Page 34 of Worst Nanny Ever (Babes of Brewing #2)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

TRAVIS

It’s a chilly day, but sweat drips down my neck as the group near the front of the crowd starts up a chant: “Ships, Ships, Ships Ahoy!”

It’s like they stepped out of a nightmare.

Six of them are in sailor dresses. A couple of these women are older, maybe in their sixties, probably fans of the original movies when they aired.

All of them have their hair in pigtails.

Maybe it’s my imagination, but one of the older women looks like she has a Ships Ahoy –themed tattoo sleeve.

My father seems to be winking at me from her arm, promising me I can never move beyond his legacy.

Why are they here? When I checked the forum this morning, the post I’d asked the moderator to remove was gone. I assume the woman from the toy shop took my message to heart, too, because she’s not with them.

And yet, here they are anyway, making a spectacle. A few minutes ago, one of them threw her bra at me. It skidded across my arm before landing on my cymbal.

I picked it up with my drumstick and made a show of twirling it around before throwing it back into the crowd, but my pulse was pounding in my ears.

Worse: I jacked up my back last night when Hannah and I fell, so I’m in mental and physical pain.

I don’t like this.

I don’t like it one bit.

Especially since I’ve seen plenty of cameras in the crowd, and I know this will end up all over social media. The more posts there are, the more likely it is that Lilah will see them.

My custody of my kid could be threatened by a bunch of grown women dressed in skimpy sailor dresses in November.

More sweat drips down my hair, plastering it to my head as Rob sings “Hot Honey.”

Neither he nor Bix seem too bothered by the sailor crew, but then, these women aren’t here for them. They came for me. To watch me. To catcall me. To photograph me.

This is hell, but maybe I deserve a place in it for what I did to Hannah last night.

I couldn’t sleep last night, tossing and turning as I thought about the way she’d felt and tasted. I smelled her on my pillow, on myself , because I couldn’t bear to take a shower and wash off the scent of her.

So after a while I got out of bed, poured myself a drink, and stayed awake, stewing in my dissatisfaction with myself.

I’ve never met someone who was so afraid to live .

Hannah’s right.

I’m a fucking coward.

I didn’t tell her the whole truth last night.

When I first met her, I stayed away because I sensed she could destroy my world the way Lilah had, but it hadn’t taken me long to realize it needed to be destroyed.

I crave Hannah’s chaos.

Before Ollie and Hannah came along, my house was cold and clinical, neat and organized but about as exciting as a museum honoring wallpaper.

For so long, I’d kept my world controlled and predictable, a world that couldn’t break me.

I would never again have to feel the way I did when my father pushed me in front of those producers, or when Lilah sat down on Roland’s lap in front of me, twenty-four hours after telling me she loved me.

I’d never have to depend on anyone other than myself.

But that life was lonely, and I don’t want it anymore. Hannah made my world come alive again, and now I can barely turn a corner without being surprised by something.

Even if nothing else ever happens between Hannah and me, a man shouldn’t be afraid of the truth.

I don’t just crave Hannah’s chaos—I need it.

I need her .

“Row, row, row your boat!” one of the women sings, her scratchy, off-pitch voice warring with Rob’s deep baritone.

One of the younger women shouts, “You can row my boat anytime, Ships Junior!”

I miss my mark, screwing up the song.

“Can it!” someone hollers at them.

There’s a sudden shift in the crowd, and I watch as the Ships ladies are swallowed by another group pushing their way to the front, one of whom turns directly to me and gives me a smart salute. Alice .

She’s dressed in regular clothing, no signs of Ships paraphernalia.

I’m relieved…until one of the sailor-suit ladies throws a toy boat at my head, clocking me right in the birthmark.

“What the fuck?” I say, stopping midbeat, the words clearly audible over the sound system.

“Hole in one!” someone shrieks.

So they’re drunk, too. Fantastic .

“Well,” Rob says with an easy laugh, although I can tell this is Rob, front man, speaking, not Rob, my best buddy. “Looks like we’ve got a wild crowd this afternoon. Please refrain from throwing anything else on the stage. We’ve got everything we need up here, my friends.”

“Ships, ships, ships ahoy!” one of the women screams.

“You might be lost,” Rob says firmly. “No ships here. Only rolling blue mountains.”

Our stage is right next to the river, and a bunch of people lounging on inflatable floats roll by lazily even as he says it.

“But his heart is in the ocean,” another of the sailor-suit women rebuts, pointing at me. “He’s ocean royalty.”

While Alice’s group has the drunken troublemakers surrounded, they’re just standing around them like hall monitors with disapproving frowns. They can’t actually stop them from heckling me.

Nope, I can’t finish this set.

I need to get out of here. But abandoning my drums would be only slightly less unimaginable than abandoning Ollie.

So I start packing up without another word.

“What are you doing?” Bixby hisses at me, but I ignore him, set on my task.

The crowd murmurs and pulses. The energy has shifted, as if there’s blood in the water.

Dammit, now they have me using maritime metaphors.

“We’re going to play the rest of the show as an acoustic set,” Rob says. “Every now and then we like to do something different, friends. Keeps us on our toes.”

He’s doing it for me, being a good friend to try to keep the Ships bullshit down to a minimum.

I carry on packing up, my hands shaking.

I pick up the toy boat, then figure screw it, it looks like something Ollie might like in his bath. Whoever threw it at me automatically forfeited it, so I pack it away with the rest.

Rob starts playing again as I carry the first of my cases down, feeling sick in the pit of my stomach.

I’ve got at least two or three trips ahead of me, and there’s no way Alice, however motivated, is going to be able to get her people to hold the sailor ladies back.

I’m not afraid of fans, even Ships Ahoy fans, but I don’t want to have to physically defend myself against them if they get aggressive.

As soon as I reach the ground, I see them pushing toward me in my peripheral vision.

One woman’s hand closes around my bicep.

“ Ships Junior ,” she croons. “I’m here.

I can’t believe it’s really you. My mom and I came to see you from Massachusetts!

I’d do anything for you, Travis. I mean anything . ”

I tug her hand off, but it doesn’t faze her. She looks like she’s about to launch herself at me. She’s small and blonde, and I seriously don’t want to have to push her.

A huge block of a man steps out of the crowd and acknowledges me with a nod as he steps between us.

It’s Hannah’s brother. Liam’s hair is freshly cut, short and glinting red in the sun.

“He’s got a bodyguard!” the woman shrieks. “Come on, man. We just want his autograph. We were promised his autograph. The last thing we’d do is hurt him. We love him.”

“Who promised you?” I ask gruffly, ignoring the professions of love from a group of people who’ve never met me.

“He talked to me!” she shouts to her friend, her voice rising above Rob’s acoustic version of “Hot Honey.”

“He asked you a question,” Liam says, his voice gruff.

“It was MaritimeLaw69. They said you’d be giving autographs. Can you sign my bra? I wore the blue one just for you, Ships Junior.”

“No,” Liam says flatly. “Never gonna happen.”

I curse inside my head. MartimeLaw69 is the same person who informed Alice’s online group where they could find me.

Did I really piss off Rachel enough that she’d wage some vendetta against me? I had a five-minute conversation with the woman. No one likes getting rejected, but this would be a pretty extreme reaction.

Liam grabs the cases I’m holding and nods toward the stage. “Can you grab the rest in one trip?”

I’ll have to.

I nod to him, then head up onto the stage and muscle up the remaining cases. Bixby is watching me with narrowed eyes, probably still pissed that I’m jumping the shark (dammit, again with the maritime metaphors).

Liam’s waiting for me with the other cases, and when I reach him at the side of the stage, he starts walking me to the lot.

Is it embarrassing to have a de facto bodyguard?

Absolutely. I take pride in being able to take care of myself, but it’s obvious these women won’t stay away if I ask nicely.

Unless I wanted them hanging off me like limpets, I’d have to shove my way out.

That would be ruder than I’d like, and there’d be photos.

The odds of this mess making some local paper would skyrocket.

I show him where I’m parked, and we get the kit packed up in my truck. Rob and Bix drove separately, so at least I don’t need to wait for them to leave.

Thankfully, no one has tried to approach the truck, but when I glance up, the group of sailor-dressed ladies is standing at the edge of the parking lot, surrounded by Alice’s hall monitors, all of them staring at us as if they’re stalkers in a horror movie.

“You okay?” Liam asks with a nod.

“Not really,” I admit, my gaze on the ladies as a few of them start waving and blowing kisses. “Did Hannah send you? ”

She must have. It’s the only reasonable explanation for him showing up when he did.

He nods. “I didn’t get the full story. She talks really quickly when she’s worked up, but some woman named Alice texted her about what was happening.”