4
“So. Speaking of the flow of time.”
Oh no.
Janice sat on the stool next to him. “I had a call from my mum yesterday. It’s not good news, I’m afraid. She fell and bumped her head, and it was hours before anyone noticed because she lives alone.”
That sounded terrifying. “Is she okay?”
“Mostly bruises. A nasty cut on her head that she’s lucky didn’t kill her.” Janice let out a long breath. “She can’t live alone anymore, but she refuses to leave the house. You know how parents can be. ‘Your father built this house with his own two hands.’”
And now Jordy understood the reason for the conversation. “You’re leaving us.”
She grimaced. “I wish I didn’t have to. Just—there isn’t anyone else. She can’t afford live-in help, and even if she could, she’s too proud to take it from someone who’s not family. And—”
“And she’s your mom,” Jordy finished. He understood. That didn’t make his situation any less challenging. “Are you sure she wouldn’t accept—”
“Jordy,” Janice said gently, “don’t you dare offer to pay for it.”
His shoulders slumped. He could afford it. And if Janice took him up on it, he wouldn’t be in a tight spot with Kaira. “I’d be happy to help out, though.”
“I know. But I meant it—stubbornness runs in my family. Lucky for me,” she added, lightening her tone a little as she jostled his shoulder, “because goodness knows I’d have a time of it with Kaira otherwise.”
He smiled wanly. “She gets it from her mother.” The old joke felt rote today, the humor of blaming his sister for any undesirable genes falling flat.
Janice smiled. “So you’ve said.”
They lapsed into silence for a moment. Then Jordy braced himself to ask the important question. “When’s your flight?”
She sighed. “Monday. I hate that it’s so soon, with training camp starting up, but I really can’t leave her much longer.”
Jordy shook his head. “I understand. And we’ll be okay.” Plenty of the other guys on the team had kids, whether they had nannies or not, and they were used to doing favors for each other. Kaira could make the rounds with them until he found a… replacement.
It had taken him months to find Janice, and he started well before Kaira was born. It’d take a miracle to find someone he trusted in just a few days. But he wasn’t going to make that Janice’s problem.
Janice squeezed his hand again. “I know you will.”
At least Jordy didn’t have to bring it up with Kaira right away. Today was Clem’s birthday party, and she had gone over early to “help him get ready.” Jordy didn’t know what sort of primping six-year-olds did before parties, but as long as Clem’s mother didn’t mind having Kaira there, Jordy didn’t mind having a little extra time to himself.
But he wasn’t going to spend it in the house. That would lead to brooding. Instead, he took advantage of what passed for mild weather in August and went for a run.
It was always a risk, running in public. Jordy had a fairly recognizable face, and then there was his size—he outweighed most recreational runners. The upside was that he was an athlete. If he wanted to run, most people weren’t going to be able to catch him. He shoved in a pair of earbuds, as much for plausible deniability as actual music, and set out for the park.
The stress of the morning dissipated with each footfall on the warm asphalt. Right now only moving mattered. Controlling his breathing. The sun in the sky. The beat of the song in his ears. The smell of freshly cut grass. The—
The sting of a round disk of plastic hitting the back of his head.
Rubbing at his scalp, Jordy turned to find a Frisbee at his feet and a couple of people in athletic gear running toward him.
“Sorry about that!” called the man in the lead. He chuckled breathlessly as he got closer. “Seriously. Pete’s aim is the worst, and it doesn’t improve when he’s tripping over his own feet.” His voice trailed off in a familiar way and his eyes widened. “Oh shit.”
“Jordy?” said a familiar voice, and Jordy looked beyond the first man to see the second had a familiar face.
“Rowan.”
“Oh my God,” the unfamiliar man breathed and turned on Rowan. “That was you. I thought it looked like you, but then I thought, no way—he’d have told us if he was hanging out with Shield players.”
“Uh.” Rowan shot Jordy a look and then shrugged. “I wasn’t exactly hanging out with hockey players. I just made a friend at a gala. But that is beside the point. The point is Pete attacked poor Jordy with the Frisbee. Sorry about that.”
“I’ll live.”
“Hey, what’s the holdup?” yelled one of the other players from a ways off, and all three of them turned to look.
“Uh-oh,” Rowan said. “Is it just me, or is Pete still on the ground?”
“Pete is still on the ground. Looks like we might have to call the game.”
“We could always play one man down on both sides.”
“Oooor…,” said the stranger, turning to look at Jordy, “we could recruit a new player.”
Which was how Jordy found himself pulling off his shirt to join Alex’s team in defeating Rowan’s.
At first, things went smoothly. Jordy ran, caught the disk, threw it to a teammate. He dodged and distracted his opponents and ran interference using his size—all things he did professionally. Even celebrating a touchdown was familiar, if a little sillier.
“I see how it is,” Rowan bemoaned as Jordy high-fived his teammates. “No loyalty among sports.”
Jordy rolled his eyes, tossed Rowan the disk. “I play to win. Doesn’t mean I like you any less.”
“It’s like that, is it?” Rowan’s eyes gleamed. “Well, I too play to win.”
“Oh my God,” Alex muttered under their breath. “Are you flirting right now?” It always amazed Jordy how people never could tell the difference between friendly and flirty.
“I’ll have you know,” Rowan said, relaxing out of a game-ready pose and placing his hands on his hips, the Frisbee still clutched in one hand, “that was trash talk, not flirting.”
On the next game play, Rowan bumped into Jordy as they were running down the field. “So unfair,” he puffed. “You’re my friend. Stop helping other people win.”
Jordy huffed. “Play better, then.” He tried to dodge around Rowan, but he was never his smoothest on land.
Rowan spun into his way again, and Jordy cursed and tried to dodge, but Rowan—Rowan cheated. He pushed into Jordy’s space, and Jordy, not expecting the sudden full-body contact, fumbled. They crashed to the ground.
“Oof,” Rowan wheezed and coughed, his face pressed against Jordy’s chest. His breath prickled across his damp skin. He pressed one hand to the ground and the other to Jordy’s pec and lifted his head enough to ask, “You okay?”
Rowan’s eyelashes were long and thick. They framed his eyes beautifully.
Jordy found his tongue. “Yes. You?”
“Yes.” Rowan got up and held out a hand.
“You cheated,” Jordy grunted once he was back on his feet.
“What? I would never.”
“No-contact sport, hm?”
“Well. It was an accident?” Rowan tried with a little smile.
Jordy might’ve believed him if that was the end of it, but for the next few plays, Rowan all but stopped trying to get the Frisbee and seemed more intent on getting in Jordy’s way, of breaking the no-contact rule to get into his space, to push, to tackle—always with a wheeze of “Oops! Didn’t see you there.”
Jordy couldn’t help but laugh as the cheating grew more blatant. Figuring all was lost, when Rowan next pushed into Jordy’s space, he swerved, bent, caught Rowan around the waist, and stood.
Rowan yelped. “Unhand me, you barbarian,” he gasped, but laughter threaded through his voice.
Jordy clamped his arm around Rowan’s thighs to hold him over his shoulder and asked in the general direction of Rowan’s head—which hung somewhere near Jordy’s lower back—”I’m sorry. Is this not allowed?”
“Manhandling opponents like a caveman is against the rules,” Rowan cried.
“What? Sorry, can’t hear you.” Jordy cast his gaze around. The situation called for a nice pool or fountain to toss him into.
The best he could come up with was the remnants of a mud puddle, but that might be overkill. Instead he carried Rowan across the goal line and set him down. “How many points do I get for that?”
“That’s a red-card offense,” Rowan said, flat on his back on the ground, panting and gasping. His brown cheeks were flushed pink. “Match penalty. Total disregard for the rules.”
“I didn’t see anything,” Alex said.
Rowan took a breath, likely to deliver another smartass remark, but was cut off by a cough.
“You okay?” Jordy frowned.
“Ye-yeah—” Rowan wheezed but couldn’t get anything else out as he coughed again and again.
Jordy stepped in closer, reaching out. In retrospect, Rowan’s panting and gasping during the game felt ominous. He looked to be fighting it, but when he gasped, short of breath, the next set of coughs sounded deep and rattling.
“Rowan.” Jordy put a hand on his arm.
“It’s fine, just a tickle.”
“Do you have asthma?”
“No.” Rowan shook his head. “It’s nothing.” He tried to wave them off, but another cough weakened his efforts.
Jordy scowled. “Have you seen a doctor?”
Rowan shrugged. “I have an appointment.”
With both Pete and Rowan out, the game seemed to be finished, and everyone collected their things. Jordy had just about decided Rowan could be trusted to look after himself when he let out another racking cough.
That was it. Jordy grabbed his phone and started dialing.
“Who are you calling?” Rowan eyed the phone suspiciously.
“A doctor.”
ROWAN HATED asking his friends for rides, but Pete’s wife showed up in her car to take him home anyway, and Jordy accepted her offer to drop them by the office on his behalf before Rowan could protest.
If Gem could see him now, getting steamrolled into accepting help… she’d get all kinds of ideas. She’d be very smug about it.
Truth told, Rowan was worried enough that he didn’t have the breath to complain in the car. He’d been wheezing and coughing and sniffling at night for more than a week, but until now it always cleared up in the daytime. He’d never even felt the need to take a day off work. Frankly, he felt better at the library than he did lying around at home.
Gem would probably say he was allergic to his ugly apartment.
In any case, he’d felt fine today. The refreshing air and exercise did him good. And there was nothing like the sight of Jordy shirtless and sweaty to make him feel alive, and also to regret swearing off men. Of course Rowan had gotten a little breathless. The way Jordy swung him up over his shoulders like a sack of flour? Like Rowan wasn’t taller than most men. Be still his beating heart. And lungs. And dick.
But maybe he’d overdone it with the competition, because now he wanted to go home and crawl into bed and sleep for three days. With the option of sitting in the bathroom first with the shower running as hot as it would go, in an effort to loosen the tightness in his lungs.
He didn’t make small talk, leaving Pete and his wife to carry the conversation. He had the vague impression Jordy was probing them for information on how he could pay them back for the kindness, and imagined Jordy showing up at their flat one day with Shield season tickets, or making a surprise visit to their future child’s birthday party.
He must’ve dozed off, because the next thing he knew, someone was shaking his shoulder. “Rowan. Come on.” There was a pause and then Jordy added, “Maybe you should come too, Pete. Get that foot looked at.”
Pete brushed this off, despite what Rowan was sure was a blistering look from his wife, and Jordy hustled him into a nondescript medical building.
And then, in a surreal sort of parallel universe way, Rowan was sitting shirtless in a posh doctor’s office while a woman with thick plastic-rimmed glasses and elaborately braided hair listened to his lungs.
“How long have you had the cough?”
“A week or so? No, maybe longer.” He frowned. “A month? But it wasn’t this bad before, just like a tickle.”
She didn’t like that answer, if her frown was any indication. She rolled her chair away from him and indicated he could put his shirt back on. “And any other symptoms? Fever, headaches? Has the cough been productive?”
“Um, like coughing stuff up? Phlegm sometimes.”
“No blood?”
Rowan blanched. “I would’ve gone to an urgent care clinic if there was.”
“Good. And the other symptoms?”
He thought about it. “I’ve been a bit sniffly, I guess. No headaches, no fever.”
“And is it worse at night, during the day…?”
“Definitely at night. Today was an anomaly.”
“And you had the coughing attack while playing Ultimate Frisbee, right?”
“Right. But I don’t have asthma. Or at least I never have before.” Sure, he’d been a weedy kid, but he would’ve known if he’d had asthma.
Dr. Okoye leaned back in her chair and tapped her pen on her clipboard. “What about allergies? Dust, hay fever, pollen?”
He shook his head. “I mean, I’m not about to go sticking my head under the bed to get a deep whiff of dust bunnies or anything, but I’m no more reactive than any other person.”
She put down the pen and sat forward. “Well, whatever’s ailing you, I don’t think it’s acute. No sign of infection or pneumonia. Allergies is my best guess—they can develop at any time. I could send you for tests, but you’ll be back on the regular wait list, I’m afraid.”
Rowan shook his head. “No, that’s all right. I know it was a lot to ask to have you see me today. I’m a bit embarrassed Jordy dragged me in here, actually. I’m sorry this is so outside your usual duties.”
“That’s just Jordy for you.” She shook her head. “You should’ve seen him the first time Kaira had a fever. At least it’s not three in the morning this time.”
That made Rowan smile. “Good to know he’s not always perfect.”
She barked a sharp laugh. “I could tell you stories, but it’d violate patient confidentiality. Do keep an eye on that cough, though. And don’t cancel your other appointment. Your GP might want to send you for a chest X-ray if this hasn’t cleared up by then.”
Rowan left her with a promise to follow her advice, and then, after a not insignificant amount of haggling, left Jordy with a promise to take it easy and an acceptance of Jordy paying for his cab home. As though Rowan wasn’t perfectly fit to take the subway.
He was grateful for it when he got home, though, because the heat had picked up in the afternoon, and now he was uncomfortably aware of the way his skin felt, caked with dried sweat and dirt and grass. He probably didn’t smell great either, but the cab driver didn’t comment. Probably Jordy had given him a ridiculous tip.
He let himself into his flat and tossed his keys in the bowl. The shower was sounding better and better every second.
Finally he stood under the hot spray. The steam did help, at first. Breathing came easier. He washed away the grime and then just stood for a moment, leaning with his palms on the tile, letting the water cascade over him.
And then his hand went through the wall.
For a second Rowan just stared at it, wondering what just happened. There was the tile, and there was his arm, on the other side of a hole, the edges of which were soggy and covered in some kind of black… slimy…
Mold.
“Bugger,” Rowan said, and then he sneezed.
Gem was going to be so annoying about this.
“BLACK MOLD?” Taylor asked at the library two days later, when Rowan was trying to stretch the kink out of his back—a souvenir from the fashionable torture implement Gem called a couch. “Seriously?”
“Through the whole building,” Rowan confirmed glumly. “Everyone has to move out while they fix it. Could be months.”
“Jesus.”
He rubbed his hands over his face. He’d never been religious, but at this point he was willing to try prayer. It couldn’t make anything worse. “So basically, not only do I need to find a new job in a month, I also need to find a new apartment.”
Gem had already badgered him about going after the landlord—she was practically salivating to sue on Rowan’s behalf.
“Yikes,” Taylor said. “What’re you going to do?”
Rowan groaned and flopped back into the desk chair. “I don’t know, do you know anyone with a storage shed they’re not using? I don’t need much—”
Taylor coughed.
“—just four walls and a roof without black mold.”
“Black mold?” repeated a familiar voice, and oh damn it, if Rowan thought Gem was insufferable about it….
He pasted on a smile and turned to face Jordy. “Yes. It’s my flat’s newest update.” He pulled a face, hoping to lighten the mood, but Jordy didn’t look appeased.
“Your place has black mold?” He looked alarmed. Kaira, clearly sensing the tension, clung to his hand and watched their conversation without interrupting.
“Yeah. Guess we’ve discovered the cause of my cough.”
Jordy graduated from one-alarm to three. “You have somewhere else to live?”
“My friend put me up for the short term. Still looking for a long-term solution. Sadly I can’t stay on her couch for the next couple of months.” He pulled an exaggerated face and locked eyes with Kaira. She smiled tentatively. “Mostly because she’d kick me out if I tried to stay that long.” This earned a small giggle.
Jordy looked down at his daughter, then back at Rowan. “I also have a problem.”
That was a tantalizing opener, if only because Jordy had never struck him as the kind of guy to want to steal anyone’s thunder. “Oh?”
He nodded, then said to Kaira, “You had some books you wanted to show Mr. Rowan, right?”
Kaira nodded so hard her pigtails bobbed. “I have lots of book ideas to share.”
“Why don’t we go find those books?”
“Yes!” Kaira seemed happy to forget about any tension, but Rowan was reeling from the subject change. Kaira let go of Jordy’s hand and skipped off to the children’s section.
“Join us?” Jordy asked.
“Well, it sounds like I must if Kaira is fetching me books,” Rowan agreed as he made his way from behind the desk.
“I didn’t want to talk about this in front of Kaira,” Jordy said quietly as they walked together. She had almost reached the children’s section. “Janice—our nanny—had to leave suddenly.”
“Oh. That sounds not good.”
“She’s been with us Kaira’s whole life. It’s been an emotional week.”
“A week? That is sudden.”
“Her mother needs care. It became urgent.”
“Ah. So she’s not coming back in a week.”
Jordy hummed. “Long-term I will need a replacement, but it’s not an easy position to fill.”
Rowan nodded and tried to keep from thinking about all the positions Jordy could fill him in. He could bet that looking for a nanny who would basically be Kaira’s secondary parent wasn’t an easy task. Then the words and their implications started to filter in. Was Jordy suggesting what Rowan thought he was?
“I’m not sure I can make any guarantees about the commute, but I can promise black-mold-free accommodations.”
Rowan licked his lips. “You’re offering to put me up for however long it takes for my flat to be habitable again.”
“Yes.”
“In exchange for babysitting.”
“The season is starting up again soon, which means I frequently have to go out of town for several days at a time.”
Rowan stopped walking. “Didn’t you just say that finding a nanny you like is hard? You barely know me.”
Jordy paused and turned to him. “Maybe. But I trust Gem as a reference, and it’s only short term. Are you really trying to talk me out of giving you a place to live?”
“No?” Rowan rubbed his face and ruffled his hair. “Let me think for a second.”
“Okay. I’m going to get closer to Kaira.” He left Rowan to gather his thoughts.
So. A millionaire just walked into his job and offered him a place to live. What even was his life? Gem was going to laugh her ass off.
Ugh, no, he needed to focus on the problem—think it through logically, the pros and the cons. Pros: A place to live, presumably with a bed and not a couch to sleep on. Roommates he could tolerate and access to the sort of amenities found in a millionaire’s house. No rent to pay at a time when his employment was currently about to end. Cons: He’d never lived full-time with a child. How would minding Kaira work with him having a job outside the home? What if Jordy and Rowan got on each other’s nerves and hated living together?
Also, Jordy was the most fuckable but off-limits man Rowan had ever met.
He’d see Jordy first thing in the morning. What if he caught him half-naked on the way from the shower? Last weekend the sight of Jordy shirtless in his short-shorts almost put Rowan in cardiac arrest. He would not survive seeing the man dripping and clean. The blue balls from living with Jordy might cause permanent damage.
On the other hand, Gem’s couch was definitely causing him damage. Not to mention the harm she would do to him if she found out Jordy had offered him a place to stay and he turned it down.
Okay. Rowan needed to ask Jordy some questions.
Jordy stood leaning against a wall, watching Kaira move up and down the aisles in search of books.
“I can’t make nanny my full-time job, so how would that work when you’re out of town?”
Jordy shrugged. “I have teammates with kids who can help. They’ve already agreed to it. Once school starts, there’s aftercare. You could also bring her here if you needed to.”
“Right.” Rowan considered the logistics. The whole point of his job was a children’s program. There was no reason Kaira couldn’t join it. And once he no longer worked at the library, it would be a moot point.
“We can go through a full schedule if you’d like. I can pretty much tell you when I’ll be unavailable from now until April, except for some of the promotion and charity stuff. But I could show you what August and September would look like.”
“Probably a good idea.” Normally Rowan was willing to jump into a new situation feet first, figuring that he’d learn to swim—or at least float—soon enough. But he couldn’t take that approach when there was a child involved.
“Janice gave me notice right before I saw you in the park. I’ve basically been scrambling for short-term solutions—teammates with kids and partners, Clem’s parents. I’m going to be in karmic debt forever. I don’t want anyone to resent me.”
“I’m sure that wouldn’t happen. They’ve gotta know you’re in a bind.”
Jordy nodded. “Yes, but the point is, having you around to cover the night shift would be a huge help.”
Rowan furiously sublimated the mental image he got from words like night shift and huge .
He must’ve looked like he wanted convincing, because Jordy went on, “I’m sure Janice would be okay with me giving you her number so she can give you pointers in an emergency. Kaira already likes you, and you’ve already met her best friend.” This was dangerously close to begging. Rowan absolutely did not think about what it might sound like if Jordy begged under other, more naked circumstances.
“Clem’s a good kid,” Rowan said, forcing his brain back on track.
“The nanny suite is small”—oh God, he was still trying to get Rowan to agree—“but it’s got its own sitting room and bathroom, and there’s a grade entrance if you, um… had company, on nights I’m home with Kaira.”
Okay, now what? “Company?” Rowan asked blankly.
Jordy’s ears went pink. “It wouldn’t be fair to say you can’t have people over. Just… I’d prefer to meet anyone first, before you introduce them to Kaira.”
This was hands down the most bizarre conversation Rowan had ever had. Especially because he knew Jordy didn’t even introduce his own partners to his kid, because he didn’t have any. “I’ve actually sworn off dating for the foreseeable future, so that won’t be a problem.”
That sounded like he’d agreed to this mad plan, didn’t it?
“How come?”
In for a penny. “Weeelllll, you may recall I have the world’s most terrible taste in men? Sure, it starts off all right, groping in the club or picnics in the park, and then one day you wake up and he’s trying to make meth in the kitchen sink. I’m better off on a no-dick diet.” That sounded way worse now that there was a kid in the mix. “Now that I think about it, if I ever date again, ‘Would I cut off my arm before introducing this person to Kaira?’ is a pretty good litmus test.”
“Mr. Rowan! I found some good ones. Can we read one of these next?”
Rowan took Kaira’s selections and looked through them. One of them did not feature a single armadillo, which immediately made it his favorite because he kept nearly saying armadildo instead. “Oh, I think I can manage that. But next time I’ll have to let someone else help me pick out a story, okay? Everyone gets a turn.”
He could see the beginning of a pout, so he added, “But you’re welcome to check out the others and take them home with you to enjoy.”
“Okay,” Kaira agreed at last. “Daddy, will you hold my books?” She thrust them into Jordy’s hands before he could respond, and returned to her dedicated perusal of the children’s section.
When she was out of earshot, Jordy cleared his throat. “So you’ll do it?”
Consign himself to several months of sexual frustration in the name of healthy lungs and finances? “Sure,” Rowan said. “Why not?”