14. Dick Control #2
“Well, you’d better find it,” Sabrina says, urging him along. “It’s really important to put it on the ceiling. Also, I think you should add the Andromeda Galaxy and the Milky Way Galaxy, so you can be prepared for their collision.”
He rolls his blue eyes, but it’s playful, not patronizing. “Okay, those are way too big to represent with stickers,” Parker says.
“I don’t know. That seems like a challenge you’d definitely be up for. Come on, Mister Lego,” she teases.
“Oh, those are fighting words,” I say.
This is helping matters. This back-and-forth between the two of them is helping. Because I’m focused on that now, instead of the way she looks—entirely too tempting in baggy jeans and a short white shirt.
Parker hands me more stickers and tells me where to place them. I follow his instructions religiously, stretching to reach the ceiling while craning my neck to make sure I get the placement right. This repetitive task is far more helpful to my overactive libido than looking at Sabrina.
But an hour later, with a crick in my neck and a ceiling covered in stars, I climb down and find myself face-to-face with her again.
Wincing as the pain shoots through me, I stretch my neck from side to side. Sabrina flashes me a quizzical look while Parker admires the ceiling. “Are you okay?” she asks, her eyes full of concern.
“I’m fine,” I say, rubbing my hand against the back of my neck where a dragon’s laid an egg, “but I have a new sympathy for Michelangelo now.”
“Aren’t you a Renaissance daddy,” she says, then pats my shoulder.
Hello, zing. That is not supposed to feel so good.
I am a grown man. A father. And I’m affected by my kids’ nanny like a fucking thirteen-year-old boy. But I practice my vaunted dick control, imagining—who would have thought this would be a boner killer—skate blades.
Ha. Take that, hormones. You’re not going to get the best of me.
“All right,” I say to Parker, rubbing my palms together, focusing on business, the task at hand. “What do you think? Does anything need to be adjusted?”
My son is lying on his bed, staring critically at the ceiling with narrowed eyes. “I think I need to be in the dark to know for sure.”
“Well, fortunately, you have blinds.” I move around his room to pull down the wooden shutters. It’s evening, but it’s still not dark enough.
“Why don’t I grab some dark sheets?” Sabrina suggests, then hustles out of there, quickly returning with a set of black linen from the closet in the hall.
Without using thumbtacks or anything else, she loops them around the top of the wooden blinds as footsteps grow louder—Luna must have emerged from her room to check things out.
“That’s impressive,” I say with a low whistle as I appraise Sabrina’s work.
“I’m a little crafty,” Sabrina replies as Luna pops into the room, her ponytail bouncing.
“That’s true. Sabrina makes her own costumes,” Luna says.
Why does that excite me? I don’t even know, but I turn to Sabrina for confirmation. “You made your own skating costumes?”
“Necessity is also the mother of invention. I had to, so I taught myself to sew,” she says, twisting the final sheet into place. “What do you think?”
I think I want to know why she had to, but I also think she doesn’t want to talk about it this second as the room transforms. The ceiling glows with thousands of stars.
Parker gasps. “This is amazing,” he says.
“You did good picking these out,” Sabrina says to him with a smile visible in the darkness.
“Thank you for helping,” Parker says, a little guilt and gratitude in his tone. He’s not angling to be her best friend. He doesn’t treat her the same way he did Agatha. But he’s warming up to her, and I’m glad for that.
“Yeah, I kind of like them too,” Luna says, admiring the stars, then tapping her chin. “But I’d want a disco ball instead.”
Sabrina’s eyes light up. “Disco balls are so cool. I wanted disco balls in my room so badly when I was a kid.”
“Did you have them?” Luna asks, hanging on Sabrina’s every word.
She shakes her head, her shiny blonde hair swishing. “My parents said I couldn’t. They thought it was too immature. But I was a kid—I was supposed to be immature.”
“Hello! That’s what being a kid is. And now I really want a disco ball,” Luna says, clasping her hands together as she turns to me, batting those big brown eyes. “Can I get a disco ball for the ceiling, Dad?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and shake my head. But it’s hardly a no. It’s more like how can I say no to you? When I let go, I look at Sabrina with a playful accusation. “Look what you’ve unleashed.”
But Sabrina has no remorse. She points to me. “You unleashed it. You put the stars on the ceiling first.”
Luna shimmies her hips. “I guess that means I can get a disco ball!”
“Why do I feel like I’m outnumbered already?” I ask.
“Because you kind of are,” Luna says, grabbing Sabrina’s arm in solidarity.
“She speaks the truth,” Sabrina says.
Parker cuts in. “I think there’s one set of stars that needs to be adjusted.” He points toward Orion’s Belt. At least, he’s told me it’s Orion’s Belt. “There are a couple extra stars and they need to be moved.” His brow knits. “I can do it.”
But he’s a little afraid of heights. I go to intervene, but before I can, Sabrina pops up. “I’ll do it,” she says, and my body heats with warmth that she knows so much about my son already.
In no time, she climbs the ladder, stretches her arms toward the ceiling, and everything starts to rise.
And I do mean everything.
I clear my throat, cough, then make up an excuse about needing a drink. I exit the room so I can cool the fuck off. My chest is a furnace. My skin is sweltering. She is too much.
Down in the kitchen, I fill a glass with tap water and pace. This is the occupational hazard of wanting to bang your nanny: the risk of getting turned on around your kids.
I add ice cubes to my water and consider putting them down my pants.
But the potential deflation is achieved faster than I’d expected. Hell yes. I’ve still got good dick control.
When I head back upstairs, Sabrina is stretched out on the carpeted floor next to Parker and Luna, all staring at the ceiling, arms parked behind their heads.
“Dad, come look,” Luna says. “We can figure out exactly where my disco ball should go by studying how everything looks.”
“Your room will never be as cool as mine,” Parker says.
“I bet it will,” Luna says.
“I bet it won’t,” he replies.
It’s not one-upmanship, it’s just basic teasing, and I love that they do that with each other.
“Siblings,” I say to Sabrina, like what can you do.
“I wish I had a brother or sister,” she says, a little wistfully.
“You sure about that?” Luna teases.
“You’d want a brother. One as cool as me,” Parker says.
I kneel down to ruffle his hair, but inside my heart tugs for what Sabrina missed out on. For the little comments about how she grew up—with strictness, and rules, and little support. For what her parents are like.
Luna pats the floor, but the only open spot is next to Sabrina. I lie down and my hand brushes hers. I swallow, fighting off the chills that race through me, ignoring the way my skin buzzes, doing my best to stay in this family moment.
This is what matters. She’s good with the kids. That is all that matters.
Even though I understand now why I was so excited to learn that she made her own costumes. Because I like learning everything about her. Because I fucking like her. More than I did a week ago, a month ago, at the start of the year.
And that is getting to be a problem.
But my neck’s a problem too, so I keep rubbing at the knot. Or trying to.
Sabrina’s studying me with those pretty blue eyes of hers. “You know, I have a Theragun if you want to use it.”
I have my own, but I say yes so fast. Because accepting her offer means I can follow her downstairs to her place. Where my restraint will be legendary. This will be the perfect test of my dick control and I’ll ace it.
I tell the kids it’s time for a reading break, and since both are voracious readers, they happily grab books and settle into their favorite reading spots.
I head downstairs with Sabrina. Once I make it to her apartment, my gaze drifts immediately to the corner where she has a purple yoga mat set up.
“Are you doing yoga every day?”
“Yes, Renaissance daddy,” she says.
I hold up my hands in surrender. “I didn’t mean to make it sound like I was checking up on you.”
She gives a playful little shrug. “Maybe you were, maybe you weren’t.”
Is she being flirty? Or am I far too hopeful?
And the answer is, I’m far too hopeful, because whatever that was ends as she heads to her bedroom. And immediately, I’m wondering what it’s like in there. I want to peek around the corner, see her in her element.
I have to fight the urge to follow her.
Seconds later, she comes out waggling the massage gun. It looks exactly like a heavy-duty power tool, and it vibrates like one. While my rational mind knows there’s no way she’d use it in bed, my dirty mind wanders there anyway, picturing other vibrating tools and her.
“Sit down on the couch,” she tells me.
“Who’s bossy now?”
“Me. I can’t have my boss going to work with his neck all jacked up,” she says, like she enjoys saying that word. “Especially when I can fix it.” She looks at the massage gun, then at my neck. “Tell me where it hurts, boss.”