Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81150 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81150 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Her question stumps me for a couple of seconds. “Ah… Brodie invited me.”
Chelsea laughs again, louder this time. “Not here. In Brodie’s house. How did you manage the impossible?”
This question is simple for me to answer. “I’m Lucy’s new nanny.”
I feel as stupid as I sound when she rolls her eyes. “Yes, but how? He only ever hires old grannies with smelly armpits and no sense of fashion.” She nudges her head to my shirt slash dress. “I love your outfit, by the way. Very retro.”
“Thank you.” I could leave our conversation here, but if I don’t keep talking, she won’t either. “I may have told a couple of fibs on my application.”
Chelsea almost chokes on her drink. “You only needed to fudge one.” She locks eyes with me. “Your age. Brodie has a thing about not associating with anyone close to his age. He keeps us all at arm’s length like harm may come to us if he lets us get too close.” Her expression sours. “If it weren’t for the courts, I doubt we’d see Lucy.” My heart pains for Lucy. Her excitement was palpable on the short drive to her grandparents’ house. “And I can’t remember the last time he looked me in the eye.”
“It probably hurts.”
I realize I said my comment out loud when she murmurs, “Perhaps.” She squeezes my arm in the same manner as her mother before nudging her head to the double French doors. “You’re being summoned.”
Lucy has her face squashed against the glass, waving me over. “Grandma Stell has a trampoline in the lake! Can we have a turn, please?”
Nodding, I shift my focus to Chelsea as my cheeks whiten. “Did she say the trampoline is in the lake?”
10
BRODIE
Beer squirts from my nose, and my balls shrivel up, when Thane whacks me in the nuts.
“What the fuck, Thane!” I cough through wheezy pants. “You got me in the dick.”
With his eyes locked on the patio doors and his mouth ajar, he replies, “Don’t act like it hurts. You’re either wearing a steel plate, or you’re so fucking old your dick doesn’t work anymore, because there’s no way any man, not even one still wading in grief he doesn’t deserve, could sit next to that for ten minutes straight and not exit his truck with a raging boner. She was practically sitting on your lap!”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
He nudges his head in the direction he can’t tear his eyes away from. When I follow the path of his gaze, my cock assures me his hit didn’t cause any permanent damage.
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
Henley’s bikini leaves nothing to the imagination. It is tiny and triangular, and although I can’t see the back of her bikini bottoms, I’m reasonably sure it is the equivalent of dental floss. The amount of skin reflecting in the patio doors announces this, not to mention the number of dirty gawks she gets from men old enough to be her father.
You’re old enough to be her father, I remind myself.
I lost my virginity at fifteen. Right around the time Henley was conceived.
The thought makes me shudder.
My eyes sling back to Thane when he asks, “Are you gay?”
“No. I married your sister, for crying out loud.”
“And?” he replies with a cocked brow. “Alana was married to a dude for three years before she switched teams. Her wife was a huge loss for all of humanity.”
I backhand his chest. “Stop fucking horn-dogging over your cousin’s wife and get your damn eyes off my nanny’s ass.” As suspected, Henley’s bikini bottoms don’t have a back. Her ass is hanging out for the world to see, and even after telling myself multiple times that I shouldn’t be looking, I can’t tear my eyes away from the spectacular visual.
“Man, if she’s going to show it, I’m gonna look.”
I hit Thane for the second time, winding him up before putting steps in place to ensure he can’t look.
“Henley…”
She tells Lucy to grab a lifejacket from the dock near the lake before spinning around to face me. When she spots my red cheeks and dilated eyes, she smiles the same grin she issued when I checked the flashlight in the top kitchen drawer for batteries three mornings ago.
“Hey.” Her smile is even wider now. “We’re about to go on a trampoline on the lake. If you want to join us, you’re more than welcome. The more the merrier.”
“Um…” Her offer stumps me for two seconds, not to mention her using a saying Stella tosses into almost every sentence. “Sounds good. But before then, don’t you think you should cover up?”
I sound like her father, which doubles the heat of the blood roaring through my veins.
Henley accepts a lifejacket from Lucy before bobbing down to put it on her. Her kneeling position makes the situation worse. It has the hungry vultures hovering in close, desperate for an unhindered view.