by Anne Eliot
If I haven’t already.
Adam steps forward like he’s moving in to shake my hand or something. “We didn’t know if you’d show up or not.”
When I realize Adam and Royce are both also barefoot, and that Adam’s toes are getting too close to my toes, I can’t help it, I step back.
“Why wouldn’t I show up?” I answer, trying to not stutter. “I was at the hotel to interview for a job when I met Mrs. Felix. I’m…uh…very grateful because I really needed this job. So, thank you.” I glance nervously toward Royce’s back then pin my eyes to the carpet around my feet. “Sorry about any confusion I may have caused yesterday.”
“That was all on us. We’re running a mad-circus here.” Adam waves his hand around the room. “Royce and Mrs. Felix say you’ve worked with babies and have real experience. How? Why? You look pretty young to be some kind of baby ninja.”
I work my gaze upwards a little, pretending now that I’m adjusting the length of the lanyard to sit better around my neck. “I worked in a daycare for years. It was one the district set up so teachers could bring their babies to work. Students got credit when we worked there. Last year, I also helped at this teen mom group home after school. It was mostly babysitting so the moms could have a break or study nearby. I love snuggling little babies.”
“Cool. Nice to know you’re qualified. A baby loving snuggle-lover is what we need.” Adam steps forward and I step back again.
“Dude. Did you really just say a snuggle-lover?” Royce’s low voice rumbles through the air and makes the hair on the back of my neck tickle.
“What? Was that inappropriate? I meant you’re just what the baby needs.” Adam chuckles, stopping, then stepping forward again while I continue to step back. His chuckle turns into a low laugh. “Well, this is different. Royce. Spot on. She’s doing it again.”
“Doing what?” I catch Royce’s head turning toward me out of the corner of my eye, which causes me to turn away from him and involuntarily step back a bit more.
These two have made me so nervous I’m getting queasy.
Adam steps forward again. “It’s like what you said about her yesterday,” he says with another chuckle on the end of it. “She is the first teenage girl we’ve met who’s tried to get away from us instead of stay near us. So cute. So fascinating. You aren’t going to run away today, are you, Robin?” Adam laughs again and steps a half-step closer.
I hold up my hands like a shield but manage to force my feet to stay still as chatter pours out of my mouth and I feel my cheeks heating, “I—I’m not—running away. You’re both intimidating. And, fine. I’m nervous because, well, who wouldn’t be nervous right now? It’s the first day of work and I’ve never been a nanny before, and you two are really, tall, and your rock-star voices sort of make the walls of the room shake when you talk and so that’s all a lot to take in for someone who’s just normal and boring and…yeah.” I pull in a long shaky breath. “I’m working hard to get over my jitters quickly, but it’s not that easy. Could you please do me a favor and move aside so I can get to the baby and like...start working? That will help.” I nod my head toward the only open spot in the room that’s not stuffed with shopping bags and boxes, hoping he will take my hint and move aside.
“Of course.” Adam steps away while Royce retreats even farther away ducking around boxes and bags until he’s at the furthest side of the room near the floor to ceiling window that’s fronted by a rocking glider chair. One with plush seats that are still wrapped in plastic and places his arms on the window so he can lean and stare out.
Adam continues, “I won’t tease you anymore, that was uncool. I like that you’re so honest with your thoughts, though. You’re not the first to be nervous around us, but everyone always fakes that they’re cool with it. I like how you don’t seem to pretend anything.”
I glance back at him and laugh a little. “Uh…this has been me, pretending that I am really cool, if you must know. Sadly, I’m a bad actor. My awkward will not let up. Sorry.”
Adam laughs out loud. “We like awkward, don’t we, Royce? And I already like you. You’re so funny.”
Royce mutters something unintelligible as he starts moving a bunch of boxes and bags like he’s trying to organize things. That, or build up a taller wall of stuff between us.
I let my gaze go up more, all the way to Adam’s smile. It’s genuine and not at all mocking, which makes me relax a little. I try to meet his eyes—adult to adult—because despite how I’m screaming like a little girl inside, outside, and as of today, I’m a grown, cool-headed woman.
A grown woman with a brother to support.
A grown woman with my first real job, and because these guys are my new bosses, I’m a grown woman who needs to get my shit together, and fast.
Sadly, all I do is gasp when my eyes meet Adam’s straight on. “Oh wow. You have gold lion eyes. Exactly the color of amber mixed with sunlight,” I burst out. “Exactly how they looked on the poster down in the lobby. No photo editing on your eyes, either.” The words won’t stop. “I love color. Like, I notice colors because I’m a--”
So much for being a grown woman.
I shake my head. “I’m a dork? Sorry. I’ll get used to you.”
“It’s cool. Our eyes is one of the reasons we were matched onto our first TV show together way back when. We know they stop people in their tracks. If you think these are cool,” he points to his eyes, shaking his head, “Wait until you see Hunter’s eye color. Mine are considered the tamest of the three. Our agent calls us Earth, Wind and Fire, after his favorite seventies band. I get to be ‘earth’. The most boring of all, but after the Narnia movies came out, of my most consistent hashtags on the band’s Instagram are AslanLives or simply AdamTheLion.”
“Oh, that’s perfect. Narnia. Lion. Witch. Wardrobe. Aslan was the best character. I can see the similarities. Yes. I bawled when he died. Book and movie.” I’m nodding, way too much, but I can’t stop, and his comments have made me wonder if Royce is ‘wind’, or if he’s ‘fire’.
But I know the answer. He’s fire. Those white hot—burning, lightning eyes of his have to be fire.
“I cried, too.” Adam grins and bites his lower lip like he’s holding back on teasing me again.
“Yep. Okay. Yeah.” I pull in a long breath and slap a hand to my forehead, wishing I could also slap my own cheeks hard. “I’m not doing any better on working through the jitters I mentioned, am I?”
“You aren’t running at least,” Royce says, his tone is still cynical.
“Don’t beat yourself up about the jitters thing.” Adam tip-toes back in closer to peer in the crib along with me. When I look over and smile my thanks, I have to work hard to close my mouth yet another time, because up close and smiling down at the baby, holy-heck, this Adam Marcus dude is over the top. My head starts spinning.
Of course he is beautiful.
Like Royce Devlin, he’s a rockstar.
Beautiful and a rockstar.
And he just warned me that Hunter Kennedy is going to be beautiful, too.
Beautiful with freakish, bright eyes.
Get over it. Stop noticing it.
Them.
These people are your bosses.
Being beautiful is part of their job and me not noticing it is going to be part of my job.
For a week or two anyhow.
It’s obvious Adam’s spent a lot of time in the sun, that, or his skin is just naturally darker than Royce’s lighter, golden tan. Again, not that I’m comparing their tans or overly noticing them, because I’m not. I’m an artist and artists notice colors and skin tones. We’re trained to be attracted to nature combined with grace and balance. These guys have all of that and more, but it’s expected. Part of their jobs. Which is why I should stop feeling all fluttery and guilty about admiring how well they’re made. Right?
Like Royce, Adam’s wearing sweats slung low on his hips which has me wondering if this outfit is some sort of rockstar pajama uniform t
he stylists suggested to make them look extra hot. The plain white t-shirts don’t look like any t-shirt you could buy in a regular store. They look sewn to fit in a way that highlights every single muscle on these guys and…so enter the grace and balance thing again. Attractive. Because of nature.
Yeah.
Again, not staring.
Not comparing.
My gaze halts on a swirling tattoo where Adam’s bicep bulges the widest. This time I bite the insides of my cheeks so I don’t blurt out more random comments. But, oh, how I want to. This tattoo is no simple tattoo. It’s amazing art, all done in the shape of a heart. Art like I’ve never seen! Art like I hope to create someday. Not on skin, because I don’t want to be a tattoo artist, but in sculpture and on canvas.
The part of the tattoo not covered by his shirt is like Medieval church art meets modern comic book art, meets wow. There’s a little cross coming out of the heart’s top with a perfect, bright-red apple in the center. The apple’s so bright you can tell that’s it’s been newly added, where the rest of the tattoo is more faded, suggesting it was done earlier.
The heart’s border is made up of scrolling, tiny cursive writing. I’m close enough to read how it repeats the words Adam & Eve over and over. The entire thing is crosshatched and layered in a very distinctive way so, even though created in stages, it’s all obviously done by the same artist. It also has this ultra-realistic, 3-D effect happening on the curves that make up the heart and the apple.
I wonder briefly if Adam’s extra religious. And then I almost laugh at that thought, because you don’t have Adam and Eve, a cross, and a bright red apple on your arm if you’re not religious. Right? What else could that mean? Thankfully, there’s no creepy snake anywhere in the composition. I assume that in addition to having great taste in tattoo artists, and how he’s smiles with such sincerity my intuition tells me he’s also probably a good guy. A nice person.
I flick a glance at Royce’s back and uncharitably decide his entire body is probably covered in hundreds of badly drawn, cliché snake and skull tattoos. Working to cover the too-long silence that’s stretching between us all, I try to force some more conversation, “I—hope the concert last night went okay? Were you...very late to the stage?” I ask.
“We were late, but our fans forgave us.” Adam bends down some as his eyes try to probe mine. “Did you make it to your, appointment, or whatever had you running off so quickly?”
I nod, while he glances over my head and apparently has a silent guy-guy conversation with Royce. After a couple of head shakes and pointing at the baby, Adam rolls his eyes and turns back to me.
“So, your name. It’s Robin?” Adam re-starts the conversation that I seem to have killed again. This time he gingerly leans on the crib as though to pull a small blanket over the baby. “Like the bird?”
“Yes. And no.” He and I step back a little from the crib. “I’m named after the final Army training exercise called Robin Sage. The Robin Sage decides if a soldier makes it into Special Forces or not. Our dad, he’s an SF trainer. That’s where it comes from. I’m Robin and my little brother, he’s Sage.”
“Special Forces!” Adam’s brows have shot to the top of his head. “Does that mean we have to fear your father?”
“Yes.” I force a laugh trying to cover the tug of longing his question brought forward. “My dad always tells people there will be one ounce of blood drawn for every tear I shed.”
“Nice line. And…we will be very careful not to make you cry.” He points to the baby. “After hanging with this cute nugget, I totally feel your father’s words. That’s the kind of dad I’m going to be, for sure. One ounce of blood…hah. Love it.”
I dart another quick glance back at Royce’s stiff back and note that his muscled, swoon worthy everything still hasn’t turned away from the window.
Is he even going to come over here and properly meet me?
Frustrated, I shake my head at Adam, willing the guy to get his friend Royce to tell us what kind of dad he wants to be, but like Royce can feel the questions and accusations burning out of my eyes, he jumps and heads for the door.
Still without turning back, he calls out, “Let’s get out of here and let her do the job, Adam. I need to sleep.”
Adam and I had both jumped at Royce’s sudden movement. “My man Royce.” Adam points at Royce’s back. “He’s been acting really off, but of course none of us can blame the new daddy for that. He needs time to adjust.”
“Adam. Let’s go?” Royce pauses at the doorframe.
“Not yet. Dude. We can’t just leave her like this, can we? Like we haven’t even officially introduced ourselves to her yet and... the baby doesn’t really know who she is, so we can’t just duck out, can we?”
“You don’t have to worry about leaving me. I’m self-sufficient,” I say. “And I do know who is who. You’re Adam Marcus, he’s Royce Devlin, the other guy is Hunter Kennedy. Vere Roth is his girlfriend.” I shrug. “My little brother is one of your street team leads. He’s been brainwashing me about Guarderobe facts for years, and yesterday all I needed was a quick catch up.”
“Well that’s cool.” Adam crosses his arms. “Then you probably heard I’m the awesome one as well as the best looking one. Oh, and the smartest one.” He winks. “Royce Devlin is the asshole pretty one that the ladies dump after only one date, because he’s too uptight. And you know that Hunter Kennedy is all wrapped up with Vere, who is in fact the sweetest person in the world besides Mrs. Felix and this baby here. Oh. And you, I think.”
I laugh. “Uh. Well... yes, that’s kind of what I’ve heard. And thank you for calling me nice.”
“Oh my God. This is too stressful.” Royce reaches up and grips the edge of the door frames with both hands.
Adam rolls his eyes toward Royce. “No one’s stopping you from going to bed, cranky. I’m enjoying getting to know our beautiful new nanny.”
Royce grips the trim on top of the door a little too hard. “We all promised not to flirt with her, Adam. You also can’t be trusted to be alone with her because you blab too much, so please walk out with me. Right now.”
Adam places a hand over his heart and gives me this wounded look. “Was I flirting? No. Not even. Just called you nice and beautiful, that’s not flirting, that’s a simple fact. We’re making friends. Aren’t we?” His wide, impish smile makes me nod and smile back at him. He leans in with a low whisper, “Besides, I would totally flirt with you, but my heart belongs to another. Royce knows that, so I’m not at all hitting on you like he did last night in the limo.” He jerks his head toward Royce.
“Piss-off, Adam. I was protecting the entire band. Testing her. Damn, you’re annoying.”
Adam wrinkles his nose, those lion’s eyes dancing with more amusement. “Do you think because Royce is the baby’s daddy, the baby’s first words will be pure profanity?” He glances worriedly into the crib. “Is that possible she’s absorbing his bad vocabulary even now, while she’s asleep?”
“It’s possible. But, it only takes a little effort to change your ways. Babies are forgiving.” I’ve said all that in a joking tone, but hopefully Royce has absorbed my real meaning.
This guy needs to try.
“Royce did you catch that? Robin the little nanny girl finds you redeemable despite how you may have already messed up parts of the baby’s mind.”
“Adam. Shut. The. Hell. Up. Let’s go.”
The baby startles at the sound of Royce’s voice, and when it appears she needs help to settle, I scoop her into my arms.
“Oh great,” I hear Royce muttering. “We just got her to sleep and now she’s up again?”
“I’ve got this. No need to run to your own child,” I call over my shoulder, but the only response I get is the stiffening of his shoulders. I grab a soft pink blanket to tuck around the baby’s legs, bring her close, and start rocking her back and forth. It only takes a couple of seconds before she quiets and is staring up at me with her gorgeous, round, laser-be
am-blue eyes.
“Hello, little one. Aww. Wow, you’re so cute,” I whisper, forgetting all about Royce and Adam for a moment. As the weight and warmth of the baby settles into my arms I can’t help but hug her close and sigh against her soft cheek. “Oh…gosh…this baby is astonishingly perfect.” I breathe her in, letting the ginger fluff of her hair that Adam seems obsessed with tickle my face. “Whatever soap you’re using is the best. She’s like taffy, or vanilla or sunshine or, I don’t know. But her tiny ears and her tiny nose and all of her…tiny self, seems almost edible, doesn’t she?”
“Aw. You’ve made her smile.” Adam’s peering at the baby too.
I see Royce turn toward me out of the corner of my eye saying, “See? She’s got it dialed. I’m out.”
When I look up Royce is gone but when the baby grins up at me again, this time adding in a little gurgle, I have to laugh quietly. “Oh, that’s how you’ll get my heart, huh? Can you believe she’s only been alive a few months and she’s already so powerful? All it took was one tiny smile and now she owns me,” I say to Adam.
“She owns all of us. It’s a relief to know the baby will be in good hands. Thank you,” Adam walks toward the door.
“Shouldn’t the baby’s father be saying those words to me?”
Adam turns back, frowning. “Don’t think too badly of him. The guy will need time. It’s all been a bit of a shock. Babies are scary, you know? Especially surprise babies.”
“They are not. And this little one, she’s more than a baby to him. She’s his daughter and she needs him to step up fast.”
“He will.” He points at the empty doorway and then back at the baby. “Try to understand that you’ve walked right into the middle of a tornado. Literally and figuratively. We have lots of those. Weekly. Daily. Hourly.” He points around the messy room. “We live in this constant, spinning state of being, all while things out of our control circle around us like vultures or anvils waiting to drop. This time there’s a baby to protect and so much shuffling has happened underneath our feet that it’s madness going on here. Royce is always the one who thinks he can put our Humpty Dumpty cracks back together, only this time he can’t figure out a good plan. Let him catch up on sleep, and you can get to know him better. You’ll see. He’s not a bad guy. Who knows—you might even like Royce one day. We all love him, so how bad could he be?”
