A slight smile twitches my mouth that I think she misinterprets, glancing away towards the kitchen.
“We can study in here,” Brooke says as Tinley curls her fingers around the edge of Sadie's crib and leans in to study her sleeping face.
“Awesome. I'll be right there,” she says as she grins at the sleeping baby, and Brooke moves in a swirl of camel coat into the kitchen.
It's like so fucking awkward in here right now. Total bummer, too, since I was hoping Brooke and I would get a moment alone before the kids got out of school. Ugh.
“This is Rob's baby?” Tinley asks as I hand her phone back and tuck my fingers into the front pockets of my dark green skinny jeans. I nod my head as Tinley bites her lower lip and leans in again to run her fingers down one of the baby's chubby arms. “She is so goddamn cute.” A quick, coy glance up from beneath long dark lashes. “Have any of your own yet?”
“Me? Oh, hell no. Not ready for kids yet.”
Tinley nods slowly as she stands up straight, reaching up to adjust the dark sunglasses nestled in her electric blue hair.
“Me neither,” she says as she smiles at me and I try to figure out what it is that I'm feeling right now. Off my game, that's for sure. No doubt about that. But … I've got this hot as fuck chick staring at me like I'm tomorrow's breakfast sausage, and all I can do is stand here and stare. All I can do is stand here and feel guilty. Like, what the hell is that about?
Maybe it's because Brooke and I have an arrangement. I mean, we do, don't we? She was supposed to be mine while I was in town, so I guess that makes me hers, too, right? If anything's going to happen between Tinley and me, it'll have to be in Las Vegas after all this is over. Yep. That's the source of my guilt right there.
“Just trying to have a little fun in life, am I right?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely,” I say as Tinley passes by and tickles her nails down my arm, leaning in to whisper in my ear.
“If I call you when I'm in Nevada, you'll answer, right? Because I'd love to see if you're as wild and crazy as you were in high school.” She lets go of my arm and disappears into the kitchen as I cross my arms over my chest and lean my back against the wall, listening to the slight murmur of voices in the kitchen. Hard to hear 'em over the Bebe Rexha song that's playing.
I smile as it stops a moment later, and some raging metal trickles quietly out of the speakers.
When I swing around the corner, I find Brooke shrugging out of her coat, her shoulders smooth and pale and sexy, a stark contrast to the bright red of her silly little cocktail dress. She looks so goddamn young and innocent next to Tinley's tall, tatted form and confident swagger.
“You want me to make sandwiches or something?” I ask as I lean up against the counter and try to get a read on the situation. This is so not my scene, dealing with this kind of stuff. When your dating life consists of tourist chicks, it's easy to make sure they never run into each other. This is just … a really weird coincidence.
“No thanks,” Brooke says, giving me a tight-lipped smile that I can't even begin to interpret. “We're good here.” She gestures between her and Tinley and then sits down, focusing on the open screen of her laptop like I'm not even there anymore.
I cross my arms over my chest as Tinley gives me one last, lingering look before she focuses on whatever advanced shit it is that they're studying. There's no way in hell I'll understand any of it, so I bail, heading out the back door and over to the tire swing to chill with my phone.
Jude won't stop sending me texts of all the vaginal piercings he's done in the last week. A set of inner labia piercings, an outer, another of those VCH piercings I was telling Brooke about. I wonder why the hell any of these girls would let him take a photo of their genitals, but hey, the man can be persuasive as fuck.
There's a group text about all the partying we're gonna do when I get back.
Strippers will rain from the sky, one of my friends texts and I smile before I frown.
Hmm.
Damn. After seeing Brooke cry, after seeing the desperation in her eyes, I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to enjoy a strip club again. I mean, I get that not all girls feel the way she does about the job, but I'm not sure I'll ever be able to set foot in one of those places without wondering which ones are the Brookes, the sad virgin girls with no other choice.
I sigh and smack the cracked screen of the phone against my forehead.
There's another text from that girl, Kitty, on there, too, but I ignore that one. The little she and I had has run its course for sure.
I check my bank balance next and frown. Two weeks without working is really setting me back. I barely have enough for my next mortgage payment in there. Time to start using the credit card for a while I guess.
Tucking my phone into my pocket, I sigh and lean back on the swing, wrapping my hands around the chains as I swing slowly back and forth, my boots dragging across the grass as I sway in time to the creaking branch above my head.
Figure I'll wait it out here, either until Tinley leaves or the kids get home from school. Then we'll see how Brooke's feeling and work from there. If she's jealous, that's cool. So was I when she brought Dan the Douche home. I get it.
But give me five minutes alone with her and I'll make her forget all about it.
Tinley does not fucking leave, and my day gets even better when animal control shows up as I'm struggling to get something presentable ready for dinner. I tried making PB&Js but that shit did just not go down well. Kinzie feed hers to the dogs, and the twins flushed theirs down the toilet. I need to get some food in these brats and get them to bed early.
Sadie's doctor couldn't fit us in today, but we've got an appointment at nine in the morning. God only knows how I'm going to make that shit on time.
Oh.
And one of Rob's neighbors—I think it was actually that bible-thumper, Shiela (out of jail on a technicality)—called to tell him that the front door of the duplex was hanging wide open and that it was a “complete shit hole inside”. Rob's words, not the neighbor's.
So now I've got to cook dinner, get the kids in bed, see if Brooke can take a break from her studying with Tinley to watch them, and then run over there to check on the place/clean it/take pictures for Craigslist.
I feel like I'm about to blow my damn brains out, kind of like the way I did when I first got here. And I thought I was getting the hang of all this shit? Please.
My phone is clutched in my hand when I answer the door, the answers on Google about how to make spaghetti waiting patiently for my attention.
“Yeah?” I ask when I find some guy in a brown uniform standing there. He smiles tightly at me.
“Hi there,” he says as Dodger appears from out of nowhere and starts “dogging” the shit out of my leg. “My name is Christian Gross, and I'm from Humboldt County Animal Control. We received a complaint this morning about—”
Kinzie breaks into a violent scream behind me, shattering my eardrums into pieces as I struggle to remove the horny hairless dog from my leg. Things were going great. Awesome. Perfect, even. In fact, I was actually kind of starting to enjoy this whole thing.
Not so much anymore.
“One second.”
I turn around and find Kinzie in a wild fistfight with one of the twins, pausing to scoop her up and deposit her on the fuzzy pink toilet seat cover.
“Seven minutes,” I say as I step out and close the door, grabbing the twin and parking him on the bottom step. “Four minutes. If you move, I'll know. Remember: I really do have eyes in the back of my head.”
I step back up to the door and find that the animal control officer's already wrangled up two escapee chihuahuas. Dodger's still following me around and doing things to my leg that no human being ever has. Makes me a little uncomfortable, you know? I push the dog away with my foot and snatch the chihuahuas from the guy's arms.
“This is about that garbage can thing?” I ask and the man nods, giving me a really sympathetic look, especially wh
en I grunt and stumble forward, turning around to find a football on the floor behind me. Bella is grinning and fist pumping across the living room while Sadie screams.
“I'm going to the first female quarterback in the NFL!”
“That's great, babe, but please don't throw footballs in the house, okay?” Bella nods vigorously and pounces over to grab her toy.
“Why did I get a time-out and she doesn't?” Kinzie yells, curled around the bathroom door, her butt cheeks still technically sitting on the toilet seat and therefore not violating the rules of her TO. I roll my eyes and lift my hands up.
“Because it was an accident. Stop talking or I'm adding time to your sentence, kid.”
I turn back to Animal Control Dude as Brooke appears in the kitchen doorway looking concerned.
“You know what, just … try not to lose your dogs again, okay?” The man starts to turn away, his eyes telling me that he'd rather be out rounding up strays than dealing with his nightmare. I don't blame 'im. Hell, where do I sign up for that shit?
“Everything okay in there, Zayden?” Brooke asks as she slings her coat back on and shrugs it over her shoulders. “Tinley and I were thinking of going out and grabbing a drink if that's okay?”
“Um.” I ruffle my hair and bite my bottom lip as Brooke stares me down with those crazy beautiful eyes of hers. “Sure thing. What time do you think you'll be back? I need to run over to my brother's place and check on the empty duplex.”
What I really want to say is please, don't go out with this chick. Hang with me, and I'll show you a better time. If I don't spend more time with Brooke, fuck these feelings out of my system, I'm going to be in serious trouble. Like, even now I'm looking at her in those big black glasses of hers like she's the cutest fucking thing since sliced bread.
Brooke and Tinley exchange a look before she turns back to me and shrugs her shoulders.
“How about ten?” she asks and I shrug back, stepping aside and holding my arm out towards the door.
I barely manage to get it closed before a football crashes against the wood and falls to the floor.
“Okay, squirts,” I say as I suck in a deep breath and look at the big eyed faces staring up at me. “We are going to get our shit together right the fuck now.”
“Curse jar!” Kinzie yells, still peering around the doorframe from her spot on the toilet.
I sigh and dig two dollar bills out of my pocket, depositing them inside the jar … only to find out that the other twin stuck his sucker inside the glass. Now all the money I planned on pinching back is covered in sticky candy.
I narrow my eyes and take a deep breath, standing up straight and putting my shoulders back. They might be kids, but they'll get the message. No more shit. I was tough on them at first and they listened, but then this whole Brooke thing made me go soft.
Not anymore.
I'm done with the misbehaving … and I'm done fantasizing about Brooke Overland.
Time to get this shit under control before Rob and Mercedes get back. Because once they do, Hubert and I are so gone.
When I get back from drinks with Tinley, I'm even more pissed off than I was when I left. Not at her, not really. I mean, she saw a hot guy that she slept with back in the day and decided she'd go for him. He never gave her any indication that she shouldn't.
Even as I'm slamming my car door and heading up the front walk to the house, I'm fuming as I think about Tinley heading to Vegas with her girlfriends, stopping by Zayden's shop and throwing herself at him. He's made no secret of the fact that he's a pretty indiscriminate lover. Surely they'll sleep together. And then I will be the one that'll have to sit in class with her, maybe even listen to her stories. But I invited her over in the first place because I refuse to be friendless in this hellhole—even if it means being friends with a girl Zayden screwed in the backseat of that little Geo.
Yeah. I got the whole story in excruciating detail from Tinley.
I shove some hair over my shoulder and let myself in to find Zayden singing “Africa” to Sadie again. It's hard to keep the smile off my face, but I manage, closing the door softly behind me and leaning against it.
When he starts singing about wild dogs and Mount Kilimanjaro, that's when I start to chuckle.
“Hey, this song is a classic,” Zayden says as he pauses and checks on the baby, making a squinched face of triumph. “Yep. See? Works every time.”
Zayden bends down and lays Sadie on her back, covering her with a small pink blanket and stepping back with a sigh as he puts his hands on his hips and glances over at me.
“How was your drink date?” he asks as I move over to the couch and drop my purse onto it, shrugging myself out of the giant coat. “Meet any cute guys while you were out?”
I roll my eyes at him.
“Don't do that,” I say and Zayden raises his eyebrows.
“Do what?” he asks, all perfect innocence in his face and voice.
“That. Act like … this,” I point between the two of us, “isn't happening. Do you really think I'd be checking men out tonight? With you waiting at home for me?”
“Listen,” Zayden says, lifting a tattooed finger at me. “I'm not acting like anything. You're a single girl. If you want to check men out while hanging with a friend, who am I to stop you?”
“You're right. Just like you were flirting with Tinley, giving her your phone number, letting her hit on you right in front of me. A girl you took to prom. Don't you think that was a little awkward for me, Zayden?”
“Look, I'm sorry about that. How the hell was I supposed to know you were going to show up with Tinley Horton on your arm? That's just a freak coincidence right there. And if you'll take note, I did not flirt back, okay?”
“Are you going to take her call?” I ask as Zay raises his pierced brow at me. Mine seems to throb and hurt all of a sudden, but I think I'm just imagining it, pausing as I hear “Africa” start up on repeat. Who the hell does that? Puts “Africa” on repeat a hundred times and sings it off-key like that? “When she's in Vegas, are you going to fuck her?”
“I have no fucking clue,” Zayden says and I feel my hands curl into fists. The way he's looking at me, like my feelings aren't his problem, is heartbreaking. I get that this thing between us is temporary, that we were both using each other, but wow. If I needed a memo from him to remind me that he doesn't care, I'm getting it now. “What does it matter?”
“Don't you have to stop by your brother's place?” I ask as I move around the couch and grab the baby monitor off the coffee table. “I'll be asleep when you get back, so maybe you should stay on the couch?”
“Brooke,” Zayden starts, but I'm already on my way up the stairs. When I hear him following me, I sprint faster, trying to lock myself into the bedroom before he can get there. He puts his boot in the way of the door anyway and pushes his way in.
Damn.
I was really only prepared for one dramatic exit.
“Hey, look, I don't want you to be upset,” he says as I sit on the edge of the bed and hold the baby monitor in my lap like it's a shield. I didn't mean for my feelings to come out. Really, I didn't. I can't imagine that all of the twisty things I feel when he's around mean anything at all. This is the first guy I've ever slept with, so of course I'm going to feel some sort of attachment to him. I'd prepared myself for this.
What I hadn't prepared myself for was exactly how much I'd like him.
Zayden sits down on the edge of the bed next to me, our thighs pressed together in a warm line, one of his tattooed hands—the one with the open book—coming to rest on my knee. The tender way he touches me, and the softness in his voice when he speaks, they almost make things worse.
“Hey, if you want me to block Tinley's number, I will.” There's a long pause there before he digs his phone out of his back pocket and shows it to me, scrolling through his texts and finding the one she sent over to give him her number. He blocks it as I watch. “There. Is that better?”
“It's not
just that, Zayden,” I say quietly, and something about the soft gentle darkness around us makes me feel brave. Moonlight slants across the carpet in front of my feet, silver-blue bars of pale light that just barely kiss the toes of my tennis shoes. “It's way more than that.”
There's another long pause as Zayden exhales and sits up straight, streaking his fingers through his hair. I stare at him, but I don't much feel like looking him in the eyes, so I gaze at the black ring piercings on either side of his lip instead.
“You have a crush on me, too, huh?” he asks and it takes me a second to realize what he's talking about. I've got such a huge crush on you, Brooke. Oh. He did say that, didn't he?
I shrug my shoulders because I feel like I can't look at him right now, can't see disdain or rejection or even pity on his face.
“I like you, Brooke. A lot. More than most girls.”
“Most girls?” I echo, because when you think about that statement, it's really not very flattering at all. Zayden shifts a little and reaches over to touch my chin, turning my face toward him. His brown eyes are soft in the darkness, his half-smile tilted to one side.
“Better than any girl,” he says and a chill chases down my spine.
“Is that a line?” I ask, because I really don't want it to be. For once, I want something that's mine and mine alone. I want this. Obviously, I know I can't actually have Zayden, but … I want to be that one girl, just this one time.
“Nope. Just the truth. Plain and simple,” he says, letting go of my chin and dropping his hand to the hem of my dress, chasing his finger underneath it and up my thigh. Each touch of his fingertips sends my heart skipping and bouncing, until it's beating an irregular rhythm just for him. “I really do like you, Brooke.”
“Okay, so.” I turn toward him, putting one knee up on the bed and tucking some hair over my shoulders. “What does that mean?”
“Mean?” he asks, hooking up an eyebrow. “Like I said before … it means something, but it doesn't change anything. You know that, right?”
Bad Nanny (The Bad Nanny Trilogy #1) Page 24
