Page 16 of Worst Nanny Ever (Babes of Brewing #2)
CHAPTER ELEVEN
TRAVIS
Every day, the house feels more and more like it’s Hannah’s as much as mine.
It still smells like her. The furniture has been pushed out of alignment, and my Netflix profile has been skewed so badly it’s recommending dating shows about couples who meet in darkened rooms and, worse, tacky movies inspired by our watching history, i.e. , Ships Ahoy .
On Halloween, we have a thin crowd at The Missing Beat since most of the kids were out carousing, but we have ourselves a little party and teach the kids who showed how to play “Monster Mash.”
When I get home at around six, there’s a note waiting for me on the counter:
He couldn’t wait anymore, so I’m bringing him in search of full-size candy bars. JOIN US. –H
I text Hannah, and she sends me a pin of their location and a warning:
You better be in a costume.
I glance down at my outfit. Black button-down.
Jeans. I’m tempted to just meet them as I am, maybe bring my sticks and say I’m a drummer, but I don’t want to disappoint her.
So I head into my room and rummage through my drawers until I find the red-striped fisherman sweater my sister gave me for Christmas last year.
With the addition of the black-framed glasses I wore all of twice before switching to contacts, I’m the guy from Where’s Waldo?
Ten minutes later, I jog around a corner, toward the latest pin she sent, and there they are?—
For a second, I stop in my tracks and stare at them.
Hannah looks like she flew out of a fairy tale.
She’s wearing a blue dress with petticoats beneath and iridescent wings, and her face is made up with sparkly makeup.
Her arm is wrapped around my son, who’s in his scientist outfit.
They’re both laughing, and he’s holding an enormous pillowcase weighed down with candy.
My pillowcase.
But I don’t even care.
They’re beautiful, and for a second I think about turning and blending into the night. Because I don’t want to do anything to destroy their fun. But then Hannah spots me, and her whole face lights up in a way that radiates through me, like some chain reaction Scientist Ollie should study.
“We found you,” she says, laughing and hurrying Ollie toward me.
“We found you!” she repeats, her face alight and gorgeous, and for a second, it feels like those words have a deeper meaning.
But the moment slips away as she bumps my shoulder gently, her sparkles attaching to me.
“You’ll need to do better than that to evade me, Waldo. ”
As if anyone would want to run away from her.
We keep trick-or-treating, even though Ollie has more candy than he can probably eat in a year, because there’s a look of pure happiness on his face I want to keep there.
I want to forget that later I’m going to have to hide the candy and parcel it out so he won’t go into a sugar coma.
But right now, at this moment, all I want is to live in this magic place.
Of course, the night ends, as all nights do, and the next day streams past, afternoon bleeding into evening.
I get home late, after Rob, Bixby, and I auditioned a fourth guy.
He didn’t play well with us, and Rob called the producer, Frank, to let him know we’re getting nowhere and won’t have a fourth in time for the New Belgium show on Saturday.
He gave us a one-week extension, which wasn’t as much of a comfort as he seemed to think it should be.
To top it off, my anxiety seems to be popping off in new and unpredictable ways.
I saw someone in a sailor suit earlier, and for a minute, I had myself convinced they were following me around, as if one of the extras from a Ships Ahoy movie stepped out of the TV to stalk me.
The obvious explanation is that Halloween just passed, and someone’s trying to make the party last a little longer, but it still gave me goose bumps.
Sighing, I walk inside the house as noiselessly as possible.
Ollie must be in bed by now, given the hour, and I can hear one of Hannah’s dating shows playing quietly in the living room— the guy’s asking the woman if she likes French kissing, as if anyone calls it French kissing anymore instead of just regular kissing.
A stack of mail is waiting on the hall table, but it all looks like junk other than a thick manila card envelope—probably some kind of greeting card from my mother. I grab it and slide a finger under the seal as I head toward the living room.
Just as I’m rounding the corner, Hannah laughs at the TV, lifting a Sprite toward it. “You, sir, are a dipshit.”
I laugh as I finish opening the envelope—and stop laughing abruptly when it explodes glitter into my face. I shout a word that rhymes with duck, Hannah drops the can, spilling soda all over herself, and I throw the exploded letter.
“What the hell?” I sputter as she sets the can on the table and switches of the TV.
She turns to face me, and my mouth practically falls open like a cartoon character’s. The soda must have been nearly full, because her white shirt is plastered to the red bra beneath it.
“You’re . . . wet,” I say thickly. I only find the willpower to look up when she starts laughing
“And you’re covered in glitter.” She laughs harder, leaning forward, which only presses her tits harder against the wet shirt, as if they’d like to break through it and say hello.
Damn it. I make myself look away and reach down to pick up the offending envelope, which is still full of rainbow glitter. A paper note is tucked inside it, along with the clever mechanism that attacked me with glitter.
If it makes you feel any better, we sent one to Roland too. –XOXO Hannah and Ollie.
Annoyance slices through my Hannah haze.
“You did this?” I ask, shaking the envelope at her. Another handful of glitter comes trailing out of it like snow. Great. I’m going to have to clean this up, and it’s going to take forever to get it all out of the rug.
“Hannah,” I growl.
“I’ll clean it up,” she says and gets up off the couch, lifting both hands in the air. “I promise.” Glancing back, she takes in the trail of spilled soda on the couch cushion. “And that.”
I shake my head, and glitter sprays from me like I’m a unicorn. “The way you cleaned the undersides of all the cushions? Because, if so, I’ll have to turn down your very generous offer.”
Her lips teeter upward as she fights a smile and loses. “I thought you hadn’t noticed.”
“I notice everything you do.” I didn’t mean it to come out like an accusation, but she’s closer now, her bra so vivid against the white of her shirt.
I want to nuzzle my head against her chest to give her some of the glitter she wanted, but I shove that thought down and say through clenched teeth, “Let me get you a towel.”
“I can get my own towel.” She reaches out and runs her finger over my eyebrow, coming away with glitter. “You’re probably going to need to take a shower. It’s too bad you already opened it. I was hoping Ollie would be around when it happened.”
First she flooded my house with her scent, making me think of her anytime I do anything.
Then she messed up my Netflix queue instead of using her own profile.
And now she’s annoyed because I got blasted by glitter at the wrong time?
Anger pushes through me—the kind of anger that usually steers me straight to the music room to play.
“You’re upset because I opened the glitter bomb you ordered for me, your boss , at the wrong time? I should fire you.”
She stands her ground, holding my gaze. “Just when I thought we were becoming friends.”
Her words prick my anger like it’s a thin balloon, but I try to press a finger over the puncture and hold onto it. If I’m pissed off, at least I won’t do something totally insane like kiss her. “You work for me.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Would you like me to call you boss man from now on? Or maybe Mr. Thomas?”
“How about sir?” I ask, part joking and part pissed .
“Why, Mr. Sir, all you had to do was ask.” She brushes some glitter off my shoulders. “I am sorry. Ollie was feeling low, and I wanted to cheer him up, but I went too far. If it makes you feel better, I paid for it. I didn’t use the emergency credit card.”
“You sent one to Roland too?”
She nods, her gaze holding mine. “Along with some other stuff.”
I gesture for her to go on.
“I didn’t do anything bad. There was the glitter bomb, of course, and I got him some shitty magazine and catalog subscriptions, signed him up for spam mail, and sent him insulting cookies.”
“Insulting cookies, huh?” I ask, trying not to smile.
“ Very insulting. I have high hopes that they’ll destroy his self-confidence forever.”
“That’s a big ask for a cookie. You think he’ll need to put on reading glasses to read the messages?”
“Hopefully not before he gets an eyeful of glitter.”
“And you did this out of loyalty to Ollie,” I ask, my feelings still on a roller coaster.
I’m pissed that my house looks like a twelve-year-old’s Pegasus party just ripped through it, but I appreciate her devotion to Ollie.
Truthfully, I want to rearrange Roland’s face—senior citizen or not, he’s a pox on humanity and deserves to be treated like one—but I’ve held myself back.
I need to look squeaky clean if it comes down to a fight for custody.
“Of course,” Hannah says. “That asshole cancelled Ollie’s game subscription on his iPad.”
“iPad?”
“Oh, shit.” She lifts her hands to her face and speaks through them. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you about that.”
“Hannah,” I say, frustrated again. “You’re my nanny, and he’s a minor. You’re supposed to tell me everything. ”
She lowers her hands. “How’s he ever going to trust me if I do that?”
“You work for me, not Ollie.”