The three of us—me curled up in a large box while Luca and Lindsey leaned on it and occasionally opened the flaps to give me fresh air—waited. There wasn’t much else we could do. But the whole time we waited we could hear a sort of frantic activity on the other side of the door. What was Ben doing? And where was the babysitter?
After close to five minutes and two more attempts from Luca to get Ben to open up, I started to get worried that something was wrong.
“Okay, we need to find a way to pick the lock,” I said. “Do either of you know how?”
Luca and Lindsey shrugged. They were in the middle of trying to figure out how to pick it with a hair pin when I heard footsteps approaching down the hallway. I froze. Oh, shit. We were about to get busted.
“You all need help?” asked an elderly man.
Luca laughed, and I felt him leaning on the box as he probably struck a casually innocent pose. “Funny thing is… the client here told us to leave the package inside. Paid extra and everything. But the key they sent didn’t work, so we were trying to find some way in the damn place.”
“Oh, no problem,” The man said. “I do maintenance and I’ve got a master. Here.”
I put my hand over my mouth in disbelief as I heard the key turn and the door open.
“Thank you,” Luca said. “Now where did I put that slip.” I heard him act like he was looking for something while the elderly man made a dismissive sound and shuffled off.
The door creaked as it swung wider. Luka and Lindsey both sucked in a surprised breath. “What?” I asked.
“You might want to come out of the box,” Lindsey said. “I think we’ve been made.”
“What do you—” I stopped mid-sentence as I stuck my head out and saw inside the apartment. Pointy little jacks had been spilled in front of the door like a booby trap. Something shiny was on the floor just in front of them, presumably oil to cause an unsuspecting intruder to slip into the jacks.
“Did he…” Luca started.
“Yeah,” I said. “Booby traps. But we just need to find him and ask him where his dad is. He only had a few minutes, and I’m pretty sure three grown adults can manage not to step on some toys and oil.”
“Yeah,” Luca said. He took one step forward through the doorway and his head bent backwards. A bizarre shimmer of light stretched out on either side of him as a sticky noise rang out. I didn’t realize what I was seeing until a moment later when Luca was clawing cellophane wrapping off his face.
His long, lanky arms pinwheeled and he doubled over, consumed by sheer panic. For some reason, he was doing a whole lot of wild flailing and absolutely no calm pulling of the wrapping off his face.
“Fuck,” he gasped.
Lindsey walked up to him, let him flail a little longer as she gave me a sometimes I wonder what I see in this man, look, and peeled the plastic off his head.
Luca was wide-eyed with his fists up like he was ready to punch the next thing he saw.
“Easy, Rambo,” Lindsey said. “And watch your language. There’s a kid in the apartment.”
We weaved our way past the oil, jacks, a tupperware bowl of flour that sat on top of a partially opened door, and over the string tightly pulled at ankle-level between the door to the back hallway where Ben’s bedroom was. As we got closer to the restroom, we could hear a woman in the restroom grunting and grumbling to herself about something.
“Ma’am?” I called through the door.
There was a sharp intake of breath. “Who are you?”
“I’m looking for Jack or Ben.”
“Ben who?”
“Ben the kid you are probably supposed to be watching?” I tried
Before she could answer, Ben jumped out from his bedroom with another tupperware of flour in one hand and a bottle of vegetable oil in the other. He flung both in our direction.
I saw the slowly spreading mist of white creep toward us and the zigzagging strings of oil leaping through the air. Luca took the brunt of both, but Lindsey and I were also hit in the back.
This was not how I expected my dramatic “take me back” moment to go.
43
Jack
I was losing my mind. There wasn’t any other way around it. One minute, I’d found myself flying to Florida unexpectedly to… what? Have a quick conversation and eat a sandwich at Nola’s restaurant? Then I’d managed to get out of there without doing anything too stupid, like asking her to come back with me.
And now it had hardly been twenty-four hours and I’d asked the old woman down the hall to watch Ben so I could pace outside with my phone in my hand, trying to think of what I could say if I called her. Hell, I’d nearly bought another pair of plane tickets a few minutes ago and flown Ben and I back to Florida.
It was time to face the facts.
If doing the “right” thing was going to be an all-consuming task that turned me into a neurotic mess, then it wasn’t the right thing anymore.
The fact was that I wanted Nola too badly. I wanted that slice of perfect she’d given me back. Those nights where I held her on the couch and watched a movie with the boys in their tent. Or more the mornings like the one when I’d convinced her to let me make her French toast and she’d told me what a terrible cook I was.
I’d been too preoccupied with being afraid to enjoy it in the moment. Now all I could do was look back and kick myself for letting it all slip by. For forcing it to.
My phone buzzed as a text came through from Miss Betty. “Some people are here for you. There’s a mess.”
I frowned at the message. What the hell did that mean?
I’d been pacing back and forth in the alley between my building and the bank beside it when the text came through. It was only a minute or two before I’d made it inside and up the stairs to my apartment.
I took one step inside the already-open door and my foot didn’t stop like it should have. It slid forward on something slick and I landed hard on several spikey, hard toys.
A low, gasping groan escaped me. All the wind in my lungs was gone, and I briefly forgot how to breathe.
My vision went a little blurry with definitely not tears, and then I saw Nola and two other people leaning down over me, trying to help me up. For some reason they were spattered with Jackson Pollock style daubs of white flour.
Once I was on my feet, I pieced the entire scene together.
Booby traps.
I was looking at booby traps set by my son. I had flashbacks to the elaborate plans I’d seen sketched in his notebook that grew every time we watched Home Alone. I just thanked myself he hadn’t apparently had time to set up the giant log that was supposed to swing down and impale intruders. His version of the movie didn’t include the whole non-lethal part that probably got the director past the ratings committee.
“What the hell is going on? And who are these people?” I asked. “Delivery people?” I added with a confused look at their uniforms, which sort of looked legitimate but had a kind of cheap, knock-off look to them.
Nola and her friends led me to the couch where Betty and Ben were waiting and explained what I’d missed.
Ben, to his credit, was hanging his head in shame. “Sorry, Dad.”
“At least I know you’re prepared for home invaders.”
The group proceeded to give me a baffling explanation of what had happened that ranged from bathroom trouble to Nola hiding inside a box. Once the excitement was over, Miss Betty went back to her apartment with a sheepish apology for being in the bathroom long enough to let this happen. Nola’s friends—Luca and Lindsey, I’d learned—said they’d leave to let us sort things out. Ben got started cleaning up his mess.
In a few moments the apartment went from feeling choked with too many people and too much mess to the relative quiet of Ben slowly picking up toys and tossing them in his little storage buckets. Nola was watching me with the look of a dog who just got caught eating the Thanksgiving turkey under the table.
“It’s possible that I should h
ave just called you,” she said slowly.
I couldn’t help but grin. “You think?”
Nola smiled back. “I had it planned in my head. I’d knock on the door, you’d see me. We’d hug,” she added in a very quiet voice. “Yada yada…”
“Wait,” I said. “What is the yada yada part?”
Nola shrugged one shoulder. God, she was so adorably sexy. Those big blue eyes of hers hadn’t left mine, and there was just the faintest hint of mischief on her mouth, which looked inches away from a full-blown grin. “I just know I was pissed at myself for not saying more when you came to the restaurant. All I said was ‘I understand,’ even though I don’t want to. I want you to understand how happy I was with you. Maybe it didn’t last long, but it was the happiest I’ve been in a long, long time. I don’t want to give up on us.”
“I don’t either.”
“And if you still want to—” she paused. “Wait, what?”
“I was outside just now trying to figure out how to call you and try to fix things.”
“Oh,” she said. “So you’re not mad anymore that I didn’t tell the truth about Florida?”
“No. I’m not going to pretend I even understand why it was so important to you, but if anyone should get that sometimes there are non-negotiables, it should be me. I’m the dumbass who kept trying to push you away because I thought I was doing what was best for Ben.”
“Florida was my parents’ dream, actually. Start a restaurant in this little place by the beach. They had a picture they kept of them standing in front of the storefront, and I knew they were saving for the place before the accident. So I promised myself I’d do it for them. But eventually, I realized I was the only one who cared about that promise. My parents would’ve been over the moon that I found you. And they probably would’ve let me hear it for screwing things up, too.”
“I see,” I said. I watched her sitting there with a diagonal slash of flour across her freckled nose that made her blue eyes pop even more than usual. She looked innocent. Strong. Determined. She looked exactly like the kind of woman I wanted to give every fucking thing I had to. To sacrifice for. To fight for. Speaking of fighting, I currently wished I could go back and punch my past self in the face for being so stupid.
Except there was still one problem. Her dream was in Florida, and my job was in New York. “Where does that leave us?”
“I don’t know,” Nola said. “But I want to try. That’s why I came here. I want to keep trying, because I’m not willing to give you up unless you make me.”
“That’s supposed to be my line.”
She pinched a little flour off her lap and tossed it at me playfully. “Deal with it.”
I grinned. “So, why was your laptop really stuck in the wall that night?”
“It was the weirdest thing. I was about to send an email to the guy telling him to keep my deposit, but I was backing out. I wanted to be with you guys. That was when my laptop went berserk and forwarded the first emails to you instead.”
“That was why you threw your laptop into the wall?”
Nola nodded. “Yeah. I had to call tech support once and they took over my screen. Like somebody else was moving my mouse, and it was like that. But it never asked permission.”
“You think somebody hacked your laptop?”
“I have no idea. But who would be demented enough to bother doing something like that?”
We both knew the answer as soon as she put the question out there. Ally.
Ally goddamn Callaway.
I waited for the familiar burst of indignation and anger long-gone-rotten.
Except I found myself not caring. If that was the biggest punch Ally had to throw in the game of making my life miserable, then we’d proven we could take it. Even if it had provoked me into nearly fucking things up with Nola. I didn’t even care that she’d probably renew her legal efforts if she found out Nola and I were together again.
I took Nola by the hands and got her up from the couch. “Do you forgive me for being an ass?”
“Only on the condition that you forgive me for not being honest from the start. And the hole I put in your drywall when I fell in the hallway back there,” she added, rubbing her elbow.
“Forgiven. And besides, you weren’t the only one keeping secrets.”
She arched a nicely shaped eyebrow.
“I wasn’t exactly forthright about being crazy for you.”
Nola’s lips pursed. “Saying something sweet isn’t going to make me feel better about being a jerk.”
“Maybe I’m just trying to make you feel guilty enough that you let me take you in the shower and personally clean you off.”
Ben, who had been out of earshot while he cleaned his room up was back in the living room. He was standing right beside us, in fact. “You should ask him to give you a bath instead. Daddy pretends to be a pirate when you’re in the bath and it’s so funny. He’ll sink your boat and—”
I put my hand over Ben’s mouth, even though he was still trying to talk through it. “That’s enough, buddy. Can you go finish up in your room? I’ll get the stuff out here later.”
Ben scurried off, leaving us alone again.
Nola was smiling wide. “I think I’ll need to see this pirate impression, Jack. Tell me, are you going to come for my booty?”
I knew she was just joking around, but she still painted a very vivid image in my mind—one of her soapy ass bent over for me and her face turned to the side as she watched me position myself to take her.
I scooped her up like a bride and walked towards the bathroom. “Miss Nola and I are going to take a nap, bud. Knock really loud on the door if you need us.”
“Wait,” Nola said. “Which is it? You’re coming for me booty or we’re taking a nap?”
I closed the door to my room and spun her, pinning her to the wall so I could grab her ass with both hands. “I’m taking what’s mine.”
“Still kind of ambiguous,” she said with a half-smile.
“I’m going to soap you up, bend you over, and fuck you from behind so hard I’ll have to cover your mouth to stop you from letting the entire building know how much you like it.”
The playful fire in Nola’s eyes faded. “Okay. That’s a little more specific.”
I ran the shower, then turned to face Nola, who looked sexily bashful. I enjoyed that about her. She could be a flirtatious tease one minute, but as soon as things progressed to the point of seriousness, she was shy. She would hold her arms to herself like she was afraid I wouldn’t enjoy what I saw.
I ran my thumb down her jawline, brushing off some of the flour that was stuck to her with oil in the process. She tilted her chin toward my finger, big eyes rising to meet mine.
“You’re sure you forgive me?”
“The dangerous thing about you is what I would let you get away with. That’s the problem. You don’t make it a choice.”
“I can’t tell if that’s a good thing.”
“It’s not a good thing or a bad thing. It’s just what is.” I took her chin gently, lifting her face up to meet mine. “You make me fucking crazy.”
“Again. Still not sure if I should feel flattered or guilty for that.” She was smiling a little, some of her nervousness forgotten as she slipped back into her playful side.
“That depends. How would you feel if you knew I wasn’t planning on letting you go? If I told you that you were mine, and I would do just about anything to keep it that way?”
“A girl might feel flattered under those circumstances. Or creeped out if she wasn’t feeling the same way about the guy who said that.”
I watched her, loving the way her eyes were almost too big for her face. Too innocent for her fiery personality.
“For the record,” she added in a small voice. “This girl happens to feel the same way about the guy. So she’s flattered.”
I lifted her dress over her head, knocking more flour to the tiles of my bathroom floor. She was wearing a matching pair of l
ow waisted black panties and a simple bra. I had them off her in moments, then stripped out of my own clothes.
I picked her up and carried her into the shower, swinging the glass door shut behind us.
“You keep picking me up. You realize I can walk, right?”
“I just like having my hands on you.”
“Acceptable excuse,” she said, letting me kiss her as the water pattered against her hair and ran down her body.
I grabbed a bar of soap and lathered up my hands, then slid them down from Nola’s neck to her shoulders. Then I circled her breasts with the soap, noting how her nipples were already hardened to points for me.
“I’m going to have the cleanest boobs of my life after this,” Nola said.
I grinned, realizing I possibly spent a little more time than necessary at her chest with the soap. Her body was small, soft, and deliciously slick as I soaped every last inch of her. I was already clenching my teeth from the effort of holding myself back enough to finish the job. She was so goddamn perfect, and I knew I’d nearly lost her.
I grabbed the face soap and when I was turned, I felt her small hands on my cock. I jumped a little in surprise, then looked to see her wiggling her eyebrows. “I’m not the only one who needed cleaning, am I?”
I didn’t argue with her as she closed her eyes and let me carefully soap the oil and flour off her face and pumped her hands on my cock, soaping it thoroughly. She then proceeded to give me an even more thorough soap job than I’d given her, all while her eyes were still clamped shut from the facial soap and her mouth was curved up in amusement.
There was a muffled knock at my bedroom door. Ben.
“Why is the shower going?” Ben asked through the door. “Are you napping?”
“It helps us sleep!” I shouted.
“Why do you sound so far away?”
“Acoustics!”
“What’s acu sticks?”
“Are you bleeding or hurt?” I asked.
“No, why?”
“Keep cleaning. We’ll be out when we’re done.”
We both waited perfectly still while Nola’s soapy hands were on my ass.
My (Mostly) Temporary Nanny: A Grumpy Boss Romantic Comedy Page 16
