Sleeper

by Loring, Kayley

  Because, science!

  Well, alert Scientific American, because I am one hundred percent certain that Shane Miller has just detonated a sex pheromone grenade in my face, and I fucking love what I smell. I’m not saying he’s lying about recently working out, but perhaps at some time in the very recent past he has also worked a little something else out, if you know what I’m saying. And I say this as a professional perfumer—if I could bottle up and sell this man’s scent, women would try to hump everything you sprayed it on. I would be financially secure for life. For life. But I wouldn’t. I’d keep it for myself. Because I want it all over me.

  Fortunately, I am not an insect and my rational brain is perfectly capable of overriding this primal urge to rip off our clothes and plaster my mouth to my employer’s mouth.

  I think.

  Yeah.

  I can definitely transform this primitive sexual desire into sarcasm.

  “Wow. What a shithole,” I say, looking around. “You should probably call your agents and tell them you need to do a few more crappy blockbuster action comedies.”

  He blinks. The corner of his mouth twitches. He nods once. He is not amused.

  “If you’re trying to laugh, it’s not coming out right.”

  “I’m just too fatigued to express my appreciation for your delightful sense of humor.”

  “So this is what you’re like when you’re at home?”

  “This is what I’m like when I’ve had a grand total of eight hours sleep in two days.”

  “Did the lavender essential oil not work for you?”

  “It did, but then it didn’t.” He gestures and leads me farther inside this glorious and spacious house.

  “Wow.” The back of the house is almost all windows, and the view is all ocean. “To be clear—I think your house is gorgeous.”

  “Thanks. I’ll let my agents know they can stop sending me crappy scripts, then.” He leads me to the counter of the island in the center of the kitchen of my dreams, but I go straight to the kitchen sink and the window that overlooks the bougainvillea-covered bluffs and narrow highway and beach and glimmering ocean below.

  “Wow” is all I can say. “Seriously. Well done.”

  “I’m glad you like it. Can I get you something to drink? Eat?” He guzzles the last of the Gatorade and walks over to where I’m standing. I can feel the damp heat emanating from his skin. It’s giving me goose bumps. My physical response to this man is strangely intense, even though our interactions are decidedly unsexual. “’Scuse me,” he mutters as he reaches down to open the cupboard door under the sink. His fingers don’t even touch my denim-covered leg, the empty plastic bottle does, and yet I feel a ridiculous little jolt and step aside.

  Pheromones, I tell you.

  Clearing my throat, I ask, “Can you walk to the beach from here?”

  “Not really. There’s no direct path down the bluffs, so you have to go back up to the village and then down along Temescal Canyon. It’s a bit of a hike, especially with the kids. But it’s doable. Was that a ‘no’ regarding something to drink?”

  “I’m fine, thank you.”

  When we both finally look away from the view and at each other, I see a flash in his eyes of something just as primal as what I was feeling. Or maybe he’s horrified by what my pores look like in this bright natural light. Whatever he was feeling, he blinks and looks away, and any sign of it is gone. He goes over to the island and picks up two printouts from the counter, along with a pen. “I feel weird about doing this, but this is a standard NDA and the employment contract that Margo’s lawyer has all of our domestic employees sign. Sorry—I hate calling you that.”

  “It’s fine. That’s totally what I am to you now.”

  He clears his throat. “Right. You don’t have to sign it now. You can look it over or have your attorney look at it…”

  I scoff at that. “Sure. I’ll have my legal team go over it first.” I pick up the pen and sign both pages without reading them.

  “And my business manager is supposed to e-mail you about setting up payments.”

  “Yes, his office has reached out to me, thank you.”

  “Cool. Also, he said it would be better to buy a car and then sell it, rather than rent one for three months, so someone’s going to deliver a Volvo with car seats tomorrow morning. Hope that’s okay.”

  “Are you kidding? I love Volvos.”

  He manages to laugh at that.

  “No, really.”

  “Well, just don’t go on any joyrides and crash it.”

  “I mean. I’ll try not to.”

  “I’ll give your e-mail address to the kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Babcock, so you’ll get cc’d on their class updates and schedules. Get ready for a stuffed inbox.” He winces and then shakes his head as soon as he says that, probably wishing he could erase that phrase from my memory as I simultaneously try to stop picturing this man stuffing my inbox.

  “Great. And I’ve got Margo’s e-mail address now, so I’ll be sending her pictures of the kids and keeping her in the loop.”

  “Oh good. She’ll like that.”

  “Yup. All good. If you want to take a shower, don’t let me keep you.”

  “I’ll help you bring your stuff in, get you settled first. Unless my workout stank is offensive to your highly trained nose, then I can shower first.”

  “Nope. I am definitely dealing with it. Let’s get me settled.”

  Shane carries my enormous duffel bag full of clothes and pulls my even more enormous hardside suitcase that contains carefully bubble-wrapped perfume supplies, while I carry my portable perfumer’s organ into the nanny room. This room is just down the hall from the kitchen, with an adjoining bathroom. I place the perfume organ on the floor by the desk that’s under the window.

  “It’s called an organ?” he says, wrinkling his untrained nose.

  “That’s what a perfumer’s workbench is traditionally called, yes. This one’s basically a fancy folding spice rack for containers of materials that I use for creating scents. My little fragrance lab.” I carefully open it up on the floor so he can see all of the little amber, blue, and clear bottles on the shelves.

  “Cool. You’re going to set that up in here?”

  “Yeah, on this desk, but I’ll have to move the desk away from the window so the sunlight doesn’t degrade the contents.”

  “I don’t think this room gets a lot of direct sunlight, but I’ll help you with that.” He comes over to lift up one side of the desk.

  “Oh, now? Okay.” I take hold of the edge of the other side of the desk, and we carry it to the nearby wall.

  “We should tell the kids not to come in here. You want me to put a lock on the door? Or can you keep the bottles locked up in this thing when you aren’t using them? I don’t want the twins to break anything.”

  “I’ve found that it’s better to just show kids exactly what’s in the bottles and let them handle them. It’s curiosity and the lure of the forbidden that tends to lead to broken things and messes.” For kids and grown-ups.

  He nods, as if he’s agreeing with me, but says, “Maybe with French kids, but literally everything leads to broken things and messes around here.”

  “Yeah. Your house is a disaster.”

  “The housekeeper came yesterday. There should be plenty of towels in your bathroom. Consuelo made the bed. There are extra sheets in the closet and tons of hangers, I think. The laundry room is downstairs. I’ll show you later.”

  I can’t help smiling. He’s very considerate for a male host. When I got to my brother’s loft, all he said was, “There’s your futon; there’s the bathroom. If you get your girly things all over the place, I’ll throw them out.”

  Shane puts his hands on his hips and looks around, his gaze pausing on the bed for a second before returning to meet mine. “Anything else you need? I should probably hit the showers now.”

  “No, I’ll start unpacking. Then maybe you can show me the rest of the house befor
e we pick up the kids.” I slide the elastic hair band from my wrist and lift my hair up to put it into a ponytail so I can get to work, but a few strands seem to be caught in the clasp of my necklace. “Ow.”

  I tug on my hair and struggle to untangle the mess, but all of a sudden I feel Shane’s fingers graze mine, his breath on the back of my neck as he pushes my hair to one side.

  “I’ll get it. Hold your hair up.”

  It’s a gruff command, and I do as he says.

  He carefully unhooks the necklace and meticulously frees each strand of hair from the gold chain and clasp. I can imagine how patient he must be with his kids. But I can also imagine how thorough and focused he must be with women.

  He may or may not be breathing in the scent that’s emanating from my wrists and my neck.

  I may or may not be holding my breath and squeezing my inner thighs together.

  “You want me to put it back on for you?”

  I nod. “Yes, please. Hang on. I’ll put my hair up first.” I pull my hair up into a high pony while he holds the necklace in place around my neck.

  When I lower my hands, sliding them into the front pockets of my jeans, I remain perfectly still and face forward as he fastens the clasp.

  The fingertips of one hand drag down just an inch of bare skin at the base of my neck and then over my T-shirt between my shoulder blades, making my breath catch, sending a delirious shiver all through me.

  I turn my head the tiniest bit.

  If he doesn’t move, I will turn my whole body to face him. I have to. How can I not, in this moment?

  But he’s out the door without a word.

  Leaving me here with a tension between my legs that may never be resolved, a pulse that has skyrocketed, and my hand over the little gold heart pendant that I bought years ago to remind myself of how important it is to protect that vital organ from the likes of Shane Miller.

  8

  Willa

  “What was your favorite part about school today?” I ask the kids.

  “Lunch!”

  “Yeah? What did you have?”

  “Noodles with chicken bits that we ate with our fingers! And cucumber and carrot sticks and goldfish crackers! And Daddy hid the red gummy bears under the crackers!”

  “He did? That’s funny. What about you, Lucky? What was your favorite thing?”

  Lucky is considering his answer very carefully. “Hmmm. I liked it when Mrs. Babcock tooted and pretended she didn’t. Everyone laughed, and then she laughed too, and she said she had a soda for lunch.” Lucky and his sister both cover their adorable faces as they laugh hysterically.

  “I seem to recall Mrs. Babcock had a soda for lunch last week too,” Shane mutters from the driver’s seat.

  “She did! She toots a lot. But not the smelly kind.”

  “Wow. Mrs. Babcock sounds like my kind of teacher.”

  “Why do some toots smell bad and some don’t?”

  “Good question, Lucky! Willa’s an expert on smells. Willa?”

  I smile, and my eyes meet Shane’s in the rearview mirror. When we picked up the twins. I decided to sit in the back seat between them. Partly because it seemed like a good idea to be closer to them and partly because sitting next to their dad on the drive to school was silent, awkward agony. He’s barely said a word to me since his shower, and the only time he’s made eye contact with me since then is through the rearview mirror.

  “Well, I can tell you exactly why that is, actually. You see, when you toot, your body is passing gas and chemicals out from the belly, and the type of gas that comes out of you depends on what you ate. So, if you ate something that has sulfur in it, like meat or eggs or broccoli, your farts are going to be silent but deadly! But if you drink bubbly drinks like soda, your belly might get filled with those gas bubbles, but there’s no sulfur in them, so when the gas comes out it doesn’t smell.”

  So this is what our life is going to be like together for the next three months. Fart talk. That should make it easier to keep it in my pants.

  “Did you know our mom and dad are famous?” Summer grins up at Shane while asking me this.

  “Yes, I do know that. Did you know that I first met your dad when he was a famous teenager?”

  “You did?” Lucky’s voice gets squeaky. “Did you know our mom too?”

  “No, I actually met your dad when he was working on a TV show called That’s So Wizard! with my brother Nico. Do you know Nico?”

  “I know Nico!” Summer yells out as she flings her arms in the air. Typical female response to my brother’s charms. “Wait. Nico is your brother?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Is Nico coming to live with us too?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because Nico has his own place. And I’m better at looking after kids than he is.”

  “Because you’re the nanny?”

  “Exactly, Lucky. Because I’m the nanny.”

  “Was our dad the same as he is now when you met him?”

  “Well, that depends. How is he now?”

  “Tall. Funny. Nice,” Lucky says.

  “Tall and weird and tired all the time and sometimes nice and sometimes a big grumpy bear.”

  “Hey,” he says without looking back. “I’m not tired all the time, and I’m nice even when I’m a big grumpy bear.”

  Honestly, it’s hard for me to believe he’s grumpy with the kids. The way their faces lit up when they saw him waiting on the sidewalk. The way they ran to him and giggled when he caught them both and somehow managed to pick them both up at the same time…my right ovary wept while the other one shoveled ice cream into its mouth.

  “Sounds like he hasn’t changed much,” I say. “Only I don’t think he was tired all the time when he was a teenager. Maybe we should let him take a nap when we get home. What do you think?”

  “Dads don’t take naps. Naps are for little kids.”

  “They don’t? Not even tired dads? Do you take naps sometimes?”

  “Nooooo!” Summer says.

  “Sometimes! When we’re tired we do!”

  “See. Anyone can take a nap if they’re tired. Even dads.”

  When we get back to the house, I ask the twins to show me what they want for a snack and tell them they’ll see their dad again at dinner. Shane looks uneasy about leaving me alone with them so soon, or perhaps he also does not feel that masculine grown men are allowed to take naps. I tell him to go do whatever he wants, just do it up in his bedroom with the lights off. And then I skillfully distract him from the accidental innuendo by telling awesome, hilarious jokes.

  “Hey, guys—if your dad refuses to go upstairs and take a nap, we’re going to have to charge him with resisting a rest. Get it?”

  That one went straight over their little heads, but Shane just blinks and grins appreciatively.

  “We should give your dad a report card on his napping skills. If he does good, he’ll get straight zzzzz’s!”

  I can tell that Lucky and Summer don’t get the joke, but my delivery is so comical, they laugh politely anyway. They’re good kids. Shane shakes his head, gives each of his kids a kiss and then says to me as he passes by, heading out of the room, “See you at dinner. If you don’t quit before then.”

  “You won’t get rid of me that easily. Hope you get some zzzzz’s!”

  Summer and Lucky show me to the pantry, where their favorite afternoon snacks are kept. They are all packaged, organic, and Margo-approved. While they eat, I take a picture of them to send to their mother, rinse salad ingredients for dinner, and encourage them to make up more jokes about napping.

  “Why did the chicken cross the road?” Lucky barely manages to ask because he’s laughing so hard.

  “To take a nap!” Summer says, giggling. “What’s black and white and red all over?”

  Lucky’s head falls back before she’s even finished the sentence. “A nap!”

  I guess this is how twins tell jokes to each other.

>   After I’ve wiped their mouths and hands with wet wipes and they’ve helped me to put the dishes in the dishwasher, Summer asks for pocket snacks.

  “What are pocket snacks?”

  “Snacks that I keep in my pocket. For later,” she explains, as if she shouldn’t have to explain this to me.

  I look over at Lucky. “Is that a thing?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t need them. But she gets really grumpy if she doesn’t have snacks.”

  I don’t want to wake up Shane to ask if it’s okay for her to have double snacks, and gosh darn it, I want her to like me. “Okay, but just something small, like a packet of goldfish crackers.”

  “But I’ll take Lucky’s too. I have two pockets—see? And he forgets that he likes snacks sometimes.”

  “Hmmm. Okay, but only if you both brush your teeth first.”

  “Why? I brushed them this morning!”

  “Because you ate lunch and snacks. I like to brush my teeth whenever I get the chance. Brushing your teeth is fun!”

  Neither of these two little people is buying it.

  Summer screws up her face and tilts her head at me as she slides snacks into her pockets. “Do you know any songs from musicals?”

  “By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea! You and me, you and me, oh how happy we’ll be! When each wave comes a-rollin’ in, we will duck or swim, and we’ll float and fool around the water. Over and under, and then up for air, Pa is rich, Ma is rich, so now what do we care? I love to be beside your side, beside the sea, beside the seaside, by the beautiful sea!”

  Summer has barely brushed her rear upper quadrant by the time I reach the end of the first kid-friendly song that popped into my head, courtesy of all the ocean views. Without removing the toothbrush from her mouth, she says, “Again.”