Tomorrow night? Sorry, babe. The baby was crying.
Hopefully that'll win me some sympathy points, right? I'm about to put the phone away when I think of that girl, Brooke. What the hell? I'll send her a text, too. She doesn't want a boyfriend right now; the last thing I want is a girlfriend.
This could be beneficial for both of us.
Zay Roth here, from the park. Want to hit that together tomorrow? We'll be there at two if you're down.
I drop my phone next to me and take a deep breath, trying to let out all the tension in my muscles. I'm starting to get there, to feel my pulse slowing, my eyelids getting heavy … when a phone call comes in from my brother.
Wakes me. And the baby.
Thanks Toxic.
I swear, I am changing that goddamn ringtone.
I'm woken up at five in the morning by the twins bouncing on the bed and shouting at each other, the neighbor banging away on the wall between the duplexes. I groan and roll over, putting a pillow over my head and trying to dive back into the dream of me and Hubert, back at our apartment, sun streaming through the picture window in my living room, the air conditioning cooling my naked skin as I pump away at a beautiful girl in my bed.
It takes me a few seconds to realize that I'm fantasizing about Brooke Overland, the chick from the park. In my dream, her body's as soft and supple as it looked at the park, her hair smelling like peaches, her mouth hot and wild on my tattooed cock, tongue playing with the piercing in my balls.
I smirk as I drag my phone under my pillow next with me and check my texts. There's a single emoji from Pink Haired Kitty and a time that I'm assuming is for our, uh, session. The other is from Brooke, confirming that she'll be at the park. I try not to get too excited, but damn. Two dry weeks in Eureka is two too many. Having a friend with benefits around would be a huge relief.
“Alright, you little fuckers, get off the bed.” The boys gasp as I sit up and toss the pillow onto the floor. “Get your butts in that bathtub. I'm not meeting a girl with smelly kids hanging off my legs.”
The twins scream and leap from the bed, falling over each other in an attempt to escape first. I grin and chase after them, scaring them down the stairs before I head back in and grab the baby. Things are lookin' up. Mercedes' parents are stable, and it looks like they're gonna make it; Kitty's forgiven me for last night; and I've got a date with Brooke Overland.
Hard to see this day getting much better than that.
By the time our park visit rolls around, Iiiiiiii'm about ready to blow my head off.
“You're gross and weird. Our neighbor, Shiela, said you're going to the H-place because you have tattoos on your body and God doesn't like tattoos.”
I almost slam my face into the steering wheel at the next light.
“The H-place? What the … who the frick is Shiela?” I'm think it's time for a neighbor to get punched right in the eye for that shit. My brother and sister-in-law aren't religious; it's not up for some neighbor to start telling the kids that kind of crap. “No. Nobody goes to hell for having tattoos. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Forget she ever told you that.”
Kinzie makes a dramatic sound from the center row and I glare at her in the mirror, grabbing a Taylor Swift playlist from iTunes and cranking it up enough that I don't have to listen to the twins scrabbling at each other in the backseat.
I thought today was gonna be great, but … it can't get any worse, right? The baby puked milk up all over me, the dogs chewed a small hole in the upstairs bathroom door, and that pot growing neighbor next door is such a fucking dick that I'm about one incident away from marching over to his place and telling him like it is.
Park day with that hottie, Brooke Overland. That's what I need.
“This is boring. Why are we going to the park again?”
I ignore my niece and decide that I don't care if the kids think I'm cool or not, I'm singing pop music all the way home. Clearly the little bastards don't much like me anyway. Hope they do like P!nk, Elle King, and Selena Gomez … cause that is what we're listening to for the next two weeks.
I pull into a space, my eyes already scanning the park for little Miss Overland.
I spot her at the bench we were sitting on yesterday, her phone in her hand, long dark hair blowing in the breeze. When she looks up, it fans across her face, turning my cock to diamond. Damn. Wow. She has big round eyes, curvy lips, and a long graceful neck. I know, I know, weird thing to check out on a chick, a neck. But when your lips are pressed up against the pulse in a girl's throat, a hot neck makes a big difference.
Just sayin'.
“Let's go, snots,” I say as I do the whole unloading ritual. This time when I get the stroller out, it unfolds perfectly. Hah. See, not all that hard. Don't know why guys are always bitching about this stuff. When you've got Google in your hand, what can't you do?
I run my fingers through my hair and slide my tongue across my lower lip. Oh yes. Brooke looks amazing sitting over there in some kind of loose black dress, the neckline plunging to reveal a curvy set of breasts. I'd do just about anything to get my face down there to worship those.
“Be cute and get me laid, okay?” I tell the baby as a mother whips her face around and glares at me with narrowed eyes. “She doesn't talk yet,” I whisper with a wink as I move past her and find myself standing in front of my new friend.
God, I love making new friends. Especially lady friends.
I smile as Brooke glances up, her pale brown eyes shadowed in liner. Based on yesterday and today, it looks like her style is all over the place. She looked like a a sexy hipster before and now she looks like a pseudo goth chick.
Either way, totally cool with me.
“I remembered the bread,” she says as I slide onto the bench next to her, resting a foot against the baby's stroller. “For the ducks, I mean.”
“Killer,” I say as I study her curvy figure under the soft black jersey of that dress. I want to get my hands all the hell over that. “It's been, like, eleven years since I've been down to the duck pond. You'll have to remind me how to get there.”
“It's been about five for me,” she says with a soft smile, one that turns the slightly harder angles of her face to gentle lines. I watch her tuck some silken hair behind an ear and wish I could tangle it around my fingers. “I just moved back.”
I make a face.
“Aw, bummer.” I snap my fingers when she raises her brows at me. “I mean, unless you like living here. It's kind of … in the middle of fucking nowhere.” The girl leans her head back, the perfectly smooth angle of her throat even more enticing when she laughs.
“That's true. But I didn't exactly have a choice about moving back.”
“Damn. I'm here on a temporary basis and then it's,” I point a pair of fingers in the direction of the zoo, “back to Vegas.”
“Vegas, huh?”
“Yup.”
“How'd you decide to move there?”
I let my mouth curve up at both corners, right into a nice easy smile. Brooke follows the movement, her eyes drawn to my face as she struggles to catch her breath. Yup. Got this one in the bag. She wants me; I want her. What's there to lose?
“Vegas never sleeps. There's always something—or somebody—new to do.” I wink at her and her smile fades a little. Hmm. Interesting. Okay. Different tactic. “So you grew up here? I don't remember seeing you around when I was in high school?”
“When did you graduate?” she asks as she looks up at me, fresh-faced and sexy. I could capture that chin in my fingers, pull her in for a kiss. We could … hell, I dunno, load the kids up on sugar and soda and watch 'em crash. Then maybe I could take her upstairs to my brother's bedroom …
“Eleven years ago,” I say with a loose shrug. Brooke raises her brows and nods her head.
“Five years ago,” she says and then it's my turn to raise my eyebrows. I glance over my shoulder at that brunette kid that looks just like her. Whoa. She must follow my train of thought becaus
e she shakes her head and lifts up her hands, a plastic ring with a candy jewel gleaming from her ring finger. Makes me grin. “They're not my girls. I mean, they are now, but … they're my sister's kids.”
“Ah,” I say as I realize Brooke and I are in the same boat. “Hey, I know all about taking care of other people's brats.” Even better. No kids. Even less chance of any sort of … I don't, complications or whatever. “So where's your sister at?” I realize as soon as I say it that there's a chance her sister could be dead, and I could be stirring up awful memories.
“She … left the country to be with her boyfriend.” There's a long pause before she looks up at me. In the background, a bunch of kids dart into the forest with foam swords and full suits of plastic armor. Heh. “They're both addicts. It's not a good situation. My sister was an awful mother, but the girls miss her like crazy.”
“No dad?” I ask and Brooke shakes her head again, that long hair of hers fluttering defiantly in the breeze, no matter how hard she tries to stop it. It hits all the way down to her ass. It'd be perfect to pull …
“She doesn't know who the girls' dads are.” Brooke rolls her eyes and sighs, glancing over at the blond kid. “Or if she does, she won't tell anybody about them.”
“So that leaves you to shoulder all the responsibility? That's rough for a twenty … three year old?” I guess.
“Close. Twenty-two. I was seventeen when I graduated.”
“Ah, so you really are a smarty-pants, huh?” Brooke smiles and shrugs her shoulders, but I can tell she's proud of herself. I lean in close and let my mouth get enticingly close to Brooke's ear, enjoying the way her body shivers and her hands curl into fists. “So, Smarty-Pants, tell me, what else do you do?”
“Do?” she asks, jerking back from me like a frightened rabbit, all jumpy and twitchy all of a sudden. “Like, as in a job?” I nod and she bites her lip, glancing away toward the forest to her right. It's a protected swath of redwood trees and trails, one of which leads to a hundred year old stone fireplace and a duck pond. The others … well, I've always been kind of a lazy gamer asshole. It's not like I've hiked a single one of them. “I have an interview for this evening. I know it's … weird to have an interview in the evening, but I guess the manager wants to make sure I can actually show up? I don't know.”
“Where at?”
Brooke's cheeks flame as I lean back and watch her with my curiosity—and a few other things—piqued.
“That gas station down on Broadway, the twenty-four hour one.”
“Aw, a Smarty-Pants like you?” I ask and she sighs, digging her nail into the wood of the table.
“I'm getting a master's degree in biostatistics, but I've got a whole year left and the few grants and loans I get won't cover everything the kids and I need.” Brooke closes her eyes for a moment, a heaviness pulling at her shoulders. “I … have a job lined up, but I'd really like to get this one instead. It makes half what the other does, but …” She pauses and shakes her head to clear the thought. “Forget it.” She slaps her palms on the table. “You ready to walk down to the pond?”
I shrug my shoulders and lift my fingers to my lips, whistling for my brother's brood. The twins shockingly decide to show up, but Kinzie … she looks over at me and then turns away to talk to some other girls near the slide.
Oh fuck that.
“One second.” I get up and jog my way over to her, sending the other girls scattering from the base of the redwood tree stump where the slide is located. When my niece looks up at me, it's with a certain level of distaste on her features. I wonder briefly if she's this big a brat all the time, or if it's just me that brings it out of her. “Come on. We're doing an activity, just like you asked. Let's go.”
“I'm happy playing here. I don't want to go meet your new girlfriend.”
“Aaaaand earlier, you told me you hated the park and didn't want to come at all. Now, I'm telling you we're leaving. Let's skedaddle.”
“No.”
I blink down at her in her blue sundress, white tights, and sneakers. Her outfit choice, not mine.
“What do you mean, no?” I ask as Kinzie glares up at me, brown pigtails ruffling in the breeze.
“I mean I'm not going with you. You're not my dad. I don't have to listen to you.”
I stare down at her for a minute and then reach out and tuck her under my arm, dragging her away from the slide while she screams. Parents turn to look, but I'm not hurting the kid. I'm just letting her throw a fit in my arms.
When I get back to Brooke, it's starting to sound like Kinzie's about to have a seizure or something. My new friend looks up at me with a grimace on her face as I try to smile my way through this.
“Maybe we should reschedule?” she asks, and I feel my jaw clench. Great. But I take a breath and nod, trying to talk over my niece's violent screeches. Even when I put her down, she doesn't stop, throwing herself into the grass as I fight the urge to toss her over my knee and spank her. Apparently, Mercedes doesn't believe in spankings. Maybe that's what got the kid to this point in the first place?
“Sure. Um, same time tomorrow?”
“You mean, after school tomorrow?” she asks and I snap my fingers. That's right. School. Blessed, blessed school. Of course, I'll still have the baby, but maybe I'll be able to take a bathroom break in peace. And when I say bathroom break, I mean jerk off session. Maybe with a certain brunette in mind to perk me up a little?
“Sounds good. Good luck at your interview, okay?” Brooke nods and smiles as she moves away and I'm left with a weeping pile of child that I have no fucking clue what to do with.
Fan-flippin'-tastic.
The interview doesn't go well, not even with the blessing of that Tattooed God of a man that I can't get out of my mind. And for some reason, he seems determined to hang out with me. Three days into the week, I'm sitting at the park with him again, talking about something stupid and pointless and fun. It's a good way to get my mind off the fact that … tonight I have to start my new job.
The job I really didn't want. But what I can do?
Panic rises in my throat, but I choke it back, trying to focus on what Zayden's saying. He's surprisingly good at saying a lot without telling me a damn thing. I honestly don't even know any of his kids' names—or if they even are actually his kids. I mean, they must be, right? He's with them everyday.
“I am not a nerd,” he's telling me, but I don't think he actually believes that. Zayden folds his hands behind his head, his dark hair spiked up and pretty in the sunlight. He's a handsome guy, but he's got this silly, goofy attitude to go along with his cursing and his tattoos that makes me smile. I think I actually kind of like him. In a loose, normal, acquaintance sort of way that is. “Playing video games does not make somebody a nerd.”
“Playing video games, collecting action figures, wearing shirts with—” I wave my finger at the black Monster High tee he's wearing “—that on it, makes you a nerd.”
Zayden pinches the fabric of his outfit with two fingers.
“This is not mine. My shirt was wicked cool, but it got baby puke on it, so I improvised. This belongs to my brother.”
“I see,” I say, biting my lip and then pausing as I feel a buzzing against my thigh. I reach into the bag and pull out my new (really shitty but still expensive) phone, glancing at the caller ID.
It's Nelly, an old friend of mine from high school. It's not like we're besties or anything, but it's been five years since I moved away from here. I don't exactly know anybody anymore, and I can't exactly leave the girls alone while I work tonight. She watched them for me yesterday evening and did a good job, so I figure I can trust her with an overnight.
Overnight. Overnight without my clothes on, with men I've never met seeing me naked while no man I've ever actually liked has seen me naked.
My hands start to shake, but I clamp down on the pain, squeezing my fist around the phone. If Zay notices, he doesn't say anything.
“Sorry,” I tell Zayden as I sta
nd up. “I have to take this.” He gives me a sexy little wave with his tattooed hand and picks up his own phone. “Hey, Nelly! How's it going? Are you all ready for your sleepover tonight?” I make my voice sound as cheerful as I can, trying to keep things positive. Letting myself lament the circumstances will only make me miserable. Although I feel like I already am; I feel like my soul's falling apart. Does that make me pathetic?
“Hi, Brooke,” she says, her voice dropping with an awkward sort of regret. “I am so sorry, but I … am not sure I can take the girls tonight.”
I move forward into the grass, blinking at the bright sunshine as I come out of the shadows.
“What do you mean? I … I'm starting my new job tonight. I don't have anybody to watch the girls until my parents get back into town.”
“I know, sweetie, but my boyfriend came home a night early from his business trip, and he wants to take me out.”
“Then … then cancel. I know I'm asking a huge favor here, but I already paid you fifty dollars to do this.”
“And like I said, I'm sorry. Abraham wants to take me out, okay? I really wanted to help, but I can't exactly tell him no, now can I?”
“Um, yes, you can. You said you'd help me out and now I have,” a glance at the time on my phone, “like five hours to find backup. We set this up yesterday, Nelly. Who else am I going to get to watch the kids now?”
“There's nothing I can do, Brooke,” she says in that nasally little voice of hers I've always hated.
“Then I want my fifty bucks back, you hear me? Nelly? Nelly?” I look at the phone screen and see that the bitch has hung up on me. Oh hell no. I dial her back, but there's no answer; I get voicemail. “Listen up, you crabby little cunt,” I start and then jump when I feel a hand on my leg.
“Aunt Brooke?” It's Bella, staring at me with big brown eyes. “What's a crabby little cunt?”
Oops.
“It's a … type of endangered sea crustacean.” I drop down to one knee in the grass and take her shoulders in my hands. “Look, let's … people don't like to talk about them because they're almost extinct, okay? Let's never repeat those words again.” Bella nods, but she doesn't entirely look like she believes me. Instead of commenting on it though, she drops a daisy chain into my hair and then skips away to rejoin her sister.
Bad Nanny (The Bad Nanny Trilogy #1) Page 4
