The Deal

by Sarah J. Brooks

  “Rosie does seem really nice. I’ve seen her out with Clyde, and he’s always smiling and having a great time.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, she’s very patient with him.”

  “That makes me feel really good. You know it’s impossible to know for sure if a Nanny is good or not. Thanks for telling me.”

  “Of course.”

  The mood in Jason’s car had changed quickly. I sat back in the seat and let my head rest as he started to drive, and then I realized he had no idea where Patrick lived and started to laugh.

  “I guess I should give you the address,” I said as I grabbed his phone.

  “Eighteen-seventy-six,” he said as the password screen popped up.

  I paused in total shock at the level of comfort between the two of us at that moment. I couldn’t remember ever having a guy give me the password to his phone. Actually, I couldn’t even remember grabbing a guy’s phone before. It shook me for a moment.

  “I’ll just put it into MapQuest for you,” I said as I came back to my senses.

  “You have to stop doing that,” Jason said without looking at me at all.

  “What? Putting the address in?”

  “No crossing and uncrossing your damn legs. You are killing me. I’m going to crash the car.”

  I burst into laughter as I realized I was in the middle of uncrossing my legs as he said that. It was a nervous habit I had, and I only noticed it when I was sitting at a desk or someplace uncomfortable. My mother noticed it all the time and told me to stop fidgeting, but I supposed my tiny skirt was probably making it look like I was teasing him with my fidgeting.

  “I’m sorry,” I finally said through my laughter. “I’ve got a little ADHD and can’t sit still.”

  “You are torturing me.”

  “Oh, you don’t want me to do this?” I teased as I slowly opened my legs and then put them back together. I let one of them slide over the top of the other and then moved them up and down as I teased him.

  Jason pulled the car over quickly, and before I knew what was happening, he had us parked on the side of the road. He threw his seatbelt off and leaned over and kissed me as his hand pressed between my thighs. He didn’t move it up my thighs; he didn’t force himself on me at all–Jason simply let his hand feel my skin as our lips moved together.

  I uncrossed my legs for him.

  “Sorry for teasing you,” I lied as I breathed out and took in a deep breath between our kisses.

  “I want you, Anna. I want you so bad I…” he trailed off.

  “I want you too.”

  Our lips urgently pressed against one another as our hands explored each other’s bodies. Jason let his hand move up and down my thigh as I anticipated him moving to feel how wet I was. I pulled on his shirt to get him closer to me. I did want him. I just didn’t want him in a car on the side of the street.

  Slowly, I crossed my legs and trapped his hand as it was only inches away from touching me. He groaned playfully and then moved his fingers to the outside of my other thigh as he pulled me toward him.

  “This was a fun night,” he said between kisses. “Basically, neither of us know how to behave.”

  “I guess so.” I laughed.

  “I’ll get you home now,” he said as he moved back over into his seat and put his seatbelt back on.

  “Thank you for the ride,” I said as his fingers stayed on my thigh for just a minute longer.

  We were quiet the rest of the way. It felt as if Jason had found some sort of willpower, though, and he wasn’t looking over at my legs any longer. I even uncrossed them and crossed them again to see if he was looking, but he wasn’t.

  As we pulled up in front of the apartment complex, I pointed to the top floor where I was staying with Patrick. It was a beautiful complex, and I couldn’t imagine how Patrick had been paying for everything himself. I was really happy to be staying there, though, and loved the neighborhood.

  “I’ll walk you up,” Jason offered.

  “No, I think I can handle it. You better get home to your little man. Thanks for the ride, and I promise to behave at work when I see you.”

  “Maybe not all the time,” Jason said with a wink and a smile.

  “See you on Monday.”

  “I can’t wait,” he said as I walked away and toward the stairs to my apartment.

  I didn’t look back as I walked up the stairs, but when I got to the top, near my apartment door, I saw Jason still sitting in the parking lot. He waved up at me and seemed to be waiting to make sure I got into the apartment alright, so I went inside and waved at him from the window to my room. Only then was he satisfied that I was safe, and he pulled out of the parking lot.

  I fell back onto my bed with a permanent smile on my face as I replayed the night I’d just had. It was like nothing I could have dreamed of. The flirting was outrageous. The kissing still made me tingle. I couldn’t wait to get to work on Monday and see where things between us were going to lead.

  Chapter 7

  Jason

  Life had suddenly gotten complicated for me. Anna was more than just some girl I wanted to take to bed as if I was the kind of guy who did that anyway. She was smart, funny, and obviously beautiful. But our age difference weighed heavily on me. Not to mention the business deal with her father that could literally explode my entire life if it fell through.

  It was beyond clear to me that I wasn’t going to last long with my promise to stay away from Anna. But perhaps I could white knuckle it through some flirting and kissing until things calmed down with the deal with her father.

  Three months. I’d promised to have her working with us for three months, and that was also about the time frame I’d figured to ensure the stability of the new business venture with Cook, Sparser, and Conner Buildings.

  Three months.

  It was such a small time frame, yet as I drove home from dropping Anna off, three months seemed like an excruciatingly long time. Was it even possible for me to turn her down for that long? I couldn’t imagine how I would be able to do it. If I managed to deny my desire for that long, it would be a remarkable accomplishment.

  As I pulled into my driveway, I took my phone out and scrolled through my text messages before going inside. Sure enough, there was one from Kevin.

  I’d never be able to refuse that. Good luck man. Let me know if we need to ship you overseas for a few months. LOL

  I didn’t bother to respond. I certainly couldn’t go traveling overseas with Clyde at home. This was just a test for me. Work was a priority. Taking care of Clyde was a priority. Anna couldn’t be my priority right now.

  I quietly made my way into the house so I wouldn’t wake up Rosie or Clyde, but inevitably Clyde heard me. His tiny feet pitter-pattered down the hall after me as I started to close my bedroom door.

  “Daddy, you’re home,” he said sweetly so I wouldn’t close the door.

  “I am. Did you have a good day with Rosie?”

  “Yes!” he said excitedly as I picked him up and put him on the bed. “We ate alligators.”

  “What?”

  “We ate alligators at the zoo. It was fun. They chomped down on watermelon.”

  “Do you mean you saw alligators?”

  Clyde lost interest with my questions and rolled back onto my bed. He pulled the covers back on one side and snuggled under them. He had decided we were sleeping together, and I didn’t mind at all.

  “I’m tired, Daddy.”

  “Me too. Go to sleep, and I’ll be in bed in a minute,” I said as I kissed his forehead and he wrapped his arms around my neck to hold me there. “I’m just taking a shower. I promise I’ll be in bed in ten minutes. Okay, buddy?”

  “Okay,” he said softly as his eyes closed and he let his grip around my neck lessen.

  For a minute, I stood there looking down on him and was absolutely amazed that he was mine. Of course, he was Elizabeth’s son as well, yet she
had moved on with her life. She’d never been the sort of girl that I thought would want to be married and living in the suburbs. I still remembered how surprised I was when she agreed to marry me. My desire to live a stable life grew as we had Clyde, but Elizabeth started to feel trapped.

  I firmly believe she loved me and Clyde. I just think her wanderlust was too strong, and she was miserable not being able to fly where she wanted and travel the world. The reality of being a mother was too much for her. I blamed her for a while, but I wouldn’t want her to be tortured by a life she didn’t love.

  Life was hard for me as I adjusted to being a full-time father, but I loved it. I loved filling my weekends with swimming lessons and playground visits. I absolutely couldn’t imagine not having Clyde around. My life was richer because he was in it, and that was all that mattered to me.

  When I finally crawled into bed, the exhaustion from the night overwhelmed me, and I fell asleep quickly. Clyde and I had a weekend of fun planned, and I needed all the rest I could get.

  By morning, Clyde was jumping on me to wake me up. His little feet thrusting into my ribs was the most painful, yet loving wake-up call in the world. I woke up enough to grab him right out of the air and pull him on top of me.

  “What are you doing, monkey.” I laughed.

  “It’s time to go sailing. I remember Dad. We are going on the boat today.”

  “That’s right. Did you have fun doing that last weekend?”

  “Yeah!”

  “Well, let’s go see if Rosie is up. I’m sure she is tired from running after you all week long.”

  Clyde held my hand as we walked out to the kitchen where I heard Rosie moving around and cooking something. As we rounded the corner, I saw she had made us an omelet and was in the middle of filling a cooler for us to take on the sailboat.

  “I’ve made peanut butter and jelly, plus some fun extras,” she said as she zipped the cooler.

  “Thank you so much. You don’t have to stay. I know your family misses you, so please head home. Thank you again for coming over last night.”

  “No problem. You know I’d do anything for you guys.”

  “I promise things will calm down soon.”

  “I know, soon this little man is going to be in a regular school,” Rosie said as she squeezed Clyde’s cheeks. “You’ll get to play with your friends all day long and not just part of the day. Won’t that be so much fun?”

  “Yes. I can’t wait to be in kindergarten.”

  “Me too.” I laughed at his excitement. “Okay, really. Take off. Spend some time with your family. I’m going to make sure and include something extra for you this month. You really are a lifesaver.”

  “Mr. Hartley, you are already paying me plenty. You don’t need to add anything extra,” Rosie protested.

  “Get going,” I said as I showed her the door.

  “I’m going, I’m going. You boys enjoy your weekend.”

  “You too,” I said as I held the door open.

  “Wait,” Clyde yelled as he ran toward Rosie and gave her a gigantic hug. “I see you after the weekend.”

  Rosie hugged Clyde for a minute and then hurried off to her car so she could go home. Clyde and I stayed in the doorway and waved to her until I smelled something on the stove burning and had to close the door and hurry over.

  “That stinks,” Clyde said.

  “I think this is not good.” I laughed as I held up the black bacon in the pan. “We don’t need bacon anyways.”

  “Yeah, we don’t need it.”

  We sat down together and shared our omelet before heading out to the water for our sailing lesson. I’d wanted to learn to sail for years and finally just paid for private lessons so Clyde could come with me. He was a natural on the water and really did fantastic at listening and staying where he was supposed to, but of course, I had a hi-tech life jacket on him at all times as well.

  Our day flew by as we got to the boat and did an hour of lessons and then another two hours of practicing what I’d learned. The sky was picturesque blue without a cloud to be seen, and we soaked in the calmness of the water as we sailed around the lake.

  “You two look like you were meant to be sailors,” Paul, our instructor said.

  “I’m going to be a businessman,” Clyde announced, just to clarify that he didn’t want to be a sailor.

  “You can be anything you want to be, buddy,” I said as I pulled him onto my lap.

  We ate our lunch while we floated around the water, and Paul even let us go over our allotted time. It was a perfect day, one that would have been fun to share with someone like Clyde’s mother. She would have loved the adventure of learning to sail.

  Most of the time I wasn’t lonely, but every now and then I missed that family interaction that we used to have—the fun of laughing with someone else while you are enjoying a day together. I wasn’t about to bring random women around Clyde, though, so I hadn’t had the opportunity to share a day like this with anyone else since Elizabeth.

  It was a nearly perfect afternoon. One that was special for both Clyde and me.

  ***

  Going back to work on Monday was always hard. I was pulled between the fun of being a full-time father on the weekends and the responsibility of running my business on the weekdays. I kissed Clyde as Rosie took him for their day together and I headed into the office.

  I’d successfully made it through the weekend without thinking of Anna. Well, maybe I thought of her a few times, but mostly I managed to keep her out of my mind. But as I walked off the elevator and toward my office, I saw her sitting at her desk, and she was a vision of beauty.

  Her long blonde hair was pulled back and pinned into her one of her signature updos. It looked intricately done, and I imagined it took her a long time to get it just like that. She wore a white and black dress that had distinctive blocks of color which accented her figure while also keeping everything covered up.

  “Good morning, Mister Hartley,” Anna said as she looked up slightly from her work.

  Her voice was husky and seductive with a vibrating rasp that echoed through my body. If I’d hoped we could go back to ignoring each other and pretending nothing had happened between us, I was one hundred percent wrong. There was no way I could keep looking at her and not remember what she felt like in my arms on that dance floor.

  “Morning, Anna. Did you have a good weekend?” I asked as I stood in my doorway.

  “Yes, it was excellent. How about you?”

  “Mine was lots of fun. Clyde and I had a great time,” I said and inched a little further into my office. “I’ve got a ton of stuff to do today, so I won’t be around much. But email me if you have any questions on the project.”

  “Will do,” she said with a big smile, and I quickly went into my office and closed the door.

  For the next three hours, I basically stayed held up in my office like I was some sort of prisoner. I didn’t want to have to talk to Anna, or look at her, or smell her delicious perfume. I couldn’t take it. I wasn’t strong enough, and I knew it.

  When Kevin called me on my cell phone instead of the office line, I answered it immediately.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “In my office. Where are you?”

  “I haven’t seen you all day. What’s going on? I didn’t even know you were here,” he said as I heard him opening his office door. “I’m coming to see you.”

  “Be careful. She’s out there,” I joked as we hung up.

  I heard Kevin making small talk with Anna before knocking on my door. He didn’t wait for me to answer and instead just let himself in. He shut the door behind him and quickly moved over toward my desk.

  “Did you sleep with her?” he said quietly so he was sure Anna couldn’t hear us.

  “No,” I protested as if I hadn’t thought about it a million times.

  “What’s going on then, why are you hiding in here?”

 
“I can’t take it. Look at her. She’s beautiful. I’m going to cave. I know it. I took her home and literally couldn’t keep my hands off her. I can’t just ignore her while she’s here. We shouldn’t have hired her. You shouldn’t have pushed me to hire her. This is all your fault,” I said as I threw my hands up in the air. I was joking, sort of. Obviously, it wasn’t Kevin’s fault that I was so damn attracted to Anna. But Kevin was the one who underestimated my ability to stay away from her, and for that, I totally blamed him.

  “Why don’t you work from home or go to Edward’s office and work from there? You can still give her jobs via text or email. Just keep your physical body away from her,” Kevin suggested.

  “Yeah, that would probably be a good idea...”

  “But?” Kevin asked as he waited for me to add a reason why neither of those ideas would work.

  “Well, I don’t want to work from home since Clyde and Rosie are spending more time there. And I don’t really want to hang out with Edward or Marcus over at their company.”

  “And you really like flirting with Anna and don’t want to leave her here all alone,” Kevin teased.

  “Shit, I do like looking at her.”

  “How about you simply avoid her as much as possible? Just stay busy. Instead of taking three months to do our changes to the new company, let’s try and get everything done in two months. That will give you and Anna plenty of work and keep you both busy so you wouldn’t even have the time to worry about anything else. Come on man, it’s only eleven weeks. You can do anything for eleven weeks.”

  “She’s working here for eleven more weeks?” I said a little shocked at the number.

  “Yes, we agreed to three months for her internship.”

  “Wow, okay… yeah… that’s eleven weeks left. Shit,” I said as I ran my fingers through my hair. “That’s a really long time.”

  “Well, you could take another approach, but I can’t condone it.”

  “What?”

  “Just sleep with her already. You’re obsessing about it, and you’ll probably forget all about her after it’s over. Just make sure she’s okay with being just friends, and the two of you can screw like rabbits for all I care.”