14. Mateo
MATEO
My nanny.
I called her my nanny.
Not my son’s nanny.
Not Crew’s nanny.
My nanny.
I should’ve just pulled my pants down and pissed right on the spot. That would’ve been less obvious.
I usually don’t have a possessive bone in my body. I find it embarrassing and silly when men feel the need to point to a woman and grunt the word “mine.” And I certainly don’t think anyone would ever feel the need to mark her territory when it comes to me.
But here I am mentally banging my head against the wall of the hotel shower in the hopes of forgetting another instance where I made a fool of myself in front of Emerson. I’ve known the girl for just about 48 hours, and I’m surprised she can look at me with a straight face.
I acted on complete impulse, not thinking through my actions for even a second.
I saw the way Liam wrapped his arms around her so easily, the way she smiled as she hugged him back.
And then I saw Liam with my son, and I didn’t realize how close I was to the monitor, the feedback cluing me in—along with everyone else.
He called her his girl.
I press my palms to my face, letting my head fall into the stream of water as I groan at not only the ridiculous train of thought but just to do something with the embarrassment flooding through me.
Who cares what Liam calls her? Not me.
Not me.
After Emerson took Crew to get lunch, she texted me that they were stopping by a park nearby before the driver would take them back to the venue so I could spend time with Crew before the show.
I thought it was a good opportunity for them to continue getting comfortable with one another since it’s just the beginning of eight long months of the two of them spending almost all their time together—that, and I needed at least an hour or two before facing her again.
When we finished soundcheck, I went straight to the hotel gym, needing to burn off the residual embarrassment from the morning.
If today is any indication of how it’ll be having Emerson on tour, I need to make sure I have a handle on myself. In more ways than one.
My mind drifts to the brief few minutes where I think I might have shown my son’s nanny that I wasn’t completely pathetic—after the microphone incident and before the caveman one.
I can’t pretend I didn’t see the way she watched me. The way her eyes tracked my every movement as I sang. She looked at me like she wasn’t just listening to the music—it was like she was feeling every damn word.
I should be thinking about tonight’s setlist.
The change to the harmony in the first song.
The song we’re adding as an encore.
Instead, I keep remembering the way her eyes lingered.
How she watched me in a way that made me feel like just her gaze could strip me down to the barest, most vulnerable parts of me.
And I’d let her—that’s the part that has me so fucked up.
For reasons I don’t quite understand—reasons that have to be my body holding out for so long, wanting to be wanted.
Long enough that I'd be lying if I said I hadn't imagined crossing the distance. Jumping off the stage and heading straight to her, just to feel her eyes without so much space in between. Like wanting to be closer to the sun, just to feel the rays directly on my skin.
Long enough that when she smiled at me a few minutes later, all sharp edges and quick wit, it was enough to have me forgetting every lyric I’ve been rehearsing for years and start wondering what it would take to make her look at me like that again.
Then she opened her mouth, called me a liability in front of my entire band, and walked away holding my son's hand like she'd been doing it her whole life.
It’s been so long since a person has had this effect on me, and I blame our close proximity and that she just happens to be the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.
Combine that with her snark and her attitude, and how she shoved her way into my life when I needed it most, and it’s like a recipe for disaster.
I haven’t had such a visceral reaction to someone in years.
My dick aches at the thought, and I realize how painfully hard I am.
The reminder of it all—how long it’s been since my body reacted to someone like this—has my eyes closing, imagining Emerson opening the shower door, her naked body just inches from mine, only the shower steam between us.
My hand wraps around my dick, and I hiss at the contact. I can’t help but pretend that it’s her. That it’s Emerson. I try not to—try to think of anyone else. Try to tell myself that this is just a need for release, nothing more.
But then I remember the way she smirked at me on stage today, like she knows the power she holds over me in this moment, like she knows that it pushed me straight into a frenzy of lust, unable to think of anything but her body against mine.
And then it’s only her. I imagine her stroking me, up and down, so painfully slow that it takes everything in me not to grab her hand and do it for her.
No, I want to be at her mercy.
For fuck’s sake, I’ve known her for less than forty-eight hours, and, somehow, I think I already am.
I want her to set me on fire and bask in the flames—because knowing all her attention is on me is enough to have me forgetting all about the pain.
I let the scene continue to play out in my mind. She leans in, her lips just inches from mine. Teasing me as she looks directly into my eyes, and it’s the stark contrast that has me reeling.
How she can be so fearless yet so vulnerable—like how she watched me sing and then she put me in my place.
Her lips finally touch mine, and her strokes pick up speed as our kiss deepens. She smiles against my lips as I moan into her mouth. And then she’s gone. Down on her knees, wrapping those lips around my cock, her head bobbing up and down as I hold her wet, dark hair in my hand.
The scene in my mind is too much, but I can’t stop. I can’t stop picturing it, chasing my release until it rips through me, coming in my hand so hard that I need to put my other hand against the shower wall to keep my knees from buckling.
I don’t open my eyes at first, too scared that reality will come crashing down on me hard enough to recover from.
And it does.
Heat rushes to my chest and up my neck—embarrassment flooding through me at how I haven’t come so hard in months, if not years, to just the thought of my son’s nanny.
I can’t do this again. Ever again.
Maybe this is enough to get whatever she put into my system that night at Lenny’s out. Whatever spell she cast on me is hopefully now broken, and I can go on with my life pretending that this was just an inconsequential detail of my day, a need for release, a brief moment of weakness.
Rinsing myself off, I turn off the water—but not before letting a rush of cold water rain down on me. I step out of the shower, wrapping a towel around my waist as I slide open the glass door.
No more thinking about my nanny.
My son’s nanny.
Shaking my head, I feel the wet strands of hair hit against my cheeks as I make my way to the bedroom, grabbing a pair of shorts and a cut-off T-shirt.
I quickly get dressed, running my hands through my hair to get it out of my face before grabbing my phone to head back to the venue. I stop in my tracks, finding a text from Emerson.
Because why wouldn’t the universe like to throw her in my face at the exact moment I’m vowing to never think about her again? It probably likes kicking me while I’m down.
Emerson
Crew wanted me to send you this.
It’s a picture of Crew wearing a pair of sunglasses that are way too big for him as he stands on a swing, holding the chain in both hands with a big grin.
This too.
Playing the video she attached, I can’t help but laugh to myself.
It’s a video of Crew standing on one of the park benches, singing into a stick he must have found there.
Turning up the volume on my phone, I can make out his version of the lyrics he heard me sing today.
The melody is there, and the mumbling and made-up words somehow make the song even better.
He says he can’t wait to see you sing again tonight.
I find myself smiling at my phone like an idiot, my heart beating a little faster with every text that comes in.
Hiring a nanny was a dumb idea.
There’s something about the few minutes before we go on stage that always has my blood pumping, my adrenaline flowing, my body energized.
It’s a feeling better than any high yet just as addicting.
It has me forgetting about how much of an idiot I was today, allowing the shame and embarrassment of how I acted to fade away in the air, leaving nothing but what matters in its wake.
I bounce on the balls of my feet, moving my weight from one foot to the other as I wait for our cue. Eddie, Theo, and Silas are just in front of me, waiting for the stage lights to go down.
I’m nervous—in a different way than usual. And I know it’s because of how soundcheck went today, as well as who will be watching me from the side stage for the first half of the show.
The crowd is insane, already making the ground shake as the timer on the big screen gets to the last thirty seconds.
Sugarcoated Lies played their best set tonight, and I think it has all to do with our audience. This venue is one of the biggest on our farewell tour, and it’s also one of the first that sold out when tickets went live last year.
Every scream, every chant, every impatient clap winds tighter beneath my skin until my pulse starts keeping time with theirs. By the time the stage manager gives me the signal, the anticipation is so sharp it feels less like nerves and more like being loaded into the chamber of a gun.
The house lights drop, and the roar that crashes over the stage hits me like a second heartbeat. Eddie clicks his drumsticks together three times, just like he’s always done, and Theo’s guitar riff cuts through the air.
The voices in the crowd find the tempo before I do, thousands of strangers breathing and moving as one until the music stops feeling like something we're playing and starts feeling like something we're all caught inside.