Girl Breaker

by Harper Kincaid

  “Better?” she asked.

  “Better,” I answered. “Does your dad know you’re here? I thought he hired a new babysitter for you.”

  She threw her head back while sticking her fingers down her throat, making pretend gagging noises. “Ugh! You mean Ashley Lynne? She was even worse than all the others. All she wanted to do was talk about my dad and snoop around.” Piper shimmied past me and darted straight for the kitchen.

  “Hey!” I called out, not sounding very convincing, even to my own ears. I closed the door, watching Piper toss her backpack on one of the kitchen barstools around the island. She already had her head in the fridge, helping herself to a drink and a snack. I knew I should have objected, but the truth was, I adored the girl. Ever since Samantha had moved out of the house to live with Kyle, our childhood home had felt oversized and lonely. Having Piper around seemed to make the lights glow warmer and the walls cozier. The house became a home again.

  “All right, so she was a little nosy. Was she really that bad?”

  “Ohmigod, she was so weird.” Her voice echoed in the icebox. Her hands were full, so she shut the fridge door with her elbow and dumped everything on the island, immediately rearranging all the contents by an order Piper already had in mind, all the while rambling a mile a minute about the latest babysitter debacle.

  “Ms. Jessica, I know that it wasn’t that long ago, I didn’t even know I had a dad.”

  That’s right, I’d forgotten, I thought. Max and Piper were so much alike, had almost instantly fallen into a rhythm with each other, that it was easy to forget he’d only found out he had a daughter last year.

  “I also get that my dad’s a busy guy, right?”

  “Right,” I dragged out. Her mom, Loni, had arrived at his garage with Piper, informing him she had stage-four pancreatic cancer and was going to die. Her last wish was to make sure that her girl ended up with family, not in foster care. And what did he do? Took them both in, no questions asked.

  “But finding my latest babysitter at the strip club he likes to go to, just because she says she really likes kids is not what I personally consider—” she stopped assembling her snack in order to use her fingers in air quotes, “—a best-practice model for interviewing babysitters for me.”

  “He did what?” My mouth fell open. I couldn’t help it. The idea of the most beautiful and enigmatic man I’ve ever met hanging out at strip clubs ticked me off in and of itself. But Max never did anything without a plan, and he wasn’t careless.

  “Maybe she’s studying education? Early childhood development?”

  Piper stopped assembling her sandwich to gaze at me for a couple of seconds before breaking out in a spit-cackle. She wiped her mouth. “Sorry ’bout that, Ms. J.”

  I wiped my cheek. “It’s all right, Piper. I’m just trying to give your dad the benefit of the doubt.”

  She placed a piece of bread on top of her creation and started putting everything away, another triumph as far as I was concerned. Piper used to leave everything a mess.

  “Yeah, Dad’s awesome, but this chick was sooo not. She asked me a bunch of personal questions about him, kept poking around all our stuff. I decided she had to go when I caught her smelling his dirty laundry, right out of the hamper in his bathroom. I got so grossed out, I thought I was going to hurl.”

  With anyone else, Piper would be right, but Maximillian “Mad Max” Reinquist had this earthy, woodsy, man-scent that always made me lightheaded and heavy with need at the same time. As much as I cringed at the idea of some woman poking around his house, I couldn’t blame her for wanting to take in a quick whiff of him off his shirt. God, I was pathetic, but at least I kept it under wraps. No one knew how bad I had it for Max, not even my sister.

  This conversation was going nowhere fast, and I didn’t like faking anything in front of Piper. She was too smart and too many adults had let her down. Plus, I really didn’t want to think about Max canoodling with strippers, much less hiring them to watch Piper. So I went for the redirect.

  “Will you explain to me what fifth-grader uses phrases like best-practice model? Quite impressive.”

  “Oh please, that’s no big deal.” She blew it off like it was nothing, but I caught the hint of a grin on her face as she put the juice away in the fridge. “I heard you use it when you were talking on the phone the other day. You also used that phrase a lot over the summer, when you first met with the parents of kids you were going to tutor. Hearing it enough times, I figured out what it means and when to use it. No biggie.”

  To Piper, it was never a big deal. It was her being, well…her. But even if I weren’t a teacher—specifically her tutor this past summer—I still would have recognized she was brilliant, as in off-the-charts, so-smart-she-might-turn-quirky kind of brilliant. Max had hired me because Piper and her mom had moved around so much that, even as bright as she was, she had some gaps in her learning. Her dad had good instincts moving them here to Vienna, where she could be in walking distance to a school that was home to one of the county’s advanced academic centers. By the time the school year started, she had surpassed grade-level catch-up and was ready for an accelerated curriculum.

  “So how did you get rid of this babysitter?”

  “Oh that was easy.” She took a bite of her sandwich, then shoved some frozen grapes in her mouth and swigged down the mouthful with a gulp of apple juice. I was still amazed the child didn’t choke to death every time she ate.

  “All I did was tell Ashley Taylor Judy Lynne whatever-her-name-was that my dad already had two other girlfriends and that he never slept with my babysitters and that killed her hopes and dreams. She was out of there.”

  The idea of Max having other women in his bed immediately made my heart drop, like a stone slicing through the water, hitting the bottom with a low, guttural thud. I mean, I knew he did, but hearing Piper say it just made the fact sting, like squeezing lemon juice into a fresh cut.

  “Are you feeling okay, Ms. Jessica? You’re turning all pink.”

  I pressed the back of my hand to my cheek, and my eyes fluttered away from Piper. “I’m fine. Let’s just call your dad and let him know you’re over here. I don’t want him to worry about you.”

  Her eyes widened before she shoved the last bite of food into her mouth. I homed in and realized she was actually focused on something over my shoulder.

  “What is it, Piper?” I asked while turning around. As soon as my body had made a full one-eighty, I froze in place while simultaneously getting even more overheated. That’s because Max was standing on the other side of my glass front door.

  “Gwess you dnt hvvta call,” she answered with her mouth full. She swallowed and smacked her lips together.

  A loud knock on the door made me jump.

  “Geez, Ms. Jessica, relax. It’s just my dad. He’ll be pissed—I mean annoyed—but he’s not going to do anything really mean. Uh…tell him I’m going to the bathroom. BRB!” She rushed to the powder room.

  She may know she’s safe, but old habits of hiding out die hard, I thought. I had forgotten it used to be quite different for her. I tried to imagine what she must have looked like at four years old, with those light-green eyes of hers taking up most of the space on her little smudged face. I pictured her wearing one of her mama’s ratty old T-shirts as a nightdress, threadbare and soft with holes, yet still her favorite because it smelled like her. Piper was growing fast, so I could only imagine how little she must have been at three, four years old, the first time one of her mother’s boyfriends laid a hand on her. It wasn’t regular. At least her mother had tried protecting her, but she had lousy taste in men, and the fact she even tolerated men slapping her around in front of Piper was awful and sad enough. I could practically feel the stifling air of the humid trailer, the stench of the dirty dishes in the sink. I could feel the linoleum sticking to my bare feet as it must have done to Piper’s, who’d
had a hard time getting used to shoes when she first started living with her dad.

  “Gingersnap, get your head out of your ass and open the door,” Max called out while banging on the glass again.

  I furrowed my brows and stomped over, unlatching the locks.

  “How many times do I have to tell you not to call me Gingersnap?”

  I barely had the door open before all 6’3” of him barreled through, seeming to eat up the space around him, making me and my 5’1” petite frame feel even tinier, like he could scoop me up in the palm of his large, calloused hand. Protect me from dragons. Keep me safe from marauders. I couldn’t help but notice how his eyes scanned the room, as if searching for some hidden danger ready to leap out. When he was satisfied everything was safe, those same green eyes settled on mine, burning with an intensity that seared straight through me.

  He had the same effect on me when we’d first met: making me feel calm and fluttery all at once. I had thought—and hoped—it was just a physical attraction, that it would pass as I got to know him over time. I mean, I’d like to believe it took more than a ruggedly handsome face to hold my attention, even if his was a version of male beauty I had never known existed in mere mortal form.

  Yeah, he was that good-looking and it wasn’t in a pretty-boy way either. Max was a composite of polar opposites: sharp, high cheekbones paired with the softest-looking, round and full lips I’d ever seen on a man. He had kind eyes with those crinkly crow’s feet in the corners when he smiled, but their color was this pale green that turned almost luminescent, making him look like some cursed paranormal demigod. His body was all muscle, as if chiseled out of marble from an ancient Roman era, and the skin on his hands was rough and calloused. Yet his dirty-blond hair appeared, fine and baby soft, and the scar that bisected his right eyebrow was worn down smooth and shiny. He was perfectly flawed and barely knew I existed—as a woman, that is.

  “I hear every word, Gingersnap. I just choose to ignore the shit you say that doesn’t work for me,” he answered, not losing an ounce of his power but easing the tension by offering a slight grin. He had a mouth I was trying, with all my might, not to stare at like a sex-starved teenager. Even though he wore a scruffy and slightly long goatee, the area around his mouth looked neat and tidy.

  “I don’t understand,” I blurted out, still staring at his lips. “Why do you take such care to groom your beard around your mouth but don’t bother to trim and shape the rest of it?”

  Suddenly, those lips were barely a hairsbreadth away from mine, the heat of him surrounding all of me.

  “Simple explanation, really,” he said in a low throttle. “I don’t want anything getting in the way between me and what I’m eating.”

  Holy hell, did he really just say that? My eyes darted up to meet his, and I could see he was amused, that he was playing with me, like a cat would a tail-spun, disoriented mouse.

  “I’m sorry I asked.” I averted my gaze toward my feet, letting my red hair fall forward and serve as a temporary shield. But he reached over, moving the hair out of the way. Just the tips of his fingertips caressed the shell of my ear, but I involuntarily shivered and, by the way all the humor evaporated from his expression, I knew he felt it.

  “Don’t be sorry,” he rumbled. “I like those kinds of questions from you.”

  My head snapped up. “What?”

  He leaned his head closer in. “It’s true. I miss the way you said whatever popped into that head of yours. We had some good talks over the summer, didn’t we?”

  Hope sprung through me, a sense of joy I hadn’t allowed myself to feel.

  “We did?”

  “Hell yeah we did,” he answered, his split brow arched high. “Look, I know you only stayed with us for a little while, and yeah, it sucked, the reason why you had to be under my protection, with that piece of shit stalking your sister, but it was always good coming home to you and Piper.”

  “Max,” I choked out, barely able to speak. He didn’t respond right away either, just smoothed the top of my head with the palm of his hand, his warmth permeating into me in the same way, I imagined, the sun’s rays fed the Earth with its light.

  “My dad was army and, growing up, it was just the two of us moving around. When you were with us, it was a taste of normal.” His gaze bored into mine. “I liked it.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek, trying to prevent myself from letting out a girlish squeal in front of the coolest, hottest man I’ve ever met. “I liked it too,” I said, my voice sounding sparse and scratched. I cleared my throat. “Very much.”

  Just then was when Piper decided to bolt out of the bathroom, breaking the spell woven between Max and me. “Hey Dad!” she called out while skipping across the room, barreling right into him. She always tried to tackle with everything she had, but he didn’t even need to brace himself, her being such a tiny thing.

  “Hey Pipe.” He smiled, giving her a kiss on her forehead. “How was school?”

  “Good, you know…same ol’, same ol’.” She gave him an extra squeeze, smiling up at him, like he single-handedly saved the world and cured cancer in his spare time. “I missed you.”

  He gave a slight nod, but when he scrunched up the side of his face while kneeling down to be at eye level with her, I knew he wasn’t letting her off the hook.

  “You know I’m happy to see you, but we’ve gotta talk about what happened today.”

  She let out an exaggerated sigh. “Yeah, yeah…I know.”

  “No yeah, yeahs, Pipe. I can’t keep cutting work. This shit ends now.”

  “I don’t like the babysitters you pick. They either talk to me like I’m a baby or only pretend they like me just to kiss up to you.” She pouted, yet still didn’t break eye contact with him. Max may have been her dad, but he was still an intimidating figure. Nevertheless, she stood her ground. I was impressed, even more than I already was with her.

  “Well, I can’t bring you to the garage. I don’t care how sharp you are, it isn’t a place for a kid.”

  Her eyes darted in my direction, then back to her dad’s, then back and forth again. She hunched her shoulders. “Annnnndddd?” she dragged out.

  I knew what she wanted—and I was sure Max did too—but he wasn’t even looking over at me, which meant he was either being considerate of not putting me in a bad position or he didn’t want to have to deal with another probably not-so-secret admirer slash caregiver for Piper.

  “And nothing.” His voice was stern. “We start from square one.”

  “You know,” I chimed in, “I’m happy to have her here or ask around, see if any of the other teachers are looking for some extra work?”

  He crossed his arms across the wide expanse of his chest, giving me the side eye. “Appreciate you taking her on, after she ran off my latest hire, but this has got not one thing to do with you.”

  Oh no he didn’t. My thoughts raced. “Don’t talk to me like that, Max. It’s not fair, and more importantly, it’s not accurate. Since you two moved in down the street, Piper has been over here almost as much as she’s home with you. I care about her—a lot. And you are standing in my living room, having this discussion. So I think I have every right to offer help, if it’s mine to give.”

  His jaw was clenched so tight, I could see it twitch and pulse from the tension. “You done?”

  I thought he would’ve backed down from that little speech, but I should’ve known better. For some reason, his refusal to concede my point made me even angrier. “Actually, no, I’m not done. Here’s an FYI: using a strip club as a babysitting recruiting site was not your best move. If you need help with Piper, just ask.”

  He narrowed his gaze at me. “She said she had childcare experience.”

  “Was that before or after she gave you a lap dance?”

  The anger radiated off him in waves, but he didn’t say anything. I had crossed a line
and part of me couldn’t believe I had just said that to him, but the other half was giving me a high-five. That said, it was time to wrap up this less-than-fruitful discussion.

  “Piper, honey, I have some wedding planning to do for my sister tonight, but I’ll set up a more formal schedule for you with your dad from now on, okay?”

  The child’s face lit up like a Christmas tree with that wide, quirky smile of hers. “Great!” she said while trotting over to the kitchen and hoisting her backpack over her shoulder, heading for the back door. “I’ll leave while you two figure that out. Take all the time you want, by the way. Feel free to plan some dinners with just you guys or the three of us too. That could be fun. I’ll meet you back at home, Dad.” She said the rest so fast, probably worried I would change my mind if she lingered too long.

  The door slammed and immediately I realized I had played right into Piper’s plan: she was playing matchmaker. I didn’t know if I should ground her or thank her, because, holy hell, now I was alone with the leading man of my masturbatory fantasies for the last four months.

  Ever since he had swooped into my life, I had been on edge, wondering if he was working his way in, wanting me to be his, or just a shameless flirt. My sister always said, when it came to men, I was clueless. When it came to Max Reinquist, I knew she was right. My heartbeat kicked up a couple of notches, thrumming in my chest and throat, and I took some deep breaths in order to will my body back into some semblance of calm and control.

  “I gotta say,” he finally said, breaking some of the tension in the room, “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  “Had what in me exactly?”

  A ghost of a smile appeared. “A spine.”

  I let something between a giggle and a laugh escape me. “Well, it’s there. Trust me.”

  “No need. I can see for myself.” He smirked, the flirtatious glimmer reappearing before he, yet again, turned serious. He scored his nails across his scalp, scratching furiously at the back of his neck.

  “Fuck, what am I gonna do with her? The garage is no place for a little girl—which, in spite that smart mouth of hers, she still is.”