Chapter 4 #2
“Besides fried bologna sandwiches?” Veronica laughed nervously. “Not too many.”
“So you don’t have any experience, you don’t have a car, you can’t cook, and you don’t have any references,” I said, mostly for Mabel’s benefit.
“No,” Veronica said. “I mean, yes. All that is true.” Then she pressed her shoulders back and straightened her spine.
“Other things I don’t have include a college degree, a trust fund, a rich dad—or any dad at all—and currently, I am probably homeless.
All in all, I realize I’m not an ideal candidate for any job right now.
But.” She lifted her chin. “I do have grit. And resilience. And self-respect—qualities that I think are important to teach kids. I’m creative and fun.
I can turn anything into a game. Maybe I’ve never been a nanny before, but I like kids, I’m responsible, and I know how to memorize a routine. Bonus—I give really good hugs.”
Her blue eyes pinned me with a stare, and I had to admit, her words were persuasive. Her delivery was confident. She truly believed she could do this job.
But I wasn’t convinced. I couldn’t trust my kids to a stranger—I just couldn’t. And I didn’t want to live with one.
Especially not this one, whose eyes and mouth and bare shoulders were doing things to my insides I wasn’t comfortable with.
“I’m sorry,” I said shortly. “But it’s not going to work out.”
And before either of them could argue with me, I strode through the kitchen and out the back door, and I didn’t stop moving until I got inside my garage workshop, where I picked up a piece of sandpaper and started rubbing an old floor plank, just because it was the closest thing at hand.
It was fine, I told myself. It would be the usual kind of summer, and I loved those. I’d take the kids camping and hiking and swimming. We’d visit Mackinac Island and Sleeping Bear Dunes. We could go fishing and water-skiing and tubing off Xander’s boat.
I paused, wiping sweat from my forehead with the back of my arm.
Maybe when the kids went out to stay with Sansa in July, I’d take a little road trip myself.
I’d sold my bike after the twins were born, but maybe I could rent one.
If I stayed in California, I could ride the Pacific Coast Highway.
Or go somewhere new—the Badlands in South Dakota, or Independence Pass in Colorado.
Maybe that’s what I needed, open road and freedom.
Solitude. Time off. Time out. Maybe this tension in my neck and back and shoulders would ease up.
Hell, maybe I’d meet a cute bartender in some roadside dive, somebody with long legs, blond hair, baby blue eyes, and a mouth that curved like the highway around the mountains.
Maybe she’d take a ride with me and wrap her body around mine, the engine thrumming between our legs.
Maybe later, she’d ride more than just my bike.
Lost in the fantasy, I stopped sanding for a moment and relished the feeling of blood rushing to my crotch, my cock surging to life.
I closed my eyes and imagined my hands on her skin, her breath in my ear, the taste of her tongue as she rocked her hips over mine.
But when I realized I was dream-fucking the potential nanny I’d just rejected, I tossed the sandpaper aside and went over to the small fridge at the back of the garage.
Pulling it open, I grabbed a beer, pried the cap off, and tipped it up.
The cold, crisp IPA went down fast, putting out the fire.
I wandered out the open garage door and sat down in one of the four Adirondack chairs that circled a small fire pit on the stone patio behind the house.
The windows in the house were open, and through the screens I heard the usual dinner routine begin—Mabel shouting for the kids that it was ready, telling them to wash their hands.
Adelaide yelling back “Okay!” and Owen protesting that he’d just washed them a little bit ago because he’d gone to the bathroom.
The clatter of plates and forks. The clunk of pans on the stove.
The argument over who got their milk in the giant plastic cup I’d won last year at the summer carnival.
Owen claimed it was his night for the cup, but Adelaide insisted that Owen had traded it for her cookie at lunch today.
“You didn’t even want that cookie!” Owen shouted.
“Well, I always want the cup,” Adelaide said triumphantly. “So it was a good trade.”
“Enough!” Mabel’s tone was sharp. “I’ve got a million things to do and breaking up silly fights isn’t one of them. Sit down and eat.”
I was about to go in and rescue my sister when the back door opened, and she came out. “Hey,” I said.
“Hey.” She dropped into the chair next to mine. “Nice out here.”
“At least until they start fighting again.”
She laughed. “If you’d been talented enough to win a second cup at that ring toss game, they wouldn’t have a problem.”
“I was going to offer you a beer, but now you can just fuck off.” I took another sip.
She smiled and crisscrossed her legs, rubbing her hands along the chair arms. “What are you going to do without a nanny?”
“I’ll manage.”
“How?”
“I managed you guys, didn’t I? And you were the worst of them.”
Her lips tipped up. “Yeah?”
“Smart-mouthed little know-it-all with too much sass.”
“I needed sass with four older brothers. How else was I gonna be heard?” She shrugged. “A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.”
I harrumphed and finished off my beer. “And now a girl’s gotta dig, huh?”
“A girl’s gotta dig.” She paused. “But speaking of sass . . .”
“No.”
“Austin, you didn’t even give her a chance.”
“Yes, I did, and the answer is no.” I got up and went into the garage to get another beer, and Mabel followed me.
“The kids really liked her.”
“They’d like anybody who promised them two birthday cakes.”
“I really liked her.”
I took out a beer and pointed the top at her. “You’re leaving. You don’t get a say.”
“Ari said everyone at Moe’s adored her, even grumpy Larry.”
“Larry likes a pretty face.”
“And Willene Fleck.”
“My old teacher? She hates me. She’d probably send me a bad nanny on purpose.” I uncapped the bottle and took a drink.
“Ari doesn’t hate you.”
“Ari is one degree of separation from being you. She can’t be trusted.”
Mabel sighed and stuck her hands on her hips. “You’re impossible. You did not give her a fair shake.”
“I gave her as fair a shake as I’d give anybody,” I argued.
“She’s jobless and homeless now!”
I rolled my eyes. “A girl like that will be just fine.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means any woman who’s that attractive will have no trouble getting hired somewhere she’s qualified,” I said.
Mabel gave me a sly smile. “So you were attracted to her.”
“I didn’t say I was attracted to her, I said she was attractive. There’s a difference.” Although I was struggling to remember what it was at the moment.
“Of course.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, now it makes more sense.”
Irritated, I rolled my neck and rubbed at my sore trapezius. “What makes more sense?”
“Your problem with her.”
“Jesus Christ, Mabel, I don’t have a problem with her!”
“Your problem,” she went on in that infuriatingly calm tone, “is that you’re afraid of her.”
“Afraid of who?” Xander strolled into the garage with a saw he’d borrowed from me a few days ago. He was a slightly younger, slightly taller version of me, same dark hair and eyes, although his beard was thicker. His biceps were too, but I didn’t like talking about that.
“This woman we interviewed today to replace me as the nanny this summer,” Mabel said.
“Why’s he afraid of her?” Xander set down the saw, went to the fridge, and helped himself to a beer.
“Because she’s pretty.”
“Ah.” Xander nodded and he uncapped his beer. “That sounds about right. Nothing sets Austin on edge like a beautiful woman.”
“Will you two shut up?” I could feel my blood pressure rising. “I’m not afraid of beautiful women.”
“Really? When’s the last time you went on a date?” Xander pretended to think. “Was it high school?”
“Look, just because I’m not out every night with a different girl doesn’t mean I’m afraid of them. It means I’m busy. And who said you could drink my beer?”
“Why don’t you come over here and try to take it away from me?” he taunted, wagging the bottle at me like a red cape.
I thought about it for a second, but even though Xander was younger by one year, he was taller and stronger, and his time in Special Ops had taught him fighting tactics that gave him an unfair advantage.
As much as I hated to admit it, we were no longer evenly matched in hand-to-hand combat.
It didn’t always stop me from messing with him, but right this second, I wasn’t sure I had it in me.
Thankfully, I was saved by Adelaide, who ran into the garage out of breath. “She’s back!”
“Who’s back?” I asked.
“The bride lady. She’s at the front door.”
I looked at Mabel, who held up her hands, like it wasn’t her fault.
“Bride lady?” Xander looked back and forth from Mabel to me.
“The pretty nanny he rejected,” said Mabel. “She was supposed to get married today, but she found out he was cheating on her, so she left the jerk at the altar.”
“But first she kicked him in the face!” Adelaide shouted, repeating Veronica’s spin-and-kick move, but a lot less gracefully. “Hi-yah!”
“No shit.” Xander looked impressed.
“I’ll handle this.” I strode out of the garage, but of course, Xander followed me. “I said, I’ll handle this,” I told him over my shoulder.
“But I want to see the pretty bride lady,” Xander said, pausing only to scoop Adelaide under his arm and carry her, giggling, back to the house.
“I’m coming too,” Mabel said, running ahead of me and reaching the back door first.
Right then, I envied Veronica being an only child.