Page 14 of Worst Nanny Ever (Babes of Brewing #2)

CHAPTER NINE

TRAVIS

It’s Thursday night, four days into Hurricane Hannah.

So far, she’s broken three of my mugs, made slime with all of my baking soda, and turned two cushions over to hide stains she doesn’t want me to see. They’ve been inexpertly cleaned, so either she put in the effort or Ollie’s covering for her.

They’ve also acquired a collection of pumpkins with the emergency credit card, from one so big it could have doubled as Cinderella’s carriage to a tiny, pocket-sized one.

They’re all carved with horrifying faces.

Seeing them on the stoop made me feel a little blue, because I kind of wished they’d included me.

I’ve never carved a pumpkin. My mother always said it was too messy, and my nanny agreed.

Hannah also helped Ollie put together his Halloween costume.

He’s going as a scientist, not a ninja turtle, thankfully.

He looks cute, and when he dressed up in it to show me, a deeper sense of regret settled inside of me.

Because I don’t know what he dressed up as for his first Halloween, or what it sounded like when he said “trick or treat” for the first time.

I tell myself I’ll make up for it by being there this year, but it still hurts .

Kind of like stepping on one of Dottie’s crystals—I can only conclude Hannah and Ollie must have played hide-and-seek with them, because they’re literally all over the house, nestled between couch cushions, hidden in drawers, and on one memorable occasion, wedged into the floorboards.

This morning, I found one in a cereal box.

Hannah has, for all intents and purposes, turned my life upside down.

I can’t take a step without being reminded of her, and everything in my house smells like her.

Even my pillow. I have no idea how that’s possible unless she rubs her head against it just to torment me, something I wouldn’t put past her, but Ollie swears they’ve never gone in my bedroom.

Of course, it goes without saying that he’d lie for her.

I got home early on Monday and Tuesday, just after closing The Missing Beat, but last night we auditioned someone for the band—a definite no, because the guy was high on mushrooms and thought the walls were closing in on him.

We spent more time cleaning the trash can he puked into than we did listening to him play.

When I came home, Hannah was softly singing to Ollie in his bedroom. I sat on the couch and listened, feeling a big emotion I couldn’t put into words. All I knew was that listening to her sing to him shook my foundation.

She emerged on tiptoes and then screamed in surprise when she saw me sitting in the living room, which had led to Ollie getting up and asking if he could have a second dessert.

We all ate a scoop of ice cream on the couch together, which had felt good and bad—good, because it was almost like we were a family; bad, because we weren’t.

Afterward, I walked her to the door like a dog trailing its owner, feeling like a dumbass but needing to see her get safely into her car. Ollie stood in the doorway with me until she drove off, and then I tucked him back into bed.

“Want me to sing to you?” I asked.

“Uncle Rob’s the singer. And Hannah.” He paused. “But I think I’d like it if you would.”

So I sang him one of my favorites, “Here Comes the Sun”—a song that made me think of Hannah—and he said sleepily, “I didn’t know you had a good voice.”

I felt a deep ache settle in my chest. There was still so much we didn’t know about each other.

Tonight, Rob, Bixby, and I auditioned someone else, but it didn’t go much better. The candidate showed up seventeen minutes late, called Rob “Bob,” and suggested we do a group colonic cleanse to bond.

So I’m feeling pretty spent as I approach my front door, bracing myself for…anything, I guess.

When I turn the corner into the living room, I see Hannah sipping a beer while she watches something with a very familiar soundtrack on TV. She’s snuggled up on the couch beneath a throw blanket.

An unopened bottle of beer sits on the coffee table across from her.

I shake my head as I approach her, but can’t help smiling as the cheesy soundtrack crescendos. “Really, Ships Ahoy ?”

“The OG,” she says with a grin, pausing it. “What can I say? You stirred my nostalgia.”

I nod at the other bottle on the table. “I hope that’s for me and not for Ollie?”

She rolls her eyes. “Seriously, Travis? If you think I’m irresponsible enough to offer alcohol to your seven-year-old, then you shouldn’t have hired me to be your nanny.”

“Fair point.” I sink down next to her, keeping a few inches between us, and grab the beer, sighing with pleasure at the feeling of the cold bottle against my skin. “This doesn’t look like anything I have in the fridge. ”

“I brought them. Liam made it. I thought we could catch up. Do you want some blanket?”

She lifts a corner of the throw, motioning for me to scoot closer.

And even though my whole body still feels overly hot from practice, I do exactly as she suggests, moving in close until I can feel her softness pressed against me.

She tosses the end of the blanket over me, enveloping us in it together.

I’d sooner die of heatstroke than complain, because it feels good to be this close to her.

“Oooh, you’re warm,” she says, snuggling closer.

I shift my focus to the beer bottle, needing to latch onto something other than the feeling of her body against me. Lifting it, I ask, “Does this mean you’ve been talking to Liam? He said you’d had some kind of disagreement.”

It’s none of my business, but I can’t deny that I care. My sister and I aren’t close, but we were stuck in the trenches together, bonded because of it. I don’t want Hannah to lose her connection with her brother.

She shrugs. “We’ve texted. He dropped it off at my place yesterday while I was over here. I got to it before my neighbors did.”

I pause, digesting this. “What happened between you two?”

She grins. “Look at you. My nosiness is rubbing off.”

“So you only have yourself to blame.”

Sighing, she says, “Okay, fine. He was seeing one of my friends who worked at Big Catch with us. I warned Margaret it was going to end badly, and it did. She did some not-very-professional things, and I had to fire her. It was this big, awful mess. It’s been hard to move on.”

“She blamed you,” I conclude, feeling her hurt, even though she’s clearly dug it down deep and refused to put up a makeshift gravestone.

I feel pissed at this woman I’ve never met, and also at Hannah’s brother, for putting her in such a twisted situation to begin with.

Not my place to care, but there it is. She deserved more from them.

“Yeah,” she says with a sigh, running a finger distractedly around the mouth of her beer bottle. “So did all of our mutual friends.”

“Mustn’t be very good friends. You know, I have this theory about friends…”

She turns to get a more direct look at me, her knee brushing against me. “Oh yeah? Enlighten me, Travis.”

“Some of them are meant to stick around, and others pass through our lives to teach us something.”

“Sounds narcissistic.”

I can’t help but smile. “Maybe. But it’s true for everyone.”

“So what should I learn from what Margaret did?”

“That you’re fair, but not everyone is. Anyway, sometimes bad things lead to good ones. You met Sophie and Briar just after that. You might not have become as close if you were still spending all your downtime with Margaret.”

She opens her mouth to speak, then shuts it again before she gives me one of her big grins. “Admit it. Did you steal your wisdom from a fortune cookie factory?”

She’s not the only one who recognizes deflections, but I go along with it, smiling.

“You caught me.” I nod to the bottle in her hand.

“So you want us to drink from these unlabeled bottles that may have been made by the brother you’re fighting with or a stranger with a thing for strychnine. Either way, we could be in trouble.”

She looks at me as she lifts her bottle to her pink lips, wrapping them around the opening. I watch as she drinks deeply and then lowers the bottle. She gestures to the other beer. “Live dangerously, Travis.”

I’d like to pull her to me and taste the beer from her lips.

This attraction is becoming…uncomfortable. While she was of f-limits before because of her friendship with Sophie, now she’s extra off-limits.

By Norland College standards, Hannah Moroney might be the worst nanny ever, but she’s exactly what Ollie needs, exactly what both of us need, and I’m not going to endanger that. Not for anything.

Especially not for sex, even though I’m certain it would be incredible.

I shift away from her slightly. “Thank you for getting Rachel to take down that post, by the way. I should have thanked you sooner.”

She smiles mischievously at me. “I have my ways. And you’re welcome. She messed with the wrong nanny.”

“So it would seem,” I say with a laugh. “I’m still getting the odd message accusing me of being an asshole, but it’s possible it’s related to something else.”

“Oh, you’ll always get those,” she says, bumping her shoulder against mine. “Now, try the beer so I don’t have to die alone if it’s poisoned.”

I lift my eyebrows. “You make a terrible argument.”

“I was president of the debate club.”

I twist the cap off and take a sip. The beer is smooth and delicious with a note of citrus. “Not a bad way to potentially die.”

“I’ll recommend that to Liam as the name.” She studies my face, her eyes lingering above my hairline, and without a thought, I lift my hand to rearrange my hair.

“I don’t know why you always try to hide it,” she comments. “It’s fascinating.”

“I hate it,” I say more vehemently than I intended—but I do hate it. It’s always felt like a defect. A sign that I’m not what I’m supposed to be.

“It’s in the shape of a heart. ”

“Doesn’t make me like it any better. My mother used to make me spend an hour in her makeup chair before every event so it could be covered up with foundation.”

Hannah’s eyes light up with rage. “I’m a makeup artist, and I’d never cover it up. Never. They’d have to kill me first.”

My lips curl up higher. “Who would give you an ultimatum between covering up my birthmark and death?”

She shocks me by reaching over, beneath my hair and tracing it—just one finger, the slightest touch, but it vibrates through me.

“A true sadist,” she says, pulling her finger away.

My eyes hold hers for a moment too long before I look away. “I guess. So are we finishing this terrible movie or what?”

She stares at me in shock. “You really want to watch Ships Ahoy with me?”

“Not really, no. But it amuses me that you like it. Maybe you can help me see it through new eyes.”

“Seriously?” Enthusiasm hums off her in an electrical cloud. Damn, I’d like to absorb it. To become an energy vampire so I can taste her excitement.

Of course, that puts an intrusive thought in my head about other ways I could taste her excitement, but I bury it and hand her the remote. “Do the honors, Hannah. I have a feeling I’m going to need this beer.”

She watches me with a playful glint in her eyes. “You’re surprising.”

“I thought I had a drumstick shoved up my ass.”

She lifts her eyebrows. “I’ve never said that in front of you.”

I laugh. “You’re not nearly as subtle as you think you are. Now, what part were you watching?”

She gets the movie cued up, then gives me a sidelong look. “How many times have you seen these movies?”

“Probably more than you. ”

I start humming the theme music, and her delighted gasp is more soothing than the beer.

I expect her to hit play, but instead she pauses, tapping a finger to her lips. “I’m about to be nosy.”

“Do you ever stop?” I tease.

“No. So…did you ever want to be a lead singer? Ollie told me you sound like some singer whose name I’ve never heard of. I assume he meant it as a compliment.”

That part makes me smile. At least I’ve done something to impress my kid. “No, zero interest.”

“Why?”

“I like playing the drums.” That’s true, but the explanation feels small and inaccurate. I like plenty of things, like soft sheets and an organized refrigerator. My need to play is different. “I crave it.”

Her lips part, and for a second the only thing I can focus on is the fullness of her bottom lip and the small freckle at the corner of her mouth.

I look away, my eyes coming to rest on the screen—it’s paused on an image of my father in a Hawaiian shirt with what is very clearly a stuffed parrot perched on his shoulder.

“I didn’t want any of that, Hannah.” I gesture to it.

“There were six of these movies, and they became his whole life. Twelve hours of film. It was all he wanted to talk about, all he wanted to be. His entire life can be summed up by them. It didn’t matter to him that there were other people who needed him, other opportunities he could have pursued.

So, no, I don’t care about being famous or being recognized.

I’d rather not. No one really recognizes the drummer.

Rob’s not into that kind of thing either, but it doesn’t bother him. ”

I feel her studying me, her green eyes full of curiosity, the way Ollie looks when he actually meets an equation he can’t immediately solve .

“You’re more interesting than I thought you’d be,” she finally says.

I laugh, shaking my head slightly. “Interesting and surprising. What a banner night for me.”

“Yeah,” she says thoughtfully. “I guess it is.”

There’s a buzzing awareness between us, and our bodies are still sealed together beneath that blanket I didn’t want, which is quickly becoming my favorite blanket in the world.

She’s already right next to me, so close I’m breathing in that maddening scent, feeling the press of her, but it’s not close enough.

I want to pull her onto my lap and feel the silk of her hair against my face—and, yeah, the pressure of her body against my dick—but I’m not an idiot.

She’s not here for me.

Still, it’s the kind of night that can make a man forget reality.

So I take the remote from her, our fingers brushing, and turn on the movie—waking myself up.