Nola looked thoughtful. “It’s kind of hard to picture some people as family men.”
I couldn’t tell if she was talking about Damon or myself. The question felt like it hung in the air, almost an accusation. Where is his mom? Was it you who screwed things up? Why isn’t Ben happier?
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees and my hands clasped between them. “Families aren’t for everyone, I guess.”
“No.” Nola’s voice sounded so heartbroken and her eyes had gone distant. I realized she’d taken my careless words in an entirely different way.
I wasn’t sure what to say and found myself sitting quietly, grimacing toward the kids.
“Sorry,” Nola said suddenly. She ran a finger across her cheek, and I couldn’t be sure if she’d been crying or was just scratching an itch. Nola sat up a little straighter, putting on what looked like a slightly forced smile. “You can tell me I’m being nosy and to mind my own business if you want, but can I ask what the story is with Ben’s mom?”
“You’re being nosy,” I said. “But I want you to have all the tools you might need to help him, so I’ll allow it. Ben’s mom is Ally Callaway. And—”
“Wait. The Ally Callaway? The country singer?”
I nodded. “She wasn’t when she got pregnant. She was my high school girlfriend who liked theater and singing cover songs on the internet. Ben was an accident, but I was ready to take on the responsibility and she wasn’t. I said I’d take care of him, regardless of what she wanted to do. And she handed him off, then went away to chase her dreams.” I shrugged a little. “Part of me always wondered if she’d regret it eventually. Want to come back and see how he turned out.”
“She hasn’t even seen him?” Nola asked.
“She does call sometimes. The last time was Christmas, and she wanted to know if he knew who she was. I told her the truth. I wasn’t going to tell Ben shit about her unless she wanted to commit to being part of his life again.”
“What did she say?”
“She hung up.”
Nola sat back, eyes drifting toward the boys. “Poor little guy. Maybe that’s why Griff and him have clicked so naturally. They both got abandoned in their own ways.”
“Your parents…” I said.
“You’re being nosy,” Nola said with a sad little smile. “But I’ll allow it. It was a car crash. I was excited because they finally trusted me to babysit him. I had to beg and beg for them to let me watch him while they went to dinner. They gave in at the last minute, and sometimes I wonder if—”
“Don’t torture yourself with that.” I didn’t remember putting my hand on her thigh, but at some point, she’d put her small hands over mine as well and dug her fingers into my palm. I wrote it off, tossing it to the back of my mind as a natural need for contact when people dredge up the darkest corners of their minds.
Nola nodded twitchily, rubbing at her eye. This time she was crying, and I hated myself for being careless enough to ask her such a sensitive question.
“I think,” I said, talking, ironically, without thinking—talking because if I didn’t find a way to make her feel better, I’d be cradling her in my arms next. I’d be running my fingers through her scarlet hair and across her back, doing whatever I could to ease her pain. “If you spend too much time in the past, it becomes your present.”
She swallowed noisily, nodding again.
My eyes were on Ben, and a half-formed thought made me wonder if that was where my son was. In those moments of withdrawal, was he trying to explore a past he didn’t know? Was he just bumping around in the dark, searching for the half of his parents he knew was missing?
“I’m sorry,” Nola said. “You must think I’m an emotional wreck. Honestly,” she said, taking a quick breath and seeming to calm her emotions. “Most days I’m fine. I just take all the anxiety and sadness and put it into trying to take care of Griff. He’s all I have now.”
Maybe that was why I’d seen Nola as untouched, not untouchable. She’d walled herself off to prioritize her brother. Taking care of him was her world, and she didn’t have the time or energy for dating. For flings. For parties.
I looked down and saw our hands were still wound together. I thought about pulling mine away but decided it would only draw attention to the fact we both seemed to have forgotten.
Then Nola rested her head on my shoulder, hand still on mine.
I stared straight ahead, wondering how something so innocent could feel so good. And then wondering how it didn’t seem to matter what I tried. Every choice drew Nola and I into a less and less professional entanglement. It made me think of two coins circling one of those drain-like objects I used to see at museums and zoos. Those things where you could put a couple pennies in and watch them race around in circles, both moving at their own pace and seemingly independently, but ultimately rushing toward the same destination.
I looked at how her small hand was enveloped by mine and thought about the feeling of warmth against my skin from her leg.
Maybe I was already screwed. Maybe hiring her had been the moment both our coins were tossed into the same circular inevitability.
The moment we both started to fall together. To circle the drain. Except I guessed the real question was what lay at the bottom of our journey? A messy, dramatic break-up that would leave Ben in shambles? Or something else I was too cynical to imagine?
10
Nola
Griff was finally asleep, which meant I had about an hour to myself with my laptop. I curled up on the couch and typed one letter before the search engine knew exactly what I was looking for.
South Palm Beach, Florida Business Park, Unit 4.
I clicked the suggestion and checked the status of the unit. The property manager was tech savvy and had the whole thing linked up to the internet so anyone could click on his website and see if a unit was currently under lease. Ever since the accident, I’d made a sort of ritual out of doing this every night. Type the words. Click to the site. Scroll down and find the same, familiar red letters. Under Lease.
In my head, I stupidly thought I’d know how it would play out. Years would pass and the building my parents had dreamed of renting would never become available. I’d dutifully check every night, and it would always be the same. Then some day when I had my life together and I wasn’t rationing the portion of cereal Griff and I had in the morning, it’d become available.
I’d move down to Florida with Griff and we’d start up the restaurant my parents had dreamed of. There’d be a handsome, mentally stable man driving the truck we arrived in. A little French bulldog breathing noisily in my lap, and a pair of sunglasses on my face. Happily ever after.
Except, like just about everything else in my life so far, it just couldn’t be easy like that, could it?
That little space where I’d read the words “Under Lease” a few hundred times had changed.
The letters were green. For a few seconds, I stared blankly, realization flittering on the edge of my awareness.
Available.
My mouth felt dry, and three years of half-formed plans seemed to smack into me like a bag of bricks.
I heard shuffling feet and snapped the laptop closed.
Griff was rubbing his eyes. He saw me, then suddenly stopped pretending to be half-asleep. I took a wild guess and figured he had probably been about to try to play one of his usual pranks on me. A spider was under his bed, or there was a sound coming from his window, or something was in his closet. Inevitably, he’d try to scare the ever-living hell out of me when I was at my most freaked out.
Instead, he studied me. “What are you doing?”
“Sitting.”
“You were on your computer.”
“Okay?”
Griff sighed, then shuffled back to his room.
I pushed the computer away and then leaned over, resting my head in my hands. Just a few weeks ago, Florida had been one of those dreams that exists on a poster. Like a little crumbled print-out of som
e beach in Bali tucked into the corner of a cubicle. Almost more alluring because I knew it was impossible. It was a safe dream.
I laid back on the couch, staring at the ceiling. I could still remember the faint conversations I’d eavesdropped on when my parents thought I was asleep. Whispered words about the weather by the coast. About maybe starting a food truck if the restaurant picked up and did well. About how fun it’d be to have Griff and I growing up in the kitchens, learning to help out.
Florida was their dream. After they passed, I’d been looking for photos one night and found pictures from a trip they’d taken a couple years before the accident. The one I still had under my pillow was them in front of a vacant storefront by the beach. They were hugging and smiling like they’d just won the lottery.
That was all I knew, but I’d pieced the rest together myself.
They were probably saving up to do it. To buy that unit and start their dream restaurant.
It was the future they wanted for us, and I’d decided at that moment I was going to make sure it happened. For them. For us. For Griff.
Except it had felt far away and indistinct. Now the two largest obstacles had practically evaporated. The unit was vacant. And the money…
I thought about the eleven thousand dollars Jack was going to pay me for my first month. About how it’d only take two more before I could make the down payment for the unit.
Was I seriously going to do this?
But running off to Florida would mean abandoning Ben and Jack. Not going to Florida would mean someone else might end up renting the unit. And there was no way to know if it’d ever be available again.
Dammit. For once. Just for once, could something my life please happen the easy way?
11
Jack
Chris and Belle lived in a sprawling Manhattan penthouse. The evening light filtered in from floor-to-ceiling windows in almost every direction. Despite the large space, it felt full of voices and commotion.
I sat with Ben, Nola, and Griff at Chris’ dining room table while we listened to the racket coming from the kitchen.
“It’s not phallic,” Belle insisted.
“I mean,” Chris said. “I’m not judging. All I said was I’m not going to be the one to eat the tip.”
“You’re a child,” Damon said in his deep, no-nonsense voice.
“He’s not completely wrong,” Chelsea said a little hesitantly. “I didn’t really think of the shape. I was just trying to get the frosting even.”
Beside me, Nola was sitting bolt-straight in her seat. She had her hair pulled back in braids and wore an emerald green dress. For the past few minutes, I’d been battling my willpower not to look to my side and admire her smooth thighs or the hint of her cleavage.
She’s Ben’s nanny. You will not fuck Ben’s nanny.
“You alright?” Nola asked. She touched her fingertips to my forearm, then pulled them back almost immediately. I’d noticed she was a toucher. She was that person who would put her hand on total strangers as she spoke—a soft touch to the arm or the shoulder. A little slap on the chest. It was the sort of thing that probably had made a thousand people before me fall to her charms.
Except, I reminded myself, I wasn’t going to be one of those people.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
She pursed her lips, mocking me a little as she spoke in a deep voice. “Because you look like you have indigestion or something.”
I gave her a look, then shook my head. “I’m not big on the whole family dinner thing.”
In the background, Chris and Chelsea had begun a full-blown debate in trying to convince Belle and Damon that the cake was indeed phallic. For about the tenth time since we’d arrived, I wondered what the hell I was doing here.
“You’re the one who invited me to this.”
Because it was an excuse to see you in a less professional environment, and I’m pathetic. “And I’ve been known to make mistakes.”
She scooted herself sideways a little, resting her chin on her hand as she gave me a look of interest. I could tell from the glint of curiosity in her eyes that I’d said too much.
“Really?” she asked. When she shifted in her seat, her thigh had moved against mine, and the innocent touch was distracting, to say the least. “Everything I saw about you when I internet stalked you made it look like you were Mr. Perfect. What kind of mistakes have you made?”
A brief but vivid vision of sliding my hand up her leg captured my attention. I imagined the hem of her dress scrunching upwards until I felt the soft fabric of her panties. Fuck. I tried to remember how long it had been since I got laid, and decided however long it had been, it was too long. I was losing it.
Mistakes I’ve made? Hiring a nanny I want to sleep with, for one. Inviting you here. Thinking I could trust my willpower. “Nothing I can remember.”
Ben had been talking to Griff about something, but I realized he’d picked up on the conversation and was watching. In a very uncharacteristically Ben move, he cleared his throat. “Actually, daddy makes a lot of mistakes. He always cuts himself by accident and bumps into things. And he falls down sometimes. Oh, and—”
I put my hand over Ben’s mouth, but I could see the damage was done.
Nola was watching me with wide eyes. “You’re a klutz?” she asked, a smile spreading across her face.
I sighed. “No. I’m a professional athlete.”
“Show me your knees.”
“What?” I asked. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Show me.”
I didn’t move, so Nola took it upon herself to take the hem of my pants and push them up as much as she could. Thankfully, they bunched up just above my shin and wouldn’t go higher. Yes, my knees were currently bruised from something I’d done last week.
She inspected my shin, apparently unaware that she’d pulled my leg across her thighs and had her hands all over me. Nola was running her fingers along my skin, bending her neck to inspect me for signs of damage when Damon, Chris, Chelsea, Belle, and Luna came in with the cake. It was Luna’s seventh birthday, and she’d apparently asked for a unicorn. Chelsea had done her best, but I saw now why the debate had raged in the kitchen. The unicorn’s horn had an unusually girthy shape and a slightly mushroomed head. I would’ve probably laughed except I was too busy looking at the way they were all staring at us.
Chris pointed to my leg his mouth half-open. “Are you giving Jack a foot rub?” Chris was standing behind Luna, and he covered her eyes, ignoring the way she swatted at him. “Think of the children, you heathens.”
In my hurry to pull my leg off Nola’s lap, I kicked the table and spilled my water. It splashed straight toward me, soaking my crotch.
Nola grabbed a handful of napkins and started to reach for me.
I had vivid flashbacks to her rubbing napkins across the front of my pants the first time we’d met in the restaurant.
She paused, then grinned. “It was a joke! Don’t look at me like that.”
Everybody laughed nervously, except Luna, who cackled with delight. I was fairly sure she had no idea what was going on, but she always wanted to be the one who laughed the loudest.
I rubbed the back of my neck, then decided I hadn’t just made a run-of-the-mill mistake when I hired Nola to be Ben’s Nanny.
She was laughing along with Luna even as her cheeks were still flushed red from embarrassment. I found myself smiling along with her, once again, and knew I’d gotten myself far, far in over my head.
12
Nola
I was reclined on Jack’s couch while Ben and Griff played in the other room. I’d just fed the two of them and offered to help them with their little art project, but they both insisted they were fine. Since the boys were practically shooing me away, I decided to FaceTime Lindsey and Luca.
She picked up, filling my phone screen with a view straight up her nostrils as she walked on a busy street in the city. I could see glimpses of Luca’s head bobbing in and out of
the frame beside her.
“Ciao,” Lindsey said.
I grinned. “That’s like saying ‘goodbye,’ doofus.”
“Oh. Whatever. Did you want to Facetime to show off how adorable you look with those pigtail braids? Or—”
I self-consciously tucked my braids behind my shoulders, then gave her a look. “I was calling to get your advice, actually.”
“Oh,” she nudged Luca and said something the phone didn’t quite pick up, then the two of them found a bench somewhere and sat. Luca leaned into the frame, waving and smiling. “Those pigtails are cute Noles. Love them.”
Lindsey whacked him on the shoulder. “Why don’t you marry her, then?”
“If I married her, who would maintain the bruises on my shoulders?” he asked, rubbing him arm where she’d smacked him.
“I’m not interested, for the record,” I added.
Lindsey waved my objection away. “What advice is it you need?”
I stuck my head up over the couch, making sure the boys were out of earshot.
“Well, Jack invited me to this dinner three nights ago. I thought it went pretty well, and I don’t know. Maybe I was thinking he might actually be starting to show some interest in me. You know, beyond the whole nanny thing. But ever since the dinner he’s hardly said a word to me. The last three days I showed up to watch Ben and he basically makes sure I have what I need then rushes out the door for practice or meetings.”
Luca nodded. His eyes had narrowed to slits, and he looked at Lindsey, who nodded as well.
“What?” I asked. “What does all that nodding mean?”
Lindsey let out a sigh like she was about to explain something very simple to someone very dense. “He’s running from his feelings. This guy, he’s the strong silent type, right?”
“I guess, yeah?”
“It’s typical,” Luca said, nodding once again.
My (Mostly) Temporary Nanny: A Grumpy Boss Romantic Comedy Page 4
