Chapter Five Barrett
Chapter Five
Barrett
“I’d tell you to make yourself at home, but . . . I don’t really feel like having guests.”
Lily hopped over a pile of tangled Christmas lights, and while she let the dog out of the office, I eyed the stacks of clear bins everywhere. Literally everywhere.
A nine-foot tree stood in the corner of the living room off to the side—branches empty except for the white twinkling lights. Bins of ornaments sat on the floor around it.
The mantel was covered in thick garland, lights peeking out between the green, red, and gold ornaments affixed to the branches. A collection of nutcrackers in varying shapes and sizes stood at attention on the dining room table.
“These are all Christmas decorations?” I asked.
Lily let out a low laugh, and the sound of it made me grit my teeth. “There’s more in the basement, but I’m just starting with the basics. Seems like they go all out.”
“I wouldn’t know,” I admitted. “We moved in last spring.” Released from its prison, the dog trotted over in my direction, his underbite surprisingly menacing, considering his size. “Your dog is wearing a diaper.”
“Is he, now?” she said dryly. I gave her a look, and she shrugged one shoulder lightly. “He’s old. Sometimes they need one.”
The dog growled under his breath, and I held up my hands. “I’m not judging. Calm down. God, you two are a friendly pair, aren’t you?”
The expression on Lily’s face might have been a smile on anyone else, but on her, it looked more like a threat. “I know you didn’t come to talk about the dog.”
“No, I didn’t.” I straightened, crossing my arms over my chest. “I’ve heard a lot about you from my kids this week, Lily Townsend.”
One dark, graceful eyebrow arched slowly. “I didn’t tell them my last name.”
“No, but Scott and Patty did.” The rest of that story could come later.
For the moment, that seemed to appease her. “Wouldn’t it be nice if I also knew yours? I came up with all sorts of clever nicknames the other night, but I’m not sure if any of them are fit for repeating publicly.”
I mimicked the rise of her eyebrow with one of my own, and her lips curled into a tiny little smirk that had a tremendously strong effect on my blood pressure.
“I’m Barrett,” I said. “I thought maybe Maggie and Bryce gave you their entire life history when they were here.”
“I know a few things.” She strolled past me into the kitchen, smelling faintly like gingerbread cookies and something even sweeter.
“They have an uncle that they love but never see; his fiancée, Ruby, is funny, according to Bryce. They’re getting married this spring.
You’re divorced. Ex-wife lives in California, and the kids see her for two weeks during the summer and every other Christmas.
Your parents moved from Michigan to Arizona when they retired, and they’re the best grandparents ever.
Also, they want a dog and you keep saying no. ”
My brow furrowed briefly, an unfamiliar kind of vulnerability leaving me twitchy. Unfortunately for Lily, it also left me feeling a little snappy. “Where are you from?”
She paused at the change in my tone, doing a slow pivot in the kitchen once she was on the other side of the island. “All over, but I was born in Texas. Haven’t lived there in about ten years, though.”
“Where have you been living since then?”
Her tongue peeked out, licking lightly at her bottom lip as she started unpacking a bin of angel figurines. “All over,” she repeated. “I tend to get restless if I stay in one place for too long. I like experiencing different places, different people. Though I could pass on the people most days.”
“How did you meet Scott and Patty?” I asked, walking closer to where she stood.
“I was house-sitting in Arizona and met them at the neighborhood pool. It’s one of those communities with all the activities, you know—pickleball, shuffleboard, pools, all that jazz.
” From the bin, she pulled out a tiny gold angel playing a trumpet, setting it carefully on the counter.
“I know this will shock you, but they liked me. So they asked if I’d be interested in watching their house for a couple months.
While they were gone last year, they had a water leak—came home to a big old mess in their kitchen and didn’t want to risk something like that happening again. ”
Lily’s movements were slow and careful, treating each item like something breakable, even if it wasn’t. She took the time to study each one. In turn, it gave me the opportunity to study her.
The name didn’t fit, I decided. Lily gave the impression of something delicate and feminine. But that wasn’t her. Her arms were toned, strong. Her features sharply defined. Despite the ease in which she got under my skin, some long-neglected part of me could admit that she was, in fact, beautiful.
Uncomfortably so. It wasn’t an approachable kind of beauty. Like, she’d stab the shit out of you if you came too close.
The last item in the bin had her movements slowing, a snow globe wrapped in packing material.
Inside it was another angel, with wings spread wide, and Lily seemed to forget she wasn’t alone for a moment, watching the little bits of white float through the water.
Her eyebrows furrowed, a wrinkle appearing between her eyes.
My notice of her, all those little details, the irrational desire to ask her what it was about that thing that made her uncomfortable, made my skin tight and itchy and, as a result, more than a little pissed off.
“So you just, what? Job-hop until you find someplace you want to stay?” I asked, tone giving away just a hint of my disbelief.
Her shoulders stiffened, defensiveness drawing her up a couple of inches taller.
She unpacked the last angel and set it carefully next to the others, closing the lid on the bin with a sharp click and moving it off to the side. “Not everyone wants to be anchored down.”
“How do you afford that?”
“Why, do you need a sugar momma?” Her eyes met mine, a dangerous gleam setting my teeth on edge. “I like my men more pliable.”
“I bet,” I answered smoothly.
Lily held my gaze for another beat, then picked up a bag of frosting, leaning over a cooling rack full of cookies.
In fact, half the island was covered in cookies.
Dozens of them, cut in various holiday shapes.
Most were bare, but about ten were decorated so perfectly that I found myself blinking repeatedly.
While I watched, Lily’s hands moved in smooth gliding motions, draping a thin white line of frosting around the edges of a cookie cut into a snowflake.
The song in the background changed, a Bing Crosby song that my mom loved filling the room, and it was all so unbearably nostalgic that I forgot what I was doing there.
She switched bags, piping thicker lines of white until the thin outline was completely filled. “Did you come for a purpose, or did you just want to ogle my cookies, Barrett?”
At the innuendo, my face went a little hot. “I came for a purpose.”
“Oh, goodie. I’d love to hear it.”
But still, Lily didn’t give me her attention, instead focusing on the frosting she’d just piped with a thin metal tool that left the surface perfectly smooth. When she sucked on the tip of her finger, I saw a tiny tattoo inked on the inside of her middle finger.
“Who are you making cookies for?” I asked.
“Your kids,” she answered distractedly, picking up another bag filled with pale-blue frosting for the next cookie. There was another small tattoo on the inside of her bicep, half hidden by the sleeve of her shirt. Before I could stop myself, my eyes lingered on it, trying to decipher the shape.
“I’m surprised you’d give me anything, after what happened the last time I was here.”
She paused, her eyes flicking up momentarily. “I said your kids, not you.”
I managed to stifle an eye roll. Barely.
“What do you want, Barrett? All your man-looming is making me twitchy, and if I fuck up these cookies now, you’re really going to piss me off.”
“You swear like this when my kids were around?”
“Oh yeah, if you’d shown up ten minutes later, we were going to do a lightning round to see how many curse words they could use correctly in a sixty-second span.”
My smile was tight. “You’re making this so easy on me, thank you.”
Finally, she let out a huff and straightened, tossing the frosting bag back onto the counter. Her hands went straight to her hips, gaze locked on mine. “Make what easy on you? I don’t know why you’re here, except to annoy the hell out of me and make this feel like an interrogation.”
“In a way, it is.”
Her dark eyes narrowed. “Explain.”
Could I actually do this?
In the last few years, I’d had to tolerate a lot.
A wife who slowly learned to hate me because I didn’t meet her expectations.
A brother who thought I’d ruined his life.
Kids who consistently pushed every boundary erected to keep them safe.
And now I was voluntarily putting myself at the mercy of the blue-haired siren with more ink than manners and an attitude that made me want to break something.
Then I thought of their faces. Thought of how badly they wanted this.
“I’d like to offer you a job.”
Her features froze; then Lily blinked. Blinked again. “I’m sorry,” she said slowly, tilting her head to the side. “Can you repeat that?”
I sighed heavily. “If you’re available, I’m wondering if you’d be willing to watch the kids after school and the first couple days of their Christmas break. I’ll pay you.”
Her mouth fell open. Then snapped shut. “Is this a joke?”
“Believe me, my sense of humor isn’t that good.”
Lily’s gaze tracked over my face. “Now, that I believe.”
This time I did roll my eyes. “Can you do it or not?”
“I can, but that doesn’t mean I’m saying yes.” She crossed her arms and kept studying me like I was a puzzle she couldn’t quite piece together.
“I’ll pay you well.” I told her the hourly wage the last housekeeper had made, and her eyebrow quirked again.