get back here.”
Naturally, Larry did not feel like listening to me, because why would he? Now he wanted to go outside, trotting his little ass toward the open door.
Their dad leaned over and grabbed the dog’s collar, and Larry growled ominously in his throat.
Well, as ominous as a fifteen-pound dog wearing a diaper could sound.
When Hot Angry Daddy lifted his head, the annoyance lighting his eyes made me swallow against a dry throat. “Please take the animal,” he said calmly.
Our fingers brushed when I took hold of the collar, and the heat of his skin had me rolling my lips over my teeth.
My fingers hadn’t thawed out since I got to this frozen wasteland called Buffalo, and it was really tempting to ask him if he’d let me put my hands underneath his shirt just to warm them up a little bit.
The impulse was so strong, imagining his horrified reaction so amusing, that an ill-timed laugh bubbled its way up my throat. I covered it with a cough. Barely.
His gaze turned to me and narrowed dangerously.
“I’m Lily,” I said. “I’m house-sitting for Scott and Patty.”
“I know.”
That was it.
Nothing else.
No name, no attempt at niceties—and you can bet your ass I narrowed my eyes right back. He saw it, too, and I swear there was a flash of a challenge in his eyes, like he was daring me to push him.
There was no way he could’ve known, of course, that a challenge of that nature was like waving a red fucking flag in front of a bull.
Because the kids were gathering their coats from the kitchen, we were left alone in the entryway, and his eyes tracked over my messy hair, dipping briefly to the flash of ink under my collarbone and the other on the inside of my arm.
No one—not even Hot Angry Daddy—was going to make me feel self-conscious.
I got looks like that all the time. That was the other thing about people.
They were so painfully predictable that I just barely stemmed the eye roll.
Judgment left me feeling cold, too, the frigid blast of air coming from this guy cutting straight to the bone, much in the same way the weather did.
One was natural. Something we couldn’t control.
The other was man-made, and ugly when unleashed simply because someone couldn’t control their reactions to a person whom they knew nothing about.
Bryce hitched his bag over his shoulder and stopped to give me a high five. “Thanks for letting us wreck your house,” he said, his adorable little half smile melting my heart.
“Anytime.”
Maggie’s eyes were red rimmed, and she flung herself against me for a hug, which I returned with an awkward pat on her back. “This was the best afternoon of my whole life,” she said between sniffles.
In response to the slightly dramatic statement, her dad looked skyward, his chest expanding on a deep breath.
I cleared my throat. “It was great to meet you, Maggie. Come play with Larry anytime, okay?”
Oh, he did not like that I said that.
His gaze locked on mine as his children marched through the door and headed back to their home.
Larry growled in his direction again, and I turned, opening the door behind me to set him in the office. Instead of an annoyed bark, Larry gave me a look like Is this completely necessary?
The silence between us stretched into something horrifically awkward, and when I finally quirked an eyebrow, his expression flattened.
“I was waiting for an apology, but I guess that’s not coming,” he ground out.
Slowly, I folded my arms over my middle and stared him down. “An apology? For what?”
“Oh, I don’t know—keeping my kids without permission? You’re a stranger; you could be a serial killer, for all I know.”
I smiled. “Only for overbearing men who have the social skills of a potato.”
“A—”
I took a step closer, and his eyes flashed. “You should be thanking me.”
“Thanking you? Are you drunk?”
“No,” I answered smoothly, “but at the moment, the desire is high.” I cocked my hip out.
“You could thank me for playing with your kids all afternoon—and they’re delightful, by the way.
They must take after their mother.” His eyes flashed, but it was going to take a hell of a lot more than that to stop me.
“I have a strong suspicion they lied to me about being allowed to ride a mattress down the stairs, but . . .”
His gaze was relentless. “And what made you come to that astute observation?”
My eyes tracked every inch of his body—head to toe and back up again—and that felt like a good enough answer. His nostrils flared, and he took a step closer too.
“They should have been at home. The moment the housekeeper came over here and told them they weren’t allowed to stay, any adult with a modicum of rational thought would’ve sent them back home with her.”
“Oh, believe me, my ability to think rationally was in short supply when that woman opened her mouth.” At my icy tone, his head reared back slightly. “She was lucky I didn’t break her fucking nose, the way she spoke to them.”
His eyes flickered, but he didn’t ask.
I tilted my head. “So no, I didn’t send them home with her, because she was a bitch who shouldn’t have been responsible for anyone’s children.” I smiled again. “So I let them stay here. We played. We made a mess. I fed them dinner. And now they’re all yours, asshole. You’re welcome.”
With that, I yanked on the door, ready to slam it in his face. His hand smacked against the surface, and I let out an incredulous huff.
“Wait,” he growled, color high in his cheeks. “Just . . . hang on. I was frustrated and worried, and maybe I . . .”
His deep voice trailed off, like the words were physically hard for him to say.
“Maybe you jumped to conclusions and snapped at me for something that wasn’t actually my fault?” I asked.
He licked his bottom lip. “Maybe,” he said between gritted teeth.
“If that’s your attempt at an apology, we’ve got a long way to go, buddy.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a house to clean up, and you’ve pissed me off enough for one night.
” I stepped forward and knocked his hand down, taking unholy, leg-shaking, orgasm-level satisfaction at the way his hard features slackened with shock, right before I slammed the door in his face.