“So you like science, huh?” Dakota asked.
My daughter nodded.
She gave Poppy a smile. “Good for you. We need more girls in STEM. High five.” She held her palm up and, to my amazement, Poppy ran over and slapped it enthusiastically.
“So you don’t have a job?” Poppy asked. “Where do you live if you don’t have a job?”
“I have an apartment for two more weeks, then I’m going to be homeless.” Dakota looked pained at having to admit that out loud. To children, to boot. I felt bad for her and wished there was something I could do to help.
“I have a great idea,” Poppy said. “You could be our nanny. We need one, really bad, obviously. And you said you really need a job. It’s perfect.”
That would be my jaw hitting the floor.
Carson coughed.
“You would get to live with us,” Willow said, sounding excited. Willow never sounded excited about anything. “We have a pretty cool apartment.”
“Really?” Dakota said, the word drawing out. She looked at me and her expression made me forget how to spell my name. “I think it’s up to your father to offer a position to me.”
Was that a sexual comment?
In the history of bad ideas, this would be the very worst. I couldn’t have Dakota in my house, living down the hall, and not want to have sex with her whenever possible.
“You don’t even know what the job entails,” I told Dakota, desperate for her to say this was stupid and she would never even consider it.
“It’s really easy,” Poppy assured her, sidling up to Dakota and slipping her hand in hers.
I gave a snort. “Not that easy,” I said. “Given that six nannies have quit in a year.” Holy crap, I was screwed. Who was I going to hire? A convicted felon?
“I’m made of tougher stuff than that,” Dakota said.
I didn’t doubt it. Was Dakota really such an insane idea in comparison? I knew she was being evicted. I had paid her back rent, but the landlord had indicated he was still going to move ahead with kicking her out, he just would drop the official eviction so as not to ruin her credit, since I had caught her rent up. I wasn’t even sure she knew the back rent had been paid. But either way, she did need a place to stay and I needed a nanny. Desperately.
Even if it was going to be hell to resist her, I trusted her with my daughters. She was a kind and generous person. A little impulsive, maybe, but that was part of her charm. She would be good to Willow and Poppy, I had no doubt.
Besides, what was riskier, having sex with her at the office or at home?
I made eye contact with Dakota. “The job is yours if you want it.”
Her eyes widened. She moistened her bottom lip with the tip of her tongue. “I want it.”
I was so dead.
Poppy jumped up and down.
Carson said, “This is fun.”
“Go downstairs now with Carson,” I told the girls. “He’ll get you some ice cream from the cafeteria. I’ll meet you down there in twenty minutes. I need to discuss this with Dakota.”
They both opened their mouths to protest.
“Privately,” I said, as sternly as possible.
Willow made a face. “Whatever.”
Poppy waggled her finger at me. “Don’t blow this, Dad.”
Dakota laughed. I rubbed my temples. I wasn’t the one who would be doing the blowing if I didn’t get a handle on this situation.
“I’ve got it, Pop.”
I didn’t have a damn thing.
I watched Carson usher Brandon’s daughters out, looking like he’d rather be doing anything else on the planet. Once the door was closed, I said, “I don’t think Carson is enjoying himself.”
“I don’t think Carson ever enjoys himself.” Brandon shoved his hands in his pockets. “My daughters only needed five minutes to fall for you. I guess it runs in the family.”
My cheeks felt hot. I wasn’t sure if it was from the sex, the close call with his kids showing up, or the thought of living in his apartment as his nanny, but I was a little on edge. “Are you serious about this job?” I had to be practical. I needed the job, if the offer was legitimate.
“I know it sounds insane, but I’m in a bind. The girls have run through nannies like they grow on trees, and you know what my job is like. I’m not even in New York when we have away games. I need someone I can trust, who can be there for overnights and game days. The school days would be yours to go to auditions. I would just ask that you be there when they got home.”
I nodded. “That would be fine.”
“Help them with homework, cook dinner, straighten up the apartment.” He made a face. “This is weird, isn’t it? This is a bad idea given our… intimacy. We just had sex on my desk.”
He said the last part as if I might have forgotten that he’d literally just been inside me.
“Maybe.” I thought about it. It might be weird. Hell, it would probably be weird. But I wasn’t exactly a woman with a whole long list of options. “But I’m in a pickle. You’re in a pickle. What if we just plan on this being temporary? You look for a long-term nanny, I look for a job. A regular day job with consistent hours so I don’t have to beg my parents to let their adult daughter move home.” That thought made me willing to do just about anything. I didn’t want a day job, but I had to be realistic. “Say, ninety days? Six months max?”
That seemed to relieve him. “That makes sense. But how can you perform with the cheerleaders? I would need you to bring the girls to my box on game days. They like watching the games.”
“You have a box?” Now that would be cool.
“It’s part of my contract. I could have had my family in the owner’s box, but I don’t trust my daughters.”
“I’m out in two weeks when the girl I stepped in for comes off the injured reserve list. So it’s fine. This weekend is an away game anyway. I’m getting evicted on the fifteenth. I could start now but move in once I get kicked out of my apartment.” Leaving my home of the last three years was going to be very deflating and sad. It was a dark cave but it was mine. It had been home and now it was just all getting ripped away from me.
This was what I got for not planning my life better.
“I can hire a mover to bring your stuff over.”
“Are you sure?” That sounded expensive and something I was in exactly no position to do myself. I probably would have ended up throwing away the majority of my possessions.
“Of course.”
I was ridiculously relieved at that prospect. “Thanks.”
He pulled his hands out of his pockets and reached for me. He brushed back a stray hair that had gotten missed when I had redone my ponytail. The way he was looking at me twisted my gut.
“You realize if you take this position, we can’t date,” he said.
“That was an option?” I asked. Sex, sure. But dating? I hadn’t thought that was on the table given his request for discretion. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to date Brandon. My life was a mess. It was a really bad time to try to start a relationship. Especially with a slightly grumpy guy with a complicated life and children.
He looked surprised by the question. “Well, I don’t know. Maybe not. Probably not, with you cheering. But definitely not if you’re my nanny. I can’t risk confusing and upsetting the girls.”
“So my options are to not date you and have no job, or to not date you and have a nanny job?”
“Yes. With the first option, even sex is a question mark. We would have to be very discreet.”
There it was again. “You know how I feel about that word. It’s just another word for dirty little secret and I kind of hate it.”
“Do you have to put it that way? It’s just my life is complicated and I don’t want a bunch of online bullshit. Or bullshit from my players if they know I’m having sex with a cheerleader. It’s just too hard to keep my private life private unless we’re really private.”
I understood where he was coming from. I wasn’t s
elfish. I knew his family, job, and reputation came first. “I get it. To be brutally honest, I don’t want people to know either. If it was an actual relationship, sure, but I don’t want to be the cheerleader just banging the coach. I’m not twenty-two anymore.”
He misinterpreted my meaning and got sidetracked. “You banged the coach when you were twenty-two? Who? Padlowski? That guy is ancient. Oh my God.” He rubbed his chest, like the thought pained him.
“What? No! That is not what I meant. I did not have sex with the previous coach. I just meant my life is a mess and I’m trying to get it together. I don’t want anyone to know what we’re doing, that’s all, because I don’t need to be judged. I’m trying to be responsible. I’m trying not to be impulsive. For once. Well. I mean, aside from having sex just now. But that was your fault.” Damn it, learning to be responsible was a process. I was getting there step by step.
He didn’t say anything, just nodded. “I accept full responsibility for that. Even though you clearly picked out your clothing this morning with the sole purpose of torturing me.”
Guilty.
“What if I’m in your apartment, living with you?” I asked. “Would we be pretending we’re not going to have sex? Or would we just admit it and get right to it instead of dancing around it for three weeks before finally ripping each other’s clothes off?”
“I say we admit it. It would actually be much easier to be discreet if we’re living together, don’t you think? Midnight meetups? It would be hot as hell.” He wrapped an arm around my waist and dropped his gaze to my lips.
“You think it’s less risky at home than at the office?” I wasn’t sure I was buying that, but it was his apartment, his children.
“Absolutely.”
“Let me think about it.”
His jaw dropped.
I laughed. “I’m kidding.”
He gave a sigh of relief. “You’re hilarious, did you know that? Very entertaining.”
“I’m a good time,” I said, kissing him briefly, teasingly.
“Oh, I know. And you like parties and sushi and donuts.” He nuzzled into my neck.
“We need to go downstairs,” I told him, before he got carried away again.
“I really wish the girls weren’t in the building.”
“You don’t always get what you want,” I said. “But sometimes instead you get exactly what you need.”
I meant it flippantly.
But Brandon pulled back and gave me an intense look. “Yeah. Sometimes you do.”
His tone made me shiver.
That was a dangerous tone.
It made me feel that if I wasn’t careful, I could fall for Brandon Macnamara.
Which would be a serious personal foul.
Chapter Nine
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Elijah asked me as we stood in the very back of my bedroom watching the movers remove the last decade of my life.
“No. But I don’t have a choice.” I didn’t need the bed frame at Brandon’s, so I was giving it to Elijah. He’d rejected the mattress saying he didn’t do used mattresses.
“What happened to the air-conditioning?” he asked, fanning himself. “It’s a million degrees in here.”
“I sold the window unit to my neighbor.” He was right. The apartment was sweltering. Summer was having a heyday.
The plan had been to wait until mid-September to move into Brandon’s, but he didn’t see the point of that when I had to spend the night tonight because he would be out of town for the next day’s game. So in a matter of two days, he had managed to get my whole world packed up with a couple of phone calls. I suspected Carson had been doing the bulk of the arrangements. He was the one who had me signing electronic documents for tax purposes and non-disclosure papers.
I also thought that he probably was the one who had paid my landlord my back rent on Brandon’s orders. At first, I thought maybe my friends had chipped in to get me square, but then when my landlord stopped by to get my keys earlier, he had said, “Tell Macnamara we need to get to the playoffs.”
He would not have known that I even knew Brandon unless Brandon had paid my back rent.
“Are you sure Coach Sexy Ass won’t care that I’m coming with you to help you get your room together?”
“He said he didn’t care at all. I think he wants to make sure I’m settled in as fast as possible. He has to leave at eight o’clock for New Orleans.”
“That sounds fun. The Big Easy.”
“It’s for work,” I said, rolling my eyes. “You know, the coaching thing.”
“Hey, have you met the quarterback? He shares a name with you. Dakota. Dakota North.” Elijah gave a dreamy sigh. “That is a beast I would like to tame.”
“No, I have not met him. He is definitely good-looking,” I said. “And a party animal.”
“My type completely.”
“Given the number of women he’s been seen with, I think it’s safe to say he’s straight.”
“I don’t have to buy. I’m just looking.”
That made me laugh. “Fair enough.” I moved to my kitchen, stopping the mover who was about to grab an open box on the counter. “Oh, can you leave that? Thank you.”
“Sure. We’re all done here. We’re going to take a lunch break, then we’ll meet you at the next location at two, okay?”
“Sounds great, thanks so much.”
After they left, I dug a bottle of champagne out of the box and two plastic cups. “We have to toast to the end of an era. Bye to Harlem. Hello, Upper West Side.” I twisted the cork until it popped. “God, I’m going to miss this terrible, horrible, hellish apartment.” I glanced around, feeling very melancholy. It was a dump, but it had been the symbol of my “success” as a New Yorker. I could pay rent. I had made it.
This was a low point, that was for damn sure. Yes, I felt fortunate I had somewhere to land temporarily, but this wasn’t a proud moment for me. I poured the bubbly and handed a cup to Elijah.
“Here’s to who we are and who we’ll become,” he said, raising his glass.
“Aw. That was beautiful.” I took a sip. “Oh, God, that’s good when it’s so freaking hot outside. Don’t let me get drunk. That would really impress Brandon when I’m supposed to be taking care of his kids.”
“Do you even know how to be a nanny?” he asked. “Like, seriously.”
“I love kids,” I said, avoiding the questions. “I volunteer at the hospital all the time.”
It wasn’t exactly the same. But it wasn’t totally different either, right?
“Okay,” he said, before taking a sip.
I put my cup down and dug into the box again. I pulled out a dream catcher.
“What is that hideous thing?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “When I moved in here, the previous tenant left it with a note and the date. It said ‘I hope you catch your New York dreams’ and I thought that was the coolest thing. I saved it and now I’m adding a second note to it and leaving it for the next tenant.”
He opened his mouth and I put a hand up.
“Stop! Do not say something cynical or bitchy. I will not tolerate it. I’m not the most sentimental person in the world but I don’t have a heart of stone either. This is cute, damn it, and I’m doing it.”
“Sure,” he said, sounding like he had a thousand things he wanted to say and was choking on all of them.
“You’re a dream crusher, not a dream catcher,” I told him.
He shrugged.
I hung the dream catcher in front of the window that I’d had covered up for three years. Despite it being noon in August, there was no sunlight penetrating the glass. I had no intention of telling Elijah what I had written. I’d put my initials and the date too.
And something else that now as I ran my finger over the note and watched it spiral, I prayed was true.
I’ll be back.
It sounded a little stalkerish now that I saw it but I meant that I would have my own apartment again somed
ay. That I would find a way to get back to a place in my life that was comfortable. Where I knew what direction I was going in. Where I wasn’t the only one out of my whole friend group who was floundering.
I took the champagne bottle to my mouth and took a long swallow. Then I left it on the window ledge under the dream catcher.
“Let’s go.”
My feelings about Dakota moving in were mixed. I was stupid excited, like a kid at Christmas. I was also just about one hundred percent certain this was stupid as fuck.
Poppy was nearly bouncing off the ceiling. I had never seen her this interested in a new nanny before. Willow was trying to hang back and look cool but I suspected she was fantasizing that Dakota could teach her to dance and raise her social status.
The doorbell rang and I went to answer it. The doorman had already told me the movers had arrived. Dakota was standing there with her friend Elijah, and behind them the movers already had a couple of boxes in their arms.
“Hey,” I said, pulling the door open.
The skinny movers employee, who looked like he couldn’t lift a shoebox, let alone the box in his arms, gave a whistle as he followed them inside my apartment. “Moving on up, huh?” he asked Dakota with a grin.
“I’m the nanny,” Dakota said.
Her voice sounded a little strained, but I was distracted by Poppy attaching herself to my leg.
“Um, Father?” she asked, wrapping her arms around my waist. She looked up at me with puppy eyes.
“Yes?” Whenever she called me Father, I was about to get asked something outrageous.
“Can I change rooms? I’ll take Mary’s old room and Dakota can have mine. Please? Pretty please?”
That was an unexpected request, but I suspected why. “Because it’s bigger?”
She nodded and gave me a charming smile.
“I don’t think that’s fair to Dakota.”
“I don’t care,” Dakota said. “I’m used to a small bedroom.”
She was. I’d seen her old bedroom. I had given her multiple orgasms in that old bedroom, which was just four walls and a bed.
The room in question was probably bigger than Dakota’s old apartment bedroom, but still, it felt insulting to her. “I don’t know.” I ran my hand over Poppy’s hair. She needed to brush it. My fingers got snarled in tangles. I looked over at Dakota. “It’s meant to be a nursery. It’s attached to my room and shares the bathroom.”
Halftime Husband Page 9
