Chapter 17
Seventeen
DEAN
I’m stalking my nanny.
Is it still considered stalking if you’re doing it from inside your own home?
I’m not sure, but it probably is, and it’s definitely fucked up.
But that isn’t enough to make me step away from the window.
I just keep standing here like a creep, holding a warm third beer I haven’t opened—three beers would be one beer too many on a night alone—watching the street.
Even though I know she probably won’t be home until midnight, maybe later if she goes out for a drink with her friends from the band after the bar closes.
Which she should.
She should go out, have fun, be young.
And I should go to bed. I should have been in bed an hour ago. The girls are out cold upstairs, and I promised to have chocolate chip pancakes ready before they wake up tomorrow. And those two wake up early, even on lazy Sundays.
I should be getting my beauty sleep, God knows I need it. Since last weekend, I’ve slept like shit, and it shows.
Instead, I stand at the window with the lights off, rehearsing a conversation I can’t have tonight.
I can’t, I really can’t.
Because every time I get to the part where I tell Clover—I put in for emergency leave so I can find another childcare arrangement—the next thing out of my imaginary mouth is—Because I can’t stand within three feet of you without getting hard.
I’m hard for you all the fucking time. I think about fucking you all the fucking time.
I’m a sick, twisted, piece of shit employer.
I wish I weren’t, but I am, and so…you have to go.
And that’s not a thing I’m allowed to say out loud.
Even though I’m guessing she has an idea how I feel. Since the hallway at Packy’s, the sexual tension in the house has been off the damned charts. I’m honestly surprised we haven’t accidentally set something on fire…
I’m thinking about how much I want to set something on fire with Clover—preferably my bedsheets—when headlights swing across the yard.
She’s home early, just after eleven, which means I can go to bed with an easy heart, knowing my nanny is back, safe and sound.
But I don’t go to bed.
I stand in the dark and listen to her open and close the garage door.
I imagine her scaling the stairs to her apartment and changing into her pajamas.
I imagine her stripping off her bra, sighing with relief to have her breasts free after a long night of wearing that push-up one she wears to get better tips.
I imagine what it would feel like to cup her breasts in my hands, to cradle the weight of her as I guide her nipples to my…
My unwise fantasies are interrupted by another pair of headlights bright enough to startle me into the shadows behind the curtains.
I feel silly for being so jumpy, but I wasn’t expecting anyone else, and the car didn’t make a sound pulling up. I peek through the curtains again, spotting a pricey electric model at the curb.
Well, that explains the lack of noise.
It doesn’t explain what it’s doing here.
The new car’s door opens, triggering the dome light, illuminating the curly head of…
a man. A young man with high cheekbones and a chiseled jaw that’s giving Luxury Watch Model.
He reaches into the back seat, swinging a plush leather duffel bag over one shoulder before stepping out and shutting the door behind him.
Quietly. Carefully. He’s clearly aware of the late hour and is doing his best not to wake anyone who’s already sleeping.
What a thoughtful guy.
What a fucking thoughtful gentleman of a guy.
I hate him—and his fucking designer duffle bag—immediately.
Before I make a conscious decision to move, my unopened beer is on the kitchen table, and I’m out the back door, shoving my feet into an old pair of tennis shoes I left on the porch after playing soccer with Bella before dinner.
I tell myself I’m just going to make sure Cheekbones isn’t a supermodel burglar.
Or a food delivery guy at the wrong house.
Or a food delivery guy at the right house, who might decide to stick around and bother Clover once he realizes she’s alone up there.
I tell myself that if it becomes obvious that Clover is expecting this obnoxiously put-together man in his perfectly fitted sweater and baggy designer suit pants, I will retreat to the house, where I will go directly to bed without another impure or jealous thought about my nanny.
After all, she’s not going to be your nanny much longer. She’s not going to be your anything.
The thought sends a guilty cramp through my stomach.
A part of me insists I should have talked to Clover before I put in for emergency leave.
But the other part of me is well aware that if I’d talked to her first, she would have probably talked me out of it.
She would have convinced me that we can, and should, soldier through the tension for the good of the kids.
Ava and Bella are thriving under Clover’s care. Losing her is going to hurt them, I know it is. But I also know that I’m not a superhero. Not even close. And it would require superhero levels of self-control for me to keep going like this.
Because I don’t just want to get naked with Clover more than I’ve ever wanted to get naked with anyone.
Ever. I also look forward to our talks over snack time with the girls so much that I push the speed limit all the way home.
I light up inside every time she smiles.
I watch the video we made of the four of us playing “Rock Band” in the Ava’s room last week over and over again.
I ache to pull her into my arms every time she leaves at the end of her shift, and watching her cross the lawn hurts a little more with every passing day.
I’m in love with my nanny, and she has no idea.
And she certainly doesn’t feel the same way. I’m just her boss. Her boss, with a side of inconveniently intense chemistry, but that’s it. Clover clearly likes kissing me, but that’s where it ends for her. Meanwhile, I can’t remember the last time I had a crush this intense.
I hope it’s just a crush.
I hope it retreats as quickly as it sank its teeth into me. If not, I’m in trouble. So are the girls. Yes, they need a loving caregiver when I’m away, but they need a stable, emotionally healthy father more. I can’t be the parent they need if I’m lovesick and pining for a woman I can never have.
So, Clover has to go.
And I have to devote myself to making that as easy for the girls as possible, while finding a replacement for the unicorn of a person we’ve all fallen for way too hard, way too fast.
But until she leaves, her safety is my responsibility.
Or so I tell myself as I slink into the bushes beneath the oak by the garage.
I go still, straining for the sound of her cry of surprise as the Supermodel Bandit demands she put her valuables into his duffel bag.
Instead, I hear low, warm voices, then Clover’s laugh, and something that sounds like “why didn’t you tell me?
” before the apartment door closes, muffling the sound.
Why didn’t he tell her what?
That he was in town? That he got a sweet new promotion? That he and his boyfriend are recently engaged?
This guy could very well be gay. He’s very, very handsome, and very handsome men are often gay. And even if he’s not gay, that doesn’t mean he and Clover are anything more than friends. And even if they are, it’s none of my business!
This is none of my business. I should go back inside. Now.
I lean my forehead against the tree. It’s damp, and the bark smells like sadness, wet and earthy in a sour way that makes me feel especially pathetic.
What the fuck am I doing out here?
As if in answer to my question, a heavy black shadow plops down on the garage windowsill a few feet away, and croaks, “Cray cray.”
It’s Edgar, coming in hot and opinionated as usual.
“Hush,” I whisper. “I’m not crazy, and you should go home. You know you’re not supposed to be cruising the neighborhood after dark. If Maybelline wakes up and sees you out of the pen after bedtime again, no treats for you tomorrow.”
Edgar settles more firmly onto the ledge, clearly unimpressed by my threats. He chortles low in his throat, doing his best rusty garbage disposal impression.
“I’m serious,” I hiss, pulse spiking. “Get. Shoo. Now. Before they hear you upstairs.”
He cocks his head to one side, then the other, his black button eyes sparkling as he catches the scent of drama in the water. If there’s one thing my neighbor’s nosy crow loves more than sparkly things, it’s drama.
“What what? Cray cray?” he caws again, demanding to know what’s going on. And why my crazy ass is out of bed lurking in the bushes in the middle of the night. “Cray cray cray?”
I motion for him to cut it out with a jerk of my hand, dropping my voice to a desperate whisper, “Nothing! Nothing is going on. I was checking to make sure Clover was safe. That’s it. But she’s fine, and I’m going back inside. Nothing to see here.”
The crow rattles at me again, a knowing sound that says he sees straight through my bullshit to the obsessed, lovesick madman beneath.
“Seriously, I’m going to bed,” I say, stepping away from the tree.
He cocks his head in a silent, mocking challenge.
“I am,” I insist. “You smug little shit.”
Edgar throws his head back and cackles, long and loud, the sound echoing like gunfire through the silent air.
“Hello?” a feminine voice calls from overhead.
Shit!
I drop to a crouch like I’m taking enemy fire, my knees popping as I scuttle closer to the shrub, praying the dry leaves clinging to the tree will offer cover, and that Clover won’t spot me lurking in the shadows.
It sounds like she has her head fully out of the apartment window as she calls, “Edgar? Is that you? What are you doing out this late?”
Edgar emits a string of caws that seem to say, Nothing much, just watching your boss creep around in your bushes like a jealous weirdo. Right down here. By the tree. See? Look at him, in his ratty sweatshirt and give-up-on-life sweatpants. He’s a real cray cray, this guy.