Bad Nanny (The Bad Nanny Trilogy #1)(44)

“Nope. Cross my heart and hope to bleed, baby.” I pucker my lips at that and take a tentative lick of my ice cream. “But I didn't fly. My dick brother made me drive. Neither one of us had the money for a plane ticket. I blew all of mine on a collector's edition computer game and a crazy three day weekend with some pink haired chick named Kitty. We drank and ate ourselves to death. Oh, and fucked. There was plenty of that, too.”

“I really don't want to hear about you sleeping with other girls, but thanks for offering up the info.” Zayden laughs at me and his ice cream splats to the table, topples right off his cone and lands in a rainbow splotch.

“Oops,” he says and I wrinkle my nose as he scoops it up in his hand and plops it right back on top of the cone. “Three second rule.”

“That's disgusting,” I say, but I'm laughing because this guy is like a caricature of a human being, and I can't help myself. He's so … weird. But kind of cool, too. Like, he looks like every stereotypical bad boy ever, but he's sort of … nice? I always wondered how all those dickhead bad boys in books and movies got laid. Who wants to sleep with some piece of shit, like that big time rock star everyone's obsessed with right now. What's his name? Turner Campbell, from that band Indecency. Nobody in their right mind would actually date someone like that. But I get it now. Like Zay said, more flies with honey. He's got the look, and he's friendly and open. Can't beat that I suppose.

“It's only gross if you think about it,” he says as he whips his tongue through the sherbet and smiles at me. He smiles a lot. I like that. I could use more smiles in my life. Until he flies back to Vegas at the end of next week. Stop letting him charm your pants off and remember that.

Right.

Las Vegas.

“If you're for real, and you're actually helping me out because you have a—what did you call it—white knight complex? If that's what's really happening then … thank you.” I make myself sit up straight and take a deep breath. “Seriously. I would've been screwed without you.”

“No problem, Smarty-Pants. No thanks necessary. Remember, you don't owe people shit, okay?”

“Sure.” I lick my ice cream and listen to the jazz music simmering around me. I want to stay in here forever. The last thing I want to do tonight is head over to the Top Hat and take my clothes off. Long term, this could kill me. But I won't let it. I'm going to stay strong because I have to be. “So you'll be here for a little while? I mean, just so I can figure out who to get to watch the kids.”

“Sure thing. You've got me for eight more days, Brooke Overland.”

Eight days.

I didn't think that was nearly long enough to lose my heart.

Frankly, it was about six days too many.





Busted, baby.

I guess I feel relieved that Brooke knows I'm not actually a nanny, but at this point the chances of getting her to relax and fall into bed with me again are pretty slim. Oh well. I peel some chewing gum out of what little hair this ugly gray and white dog has around its neck and give Kinzie a look on her perch atop the fuzzy pink toilet seat.

“Dude, you are so in much freaking trouble right now.”

“You're going to the H-place for licking other grown-up's privates in the shower. God doesn't approve of that. That's what Shiela told me.”

“Um, what? That's weirdly specific.” I stand up and wad the gum up between my fingers. Fuckin' gross, man. “Where did you hear that?”

“I saw mom and dad doing that in the shower when they thought I was sleeping. I picked the lock and everything.”

I try not to be really disturbed by that, but shit. I'm creeped the hell out.

“Okay, stop picking locks on the bathroom door unless an adult asks for your help getting the twins out. People deserve privacy in the bathroom, Kinzie.” She kicks the wall hard and I grab my cell, clutching it tight in the hand that's not covered in gum and holding it out like a weapon. “I'm restarting the time-out clock. Every time you kick or hit or scream or spit, I restart it. How many minutes you trying for here, sweetheart? A world record?”

Kinzie turns away from me as I head into the kitchen to extract the gum from my hand. It's like, seriously stuck. Takes some hardcore scraping to get that off. I've noticed that with everything the kids spit out, like it's all glued to whatever it lands on. Even the baby has that special ability. How that's bloody possible is beyond me.

I grab a dish towel and head back into the kitchen, taking in the four kids that are seated around the TV, eyes glued to the flickering screen like it's made of pixie dust. It's definitely easier to park them in front of it and let the boob tube do the babysitting for me, but I feel kind of bad about it. Maybe I should, like, try to do an activity with them or something?