The Man Cave Collection: Manservant, Man Flu, Man Handler, and Man Buns

by Ryan, Shari J.

  “I’ll help you, okay?” Bad idea, Julia. Bad, bad, bad.

  “Heads up,” Sterling hollers.

  I look around for whatever he’s referring to and see a decent wave coming for us. With my toes barely touching the sand, I hold my breath and wait for the water to do its worst to me.

  The gush feels like a linebacker knocking me off my feet, taking me with it and running as fast as possible. Still holding my breath, I try to reach the ground while being carried by the wave, but I can’t feel anything, even with the tip of my big toe. I wave my arms around and kick my legs because that’s about all I know when it comes to swimming, but clearly, it’s not working as I sink deeper below the water.

  With the wave still carrying me, it’s impossible to get the momentum I need to push myself up above the water, and my lungs are giving up on me.

  The moment the wave eases, I gasp for air, finding that I’m incredibly far from the shore. It looks like a mile away considering how blurry the beach is right now. I still can’t touch the bottom, and my arms are getting tired from trying to paddle my way in.

  Shit, I’m trouble.

  Then, suddenly, literally out of nowhere, I’ve seen no one and nothing near me in a few long seconds, arms lock around my midsection and pull me toward the shore. If I were lucky, it would be a merman coming to my rescue as he offers me a beautiful happily ever after. But, I’m not lucky. Nope. I turn toward the “life-saver,” finding Liam. I’m surprised he didn’t just let me drown. That would have been another checked off nanny on his list. Easy.

  “Just relax,” he tells me. He flips onto his back and pulls me on top of him, using his body like a float as he paddles us in. My nearly bare back is against his hard chest and his . . . okay, wow . . . clearly, he’s a little happy to see me. I mean, I guess I’m happy to see him too, considering I’m no longer about to drown in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, but I’m not that kind of excited. Wowza. Here I was thinking the cold was supposed to make things smaller . . . but that can’t possibly be the case here.

  This is me. The Julia I’ve always been—the girl who almost just drowned, and twenty seconds later, I’m thinking about this guy’s dick, a guy who has, ironically, been nothing but a dick to me.

  He pulls me up onto the sand and drops me down as he catches his breath. “I thought Sterling was joking when he said you didn’t know how to swim. Didn’t Sam ask you about your skills during the interview—it’s sort of an important part of this job.” And he’s angry. Of course, he’s angry. Why wouldn’t he be angry at someone who almost just drowned?

  Peeling the salty hair out of my eyes, I struggle to look up at him as the sun bears down over his face. “You know, instead of defending myself and telling you she didn’t ask me that question, I’m just going to say thank you for saving my ass.” The adrenaline from my fear is getting the best of me, and tears are burning the back of my eyes as realization comes to a head. What the hell? I don’t cry. Stop.

  “I’m sorry,” he says quietly. Is it the fear and hurt in my eyes bringing him down a notch, or is something else? I don’t want him to feel sorry for me just because he thinks I had a moment of weakness where I couldn’t tolerate his assholism. Whatever. While I’d like to think I see a slight weakness within his domineering eyes, it’s probably only because he just figured out how to get me fired. That means the president of the Julia-hate-club can finally relax.

  “You don’t have to be sorry,” I tell him. I sit up and pull my knees into my chest, needing a moment to rest so I can catch my breath.

  “You okay over there, little man?” Liam calls out to Dylan.

  “Yeah, I’m okay. I’m ready to go back in,” Dylan says.

  “Just give me a minute, and I’ll take you back out.”

  Liam places his hand on my back. “You okay?” his voice has sweetened and it’s far from the way he’s usually talked to me. He’s definitely getting me fired. There isn’t a doubt in my mind. That’s the only explanation.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  He runs his hand up and down my bare back a few times before standing up, leaving chilling spots where the warmth of his hand just was, and I watch him walk back to Dylan. I watch the defined muscles in his back flexing with each step and the way his ass fills up his board shorts a little too perfectly. I should just tell him to get over himself. No one wants to look at your stupid ass. Jerk.

  For the last ten long minutes of my life, I have never felt more helpless. I’ve been consoling myself when I should have been consoling Dylan, as well as tending to his injury. I’m sucking at this job, and it’s the first real day—probably the last, too.

  I ignore my pride and look for where I dropped my cover-up, sunglasses, and sandals. I snatch them up, along with a pile of sand, and head back over to Liam. Obviously, I’m seeking another verbal beating.

  With no words to explain my stupidity, I silently stand beside him watching Sterling continue to teach the kids. “Meet me down here tomorrow morning around seven. I’ll give you a quick swim lesson,” Liam states. While sounding a bit disgruntled, I suppose I should be gracious, but that would require me to forget all the lovely remarks he’s offered me today.

  He did save my ass, though. God, it’s like he practices professional mind fuckery.

  I nod in agreement. “Okay, I’ll be here.” As I’m accepting his somewhat commanding offer, I recall Sterling proposing the same type of help. Crap.

  “Dylan is a good kid,” Liam says, still holding his focus solidly on the pool of water the kids are doing laps in.

  “I’m sure he is.”

  “He’s had it rough these last few years.” My curiosity is piqued with hopes of insight.

  “How so?” I ask, looking toward him. I notice he doesn’t match my glance, so I shift my direction back to the water, assuming I should also be keeping an eye on Dylan. I have babysat before. I was the oldest kid on my street, and there were four other families with kids under the age of seven when I was fourteen. I raked in the dough for a good four years. Those kids all lived a similar life to the one I did, though, and it was easy to care for them. There isn’t much difficulty when it comes to opening the back door and letting a bunch of kids roam freely until the sun sets—that’s one good thing about living in the country. Putting aside the mention of high-functioning Asperger’s, Dylan seems to have been raised with white gloves. There’s nothing wrong with that, but this lifestyle is very different from what I’m used to and my understanding of it is limited. I have no idea whether Dylan’s behavior has anything to do with money.

  “Dylan’s dad took off a few years ago, around the time he was diagnosed with Asperger’s.” The explanation seems frail and weak. At the same time, it’s like a stab to my heart. I know how it feels to be abandoned by a parent, so my heart breaks a little for Dylan.

  “Oh,” is all I can manage to offer as a response. If I say any more, I might lose the self-control I’ve worked hard to maintain. Over the years, I’ve trained myself to shut off my emotions, especially when Mom left us high and dry. I spent so many days and months crying for her, even as a teenager. I was sure a girl needed her mom during certain times in her life, but I’ve slowly come to realize that I only need what’s available to me, and I only need what people want to give. She isn’t that in my life. She hasn’t been and, most likely, never will be.

  Despite my best efforts, my mother’s rejection is part of who I am, and I carry its memory with me regularly, like a vivid photograph, dangling in front of my face wherever I go, a filter I look at life through. Knowing a helpless child is going through that same pain brings forward an emotion I haven’t felt in years. I stare up at the sky, warning away the burning tears threatening to fall. That is the last thing I need at this moment. With a sharp inhale through my nose, I convince myself the tears are staying put, and I’ll be okay, but the damn gravity and its force of nature cause a flood the second I tilt my head back down.

  I turn away, avoiding Liam’s attent
ion. I don’t need it, nor do I want it. With my face burning up in the sun as it is, I need some space from him, this conversation, and every thought trying to pry its way into my head.

  As I head toward toward the rocks a few feet away, I take a seat and replace my sunglasses over my now likely red eyes.

  The hour crawls by as I battle away thoughts and memories of the day Mom left us. She didn’t apologize or have an ounce of sorrow in her eyes. Just because I was fourteen, didn’t mean I was ready to be without her. It wasn’t like we were ever super close, but I loved her unconditionally just like children tend to do under normal circumstances. I think it goes along with the whole, “we don’t choose who we’re born to” ideal. I loved her, but we weren’t close like Jade and her mom, who are nearly best friends. Jade’s mom loves me more than Mom loves me. I can feel it.

  Lost in my own distress, Liam paces over to me while keeping his eyes on the water at the same time. “If you want to head back and start his lunch, I can get him dried off and back home.”

  “I should probably stick around . . . you know, shadow you and stuff.” Isn’t that the purpose of him being around us for the next few days? Other than playing house, of course.

  “Sure, whatever floats your boat.” He takes a seat next to me as the kids spring from the water, right into land laps. “You can’t be feeling sorry for him now that I told you that, and you can’t say a word to him about it.” Who is he to tell me not to feel sorry for him? I can feel whatever I want to feel.

  “I won’t say anything about it to him.” I clear my throat because it sounds like I’ve been crying, and now he’s staring at me with question.

  “Were you over here crying?” There’s a hint of snideness to his question, or at least, I think it’s snide, but it’s hard to tell with him, seeing as I’ve experienced less than sixty seconds’ worth of pleasantness from him since we met.

  “No,” I lie.

  He snatches my sunglasses off my face. “Yeah, okay.”

  I grab them back. “Why are you such an ass?” I shout my question a little too loudly, and some of the kids, as well as Sterling, glance in our direction.

  “I’m not an ‘ass,’” he mocks me. “I’m protective.”

  “Of who?” I snap.

  “Who do you think, smarty?”

  I force an angered snicker. “Considering how self-absorbed you are, I’d like to say you’re protecting yourself from something, but that seems too obvious.”

  “I’m not protecting myself, Julia. Especially against someone like you.” Again, he looks me up and down like he’s sizing me up. What is it with him?

  “Okay, fine, you’re just a—a manservant, so who the hell are you protecting?”

  “I think it’s adorable you think you’re getting under my skin.” Thankfully, I’ve gotten sunburnt sitting here without sunscreen for the past ninety minutes because my cheeks are burning from the inside now too. Who the hell is he to call me adorable? He doesn’t get to say that to me.

  “Liam!” Dylan is shouting over to him as he’s running toward us. He has a smile from ear to ear. “Guess what my time was?”

  Liam appears to think about it for a minute. “A minute and fifty-five,” he finally says with a proud grin.

  “How’d you know?” Dylan shrieks with excitement. Wow, the kid smiles. Who would have thought? He appeared to hate everything about everything when I was in his room with him before training, so this is a total one-eighty, a nice one.

  “I was timing you, dude.” Liam holds his hand up for Dylan to slap. “I’m proud of you, kid. You’re five seconds away from passing out of your age group. That’s craziness.”

  “You think I’ll get there by the end of the summer?” Dylan asks.

  “No doubt, little man.” Liam grabs Dylan’s towel and tosses it over his shoulders and hands him his flip-flops.

  “How’s your foot?” I finally pipe in.

  Dylan looks over at me and stares for a few seconds. It’s like he’s silently debating how to react toward me now that he’s in a good mood. “It’s okay. It only took a little skin off, and I can’t feel it much because of the salt water.” Wow. A whole sentence without a hint of meanness.

  “You’re pretty brave. I’m not sure I’d be that brave,” I tell him. I’m definitely pushing my luck here.

  “You’d definitely not be that brave,” Liam cracks. “You can’t even swim.”

  My eyes are bugging out, but he can’t see that because they’re hiding behind my sunglasses. It’s taking everything I have not to say something equally as obnoxious, so I grit my teeth and refrain from replying the way I’d like to.

  Once again, I follow them back to the house like the lazy third wheel I’m becoming today. “What would you like for lunch?” I ask from behind them.

  “It’s on the list,” Dylan informs me.

  “PB&J, a banana, and a smoothie,” Liam follows. “Protein helps him out.”

  I glance up to the sky, trying not to roll my eyes, but God, I need to memorize the binder worth of notes Samantha left for me so I don’t have to ask either of them any more questions. I thought I was on top of everything. I did. Not that it matters since Liam will be tripping to Samantha’s side later to tell her how shitty of a person and a nanny I am.

  We get into the house and Dylan quietly goes upstairs, and I hear the shower turn on a minute later. “Wow, he’s pretty on tap with his schedule, huh?”

  “He needs a schedule,” Liam tells me. “Predictability gets him through the day. When things are out of sorts, even just a little bit, that’s when he starts to lose his cool, which is why the switching of the guards has been so detrimental to him this past year.”

  “I’ll be doing my research on Asperger’s tonight. I don’t know much about it at all, and I’m not sure I understand why Samantha didn’t mention it to me.”

  “She’s got her reasons.” Again, I’m left without many answers. At least I have a little bit of information now, which explains at least one thing, but I don’t know where the pain stops for him and the disability takes over.

  I head into the kitchen and familiarize myself with the cabinets and the pantry to find where everything is, but once again, Superman comes in to save the day. Reaching above my head to one of the higher cabinets, he pulls down a jar of peanut butter, and I’m sure he “accidentally” dropped the loaf of bread on my head while doing so. “Thanks,” I mutter.

  I head over to the fridge for the jelly, then continue rummaging around for the silverware. The kitchen is fairly large, making my search more difficult than necessary, but Liam nicely opens the correct drawer and takes a seat at the kitchen table, crossing one leg over another and resting his arms behind his head. “So, you’re just going to watch me make a sandwich? Is that part of your job?”

  “Why were you crying on the beach?”

  “Liam, when you tell me the real reason you’ve been such a jerk to me, I’ll tell you why I was a little misty on the beach.”

  “Your eyes are bloodshot and all puffy right now. I’d say that’s a little more than misty,” he counters with a raised brow. I turn back to the cutting board where I’m preparing the sandwich and ignore his statement. “No crust. Cut it in fourths.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Peel the banana and slice it into ten pieces.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yes. It’s in the binder.” The fucking binder. “You’re fine,” Liam says.

  “I know I’m fine,” I say, smirking at him. Screw this flustered crap. I got this. I can handle shit. Maybe I can’t swim, but everything else, I can manage.

  Without bothering to turn around and see if I got an ounce of a reaction out of him, I keep my focus on the sandwich I’m still working on, but I hear the chair Liam’s sitting on scratch against the title floors as his shadow covers the counter in front of me. I shouldn’t be afraid to turn around, but I am. I feel his close proximity, and there is no reason for it. None. Unless maybe he�
��s going to stab me with a butter knife. The thought of that is more likely than any other reason he would have to be standing so closely.

  “Fine?” he whispers in my ear. As unexpected as his voice is, being so close to me, his words make my heart pound in a way it hasn’t beat in a very long time, possibly ever. “I could think of a few different words to describe you, but ‘fine’ would be at the bottom of that list.

  I swallow hard before conjuring an appropriate response. “Is that an insult or a compliment?” The mere fact that I was able to say what I did without losing my breath is impressive, and I kind of want to pat myself on the back.

  “An insult or a compliment . . . that’s for you to figure out,” Liam says, squeezing my shoulder firmly before leaving the kitchen.

  Okay, what the hell just happened?

  My mind is lost in a freezing haze as I watch Liam walk through the living room and head up the stairwell. I know he made some snappy comment about my Fifty Shades of Grey song choice yesterday, but I thought it was all part of his asshat game. Men don’t really act like this when they like a woman, not grown men. That’s ridiculous. This is ridiculous. It doesn’t matter. He’s gorgeous, which means he’s a no, but he’s more than a no because I already know he’s an asshole, just like all good-looking men I’ve encountered. Since I already know what he’s like and what I could potentially get involved with, there’s no way I’d even step one foot closer.

  Okay, I may be getting a bit ahead of myself here. My thoughts are obviously jumbled, and he’s just screwing with my head. I bet that’s what this is. He wants me to think he finds me attractive just so he can shoot me down and make me feel like an uber loser. No way. He can try his hand at me all he wants because I’m stronger than he could ever know . . . I hope. No, I am. I’m not letting him get in my pants—my head, I mean. Oh my God. Wow. Okay, breathe. Finish the sandwich. Do your job. Serve lunch, and then move on to the next activity, which would be . . . I need that goddamn binder because I’m not asking Liam any more questions.

  I’ll shadow him, but I will not stare at his ugly perfect ass, and we’ll get through the next few days as such. Then I’ll be in the clear. It’s not like I have to work with him every day for the . . . Entire. Freaking. Summer.