Page 19 of Worst Nanny Ever (Babes of Brewing #2)

“He has us,” I say tightly, wanting to push closer on the couch but knowing it’s not a good idea right now. “And donuts are a smart move, Mr. Thomas —” I bite back a grin as he shakes his head with mock dismay. “But I’m surprised you didn’t opt for something healthy like bran muffins.”

“You make me sound like a constipated old man.” He pauses. “Speaking of constipated old men, have you talked to Eugene? I keep forgetting to ask.”

“I did,” I say, beaming. “I’m meeting him for breakfast at the tea shop on Friday morning. He sounds like a complete psychopath, so I have high hopes for our meeting.”

“I have no doubt he’ll come away from it a changed man.”

We laugh and then lapse into a heavy silence.

It’s probably time to leave. I glitter-bombed my boss, then kissed him, then nearly walked in on him naked. That’s a solid day’s work for any nanny, but I don’t want to go. It feels like something precious will slip away from us when I leave.

“I’m sorry about the glitter bomb,” I finally say.

He actually laughs, the corners of his eyes creasing. “No you’re not. I saw the look on your face when it happened.”

“It was hilarious to watch, I’m not going to lie. But I’m sorry the room’s a mess, and that I’m terrible at cleaning it.”

“That’s okay.” He glances around the room, as if taking in a disaster area, then says, “Maybe you can make up for it by going shopping for Ollie with me. I still don’t have enough kids’ stuff around here.”

“You want to go shopping?” I ask, delighted.

“Yes, if I had the slightest idea of what to get, I would have already done it.”

“ The Single Dad’s Handbook hasn’t been helpful?”

A wry expression twists his mouth. “Had a look around while I was in the shower, did you?”

I don’t want to admit I’d been in his room before, so I shrug and say, “People’s bedrooms say a lot about them.”

He shifts a little closer, cutting the distance between us by a few inches. “What does mine say about me?”

I grin at him. “That you need someone to remind you how to have fun.”

“And what would your bedroom say about you?” he asks.

“That I need someone to remind me to pay my bills and go through the mail.”

“So we have opposite problems,” he says thoughtfully. “Maybe I can organize your apartment and you can have fun for me.”

I reach over and shove his arm. “You may be good at playing the drums, but you’re terrible at making bargains.”

“I don’t know about that. There’s a certain joy to finding order in chaos. That’s what playing the drums is all about, riding the line between the two and hoping you don’t crash out.”

“And you like that?”

“I love it. I’d live in that place if I could. It’s the only place I’ve ever felt totally at peace.”

“You don’t look like you’re at peace when you’re playing. You look like you’re fighting. Especially tonight.”

He pauses, and for a second I’m sure he’s going to end the conversation, which has probably been skirting the nanny-boss line we already jumped across once today.

But then he says, “It’s like I’m unleashing something.

Rob calls it the beast. It feels good. Necessary.

But it didn’t totally work tonight. Obviously. ”

A pulse of awareness flares through me, but I shut it down, nodding. “My brother’s a boxer. Liam’s most at peace when he’s smashing someone’s face in.”

“And you?”

Suddenly, I realize the distance between us has been eliminated. There was a foot, then eight inches, and now there’s nothing. Our legs are pressed together in a seam of heat.

“I get involved in other people’s business, obviously.

Being nosy is my superpower.” I hesitate, then figure I might as well go for broke and add, “Which is why I’m going to say you should share your music with Ollie.

Show him what you love, and teach him how to play.

Give him something real. It’s pretty obvious Lilah and Roland never did. ”

His expression shifts, the lightness drifting away. But he doesn’t seem pissed exactly. “Yeah, maybe.”

A kiss-off if I’ve ever heard one.

“My dad didn’t know what to do with us after my mom left,” I push. “But one of his buddies said to share what he loved, so Dad taught us to brew beer. Now look at Liam. He made beer for the first time when he was ten.”

He gives me a pointed look. “This should go without saying, but no teaching Ollie to brew beer.”

“Yeah, yeah, Mr. Sir Thomas . I know. But that’s not why I told you the story. Liam didn’t drink the beer. It was about doing something together. ‘Sharing is caring’ is a cliché for a reason.”

“I’ll give it some thought.”

I’m tempted to tell him to do it quickly, so he can hurry along to the conclusion that I’m right, but I’m wise enough to know that tactic would never work for either of us.

I sigh heavily, then ask, “What was Lilah like when you dated?”

He looks off in the distance. “She was wild. Fun. All in for going on tour with the band I was playing with at the time. We were only together for a month, maybe, before she found a better option. Roland came to our show in Nashville, and he invited us all to his house for drinks afterward. It was this huge mansion with a full staff. Lilah climbed onto his lap half an hour in, then told me she was staying.”

“What a bitch.”

He shrugs. “I felt pretty low about it for a while.” He smiles self-deprecatingly.

“Okay, really low. I was young and stupid and thought it was love. Drank myself stupid. But the next city we stopped in was Asheville. I went to a karaoke bar with one of the other guys on the tour, and I met Rob. This was before he got sober. He was drunk off his ass that night, but it didn’t matter.

When he sang, everyone in the bar stopped what they were doing to listen.

He had this…star power, I guess you’d call it.

We clicked, and I knew we could build something together.

The rest is history. It didn’t take long for me to see Lilah leaving as a good thing. ”

“Because if she went for the old guy’s money, she definitely would have gone for yours.”

He sighs. “I didn’t have any back then. My dad and I hadn’t talked for years, but he died not long after I left the tour.

He left me some money, yeah. Enough to get us started with The Missing Beat and for me to buy this house and have a good chunk left over to invest. But it’s not as much as Lilah would think.

About half his fortune went to establishing a Ships Ahoy museum in Upstate New York that no one goes to. ”

No shit.

“Can the three of us go sometime?”

He smiles. “Absolutely not. I’d rather set off fifty glitter bombs.”

“So you don’t want Lilah finding out who your dad is.”

“Not before she’s been gone sixty days,” he says, glancing back to make sure Ollie’s not listening in.

His gaze has taken on an intensity, a depth of purpose, that makes his eyes look like black holes.

“My lawyer says we’ll have a good case for child abandonment if I can prove she left him here that long. ”

“You have a lawyer?”

“I hired one to get emergency temporary custody as soon as she left him here. He’s a hard-ass, and he’s got a kid of his own, so he gets it.”

My heart swells. Travis might think he doesn’t know how to be a father, but he’s already making important moves to take care of Ollie.

I reach for his hand, and he gives it to me.

Instead of holding it, I trace his fingers, letting my touch linger on his calluses.

“I understand why you hate Lilah. It must drive you crazy to know Ollie was in Nashville all that time, and you had no idea.”

“I’ll never get that time back,” he says darkly. “I’ll never see him as a baby. I don’t even know what his first words were.”

My fingers tighten around his hand as he speaks, and for a moment the heaviness of his loss is a weight in my own chest.

He releases a tired sigh. “And he thinks I abandoned him. He’ll never forgive me for not knowing about him.”

“We’ll see about that.”

He smiles at me, and suddenly I’m hyperaware that I’m still holding his hand, cradled in my lap like a promise. “Are you going to defend me, Hannah?”

“No, but I might want to hold your hand to guide you through single fatherhood.”

“Like this?” he asks, weaving his fingers through mine.

“What strong, rough hands you have, Travis,” I say, rubbing my thumb across his palm. “They don’t fit this whole gentleman-about-town air you usually have going for you. Neither does the way you play.”

“I’m glad you think I have something going for me.”

“You know you do,” I say. “And even though it’s probably inappropriate to say so, you kiss like a man who wants to make it his life’s greatest achievement.”

He leans in closer, and I’m sure he’s going to vault across that line and kiss me again. Right now, there’s nothing I want more than to feel his lips and hands on me. But then I think about that scared little boy I just sung to sleep, and I’m the one who pulls back.

Even though I know it would be good with Travis—mind-blowingly good—I don’t know what would come next. What I do know is that Ollie doesn’t need any more complications in his life. None of us do, really.

Clearing my throat, I say, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“You’re leaving?”

“Yeah.” I nudge him with my arm. “I don’t have the best self-control tonight either, so I think I’d better go home and get out my little silicone friend.”

“Come on,” he groans. “This is hard enough.”

I reach over and trace his birthmark with my finger. “It can always get harder, Travis.”

Then I kiss him on the cheek and make my exit, stepping over the glitter mess.

“I actually don’t think it could get any harder,” he calls after me.

I smile, but I don’t let myself look back.