I rest my head against the side of the door, completely defeated by all of this. “Sure thing, Samantha.”
“Call me Sam,” she says. “Does everyone call you Julia or is there a different nickname I should be calling you? I think we crossed a hurdle last night. After that, I think we’re pretty well acquainted with each other, and it’s time to make this a more girlfriends type of situation. Does that work for you?” She’s funny. She can’t be more than ten years older than I am, and I’m sure she has no time in her life for friends, so I appreciate her understanding and willingness to be friends with “the help” as Liam so nicely called it yesterday.
“My friends call me Jules most of the time.”
“Jules, you got it. Is it okay if I call you that? Thank you again. Tell Liam I said to have a good day.” She pulls her coffee cup out of nowhere and takes a long sip. “See you later.”
I close the door gently, so I don’t wake up Dylan, and Liam walks out of the bathroom at the same time. “What was that all about?”
“Um, she knows you’re in here, there’s a grocery list on the counter for you, and we both have to work late tonight. Oh, and she wants to be on a nickname basis with me. I think that just about summarizes all of it, except for the extreme embarrassment.”
“Nickname?” he asks.
“People call me Jules. Whatever, it’s not a big deal.”
“You mean, people don’t call you Sherman?”
My overtired droopy eyes widen into a raging glint. “Don’t you dare,” which obviously means I just dared him to do so. “That falls under the category of asking the Shermanator to invade your pride. Just a little FYI for you.”
“No training for you today, buddy,” I tell Dylan. “Does that make you happy or sad?” I’m always curious about this little guy. Some days he seems to love lifeguard training and other days, he couldn’t care less.
“Can I play video games?” he asks?
“Sure, go ahead. I have some stuff to help Liam with for tonight.”
“Leelee is coming tonight,” he says, smiling shyly.
Leelee is one of the little girls Jade cares for. I remember hearing her name in passing a few days ago. I guess that means Jade will be here tonight too, which is good since it feels like an eternity since we’ve spoken. I’m pretty sure she hasn’t done much other than work and screw Cleary’s bones out.
“Are you and Leelee friends?” I ask, curious about his reaction. At ten years old, I can’t remember if I was interested in boys yet, but I feel like the boys were definitely interested in all the girls whose boobs started to develop. Not so sure what the novelty is at that age, but I guess it must be in their DNA.
Just as I thought, Dylan’s cheeks burn with a red tinge. “Yeah, she’s cool,” he says before running off and upstairs to his bedroom. That’s adorable. I should absolutely not tell Jade about this. God knows what she would do to the poor kids.
As I’m straightening up the living room couch pillows that Dylan tossed around while he was bored, my phone vibrates in my back pocket.
Dad.
“Hey, Dad. How are things?”
“Jelly-Bean, do you know how much it makes my day to hear your voice, not to mention the happiness accompanying it?”
I laugh because I’m pretty sure no one can hear happiness. “Happiness?”
“I know when my little girl is happy. Despite the fact that you’re not some big newspaper editor at twenty-two, I’m glad you’re doing something you enjoy this summer. Really, I am.” Doing something I enjoy this summer. Yup. I am doing that.
I sit down on the edge of the couch as I try to decipher the odd inflection in Dad’s voice. “You’re acting weird.”
“I can’t tell you I’m happy for you?” he asks.
“Dad . . .”
“Okay, Gerald won’t let me stay with him.”
“What, why? I’ll talk to Jade. She’ll get him to change his mind.” Of course she will. What excuse could that cat man possibly have?
“He’s just not doing well.”
“What? What does that mean? He was fine the last time I saw him.”
“I don’t know, sweetie, okay? I’m just telling you what he said, and no, I don’t want you bringing this up to Jade. I don’t want to be where I’m not wanted.”
“You’re best friends with him. I don’t get it.”
“Okay, you know what? I’m going to figure this out. I just wanted to keep you in the loop.”
“Well, where are you going to go?”
“I’ll find a place, okay? I’m a grown man. You don’t have to worry about me.” My heart hurts. I have to figure something out for him.
“I love you, daddy.” With a sigh on his end and a matching one on mine, we both hang up.
I slouch into the couch, close my eyes, and try to swallow the knot in my throat.
“Hey,” Liam says, walking out of the kitchen, shirtless, of course. “Come in here for a minute.” He nods his head back to the kitchen, and I stand up to follow him.
Once in the kitchen, he pulls out a chair at the table and taps the wooden seat. “Sit.”
Not being in much of a mood to argue with him or tell him to stop telling me what to do, I take the seat. Silence follows as he grabs the mop from the corner of the kitchen, dunks it into the water bucket, rings it out, and slaps the thick cotton strands down onto the floor, creating a thud and splashing sound.
I watch him run the mop back and forth a half dozen times, becoming distracted by the flexing of his abs every time he pivots. His skin is merely a thin piece of material slickly moving over the fine-tuned gears in his body. He’s kind of like a gorgeous machine.
“Did you ask me to come in here so I could watch you mop, shirtless?”
“Wow, sorry. I didn’t think you’d be so opposed to the idea.” A slim grin smooths over his lips and even in my state of despair, I want to kiss him again, and again. I totally lost my battle. But, research—that’s what I’m doing. If it turns out he’s not like the other assholes, even though I already know he’s an asshole, then so be it. If he is the same kind of asshole, he’s just going to get ripped apart in my book someday. I should warn him. Maybe that’d make him think twice before messing with me or my heart.
“Unless your pride is in its full glory, I have no real desire to watch you mop.” As hard as it is to force my mouth into any form of happiness, there’s at least a small twitch to the corner of my lips, but only because I imagined him mopping in the nude.
“I overheard, your conversation with your pops, and I have an idea.”
I wasn’t being inconspicuous, and I knew he was in the kitchen, but I wasn’t thinking about him overhearing anything in the moment. This is killing me, knowing I can’t help the one man who has always done everything in the world to help me. “There’s no way to help him.”
“Never say never, sunshine.”
“Liam, I don’t know what your idea is, but he would be mortified to know anyone else even knew what was going on, so please keep that in mind.”
Liam bends over in front of me, scraping a spot on the tiled floor with the back of his thumbnail. The way his jeans stretch over his pride is just mouthwateringly breathtaking. He totally knows I’m staring, and I’m okay with that. “Give me the day, and let me see what I can do to help your old man, okay?”
“You won’t tell me what you’re doing?” I ask.
“Not until I know if it’s possible.”
I think that’s worth a few points next to his name. He is offering to help me, and it’s more than I could ask of anyone right now. I stand up from the chair, motivated to wrap my arms around him, but as I stand, my feet go out from under me. Shocking . . . so freaking shocking.
Of course, I had to let out a little shriek on the way down too.
“Sunshine, the floor is wet,” Liam laments.
I look at him, irritated, and I pull my knee into my chest to stand up, but Liam leans forward and offers me his hand. Obviou
sly, I’m not going to just stand up with his strong arm muscles pulling me from the wraths of the wet tiles I’m resting on. I pull him down too, except he wasn’t expecting it. He’s a lot bigger than I am, and definitely not so graceful as he thumps his chin into the ground. Oops. Shit.
“Oh no, no, no,” I chirp. “I’m so sorry, are you okay?” I bend forward, getting onto my knees to help him up. “Liam, I’m sorry!” I semi-assist him in pushing off the floor, and when he lifts his face, I see a small gash on the bottom of his chin.
He must feel it as he touches his fingers to the spot, pulling them away and finding blood. “Shit.”
“Hold on, stay here.” I run upstairs to the hall closet and retrieve the first aid kit, returning just as quickly as I left.
He’s sitting against the cabinet doors, shaking his head with disappointment. “You have zero game,” he says. “That was so close to being hot . . . and even a little funny.”
I groan because really, what else can I do wrong? “I’m an accident waiting to happen.”
“Well then, maybe you’re right because you are one accident I can’t seem to look away from.”
“Holy cheese, macaroni,” I snort.
“Holy cheese, macaroni?” he repeats with laughter. “Oh God, what have I gotten myself into?”
“Me,” I retort.
“Damn straight.” I soak a cotton ball in alcohol and press it against the cut, watching the lines on the sides of his eyes deepen as he squints from the pain.
“If you don’t shave, you won’t be able to see it.”
He nods his head with a wicked grin. “Oh, please, I know why you’d rather I didn’t shave,” he says.
I grab a Q-tip and squirt some Neosporin onto it. “Please enlighten me on your odd assumption.”
“I know how women prefer a little scruff for selfish reasons,” he says with confidence.
In all honesty, I have no clue what he’s referring to, but for the sake of not making myself look like a bigger doofus at this moment, I decide to put on my fake smile and give him an, “Oh yes, I know exactly what you mean,” laugh.
“You have no idea what I’m referring to, do you?” he asks.
I place the cotton tip on his chin and smooth it over the half-inch cut. “Sure, I do.”
“Tell me, then.”
I blow a gentle breath onto his chin, ignoring his question. He leans forward and crashes his lips into mine, pressing the thick gob of ointment onto my chin. “God, you’re hot,” he says as he pulls away.
“Patients often fall for their caregivers.” I stand up, feeling my heart turn counterclockwise from the pain it was enduring just a few minutes ago. I pack up the first aid kit and grab a small bandage before closing up the case. Liam stands up, and I peel the wrapper off of the bandage, then place it over the cut. “There, now you look like a seven-year-old who just fell off his bike.”
“Perfect,” he smiles, leaning in to kiss me again. “As soon as I’m done soaking the rest of this death trap of a floor, I need to run to the grocery store. Do you need anything?”
I haven’t even found the grocery store yet. I have no clue where the time is going now that I’ve been here almost a week. “I’m okay, but thank you.” It’s on my list of things to do tomorrow. Sam told me I could help myself to whatever she has, but their organic diet is starting to gross me out me, and I need some me food.
“Thanks for making me fall head over heels,” he says as I walk out of the kitchen.
“Anytime,” I holler from the living room.
This is bad. Bad. Bad. Bad. I have fallen for the hottest guy I’ve ever seen, and it’s going to be so much trouble. I don’t know if I need research this badly.
After a full week of following the great Liam Hollow around like an annoying shadow, he’s left me completely alone with Dylan so he could get the grocery shopping done.
I’m standing in the middle of the living room, feeling like I should be doing more to help with tonight, but Liam has this house organization thing down to a science. I’ve never seen such a consistently clean house.
Checking my watch, I notice Dylan has been upstairs playing video games for far too long, and according to the binder of notes Sam left me, overstimulation can set him off. Today would not be the right day to push that to happen.
As I head upstairs to interrupt his fun, the doorbell rings. Weird. I don’t think the doorbell has rung once since I’ve been here. The house is sort of secluded even though it’s in a development. Each house is far enough apart from one another that I doubt any neighbor would be showing up at the door to borrow a cup of sugar.
I open the door, finding a mailman. “Good morning, young lady,” an older man with a Colonel Sanders mustache and thick black rimmed glasses says while reaching into his bag. “I have a certified letter I need you to sign for.” He hands me a pile of what looks like bills first and then retrieves a small machine from his back pocket, holding it out for me to sign.
Giving it a quick scribble, he hands me a white envelope in return. “Thank you,” I tell him.
“Have a good day now,” he says.
“You too.” I close the door and glance at the certified letter, finding it addressed to Liam.
Immediately, I place the letter down, not wanting to pry or even ponder what could be inside of a certified letter for him. We’re just fooling around. I have no business knowing his personal secrets. Just walk away, and no one will get hurt.
Yet, I’m staring at the envelope as if I have the power to make it float from the table into my hand. What if he’s being summoned to court? Or worse, what if he’s a criminal? Would that be in a certified letter? Obviously, whatever is inside is important enough that it needs to be signed for.
Glancing up the stairs, knowing what I’m supposed to be doing right now, I force myself to take each step one at a time until I spin around and nearly jump down the steps I ran up.
I grab the letter and hold it up to the sun. See? I’m not opening it. It’s just super bright in here, and when the mailman was handing it to me, I couldn’t help what I saw.
As I position myself beneath the skylight and the bay window, the light perfectly reflects off the center of the envelope, allowing me to see just a few words. It could have been any sentence or words on this entire piece of paper or papers, whatever is in here, but of course, these words had to be:
. . . Lab Test DNA . . .
DNA test? What the hell? Why do people get DNA tests? Oh no, he knocked someone up. Shit. Shit. Shit! Here I am, being all like, Tee-he-he, hotty Liam, we don’t have to use condoms because I totally believe you’re clean, and yeah, I haven’t been to the gyno in a year, but I’m so totally clean too because no one has stepped within a foot since then. Besides, condoms are sooo yesterday. The pill takes care of almost everything, up to a ninety-nine-percent chance. (Giggle, giggle.) Fuck me in the ass while you’re at it because we can’t contract diseases or get pregnant that way. Tee-he-he. Fucking stupid, Julia.
Well, now I have to know. I look down at my watch again. He’s been gone for thirty minutes. I have no clue where the grocery store is here, nor how many items were on his list of things to buy.
How do I steam this stupid thing? Why am I thinking back to a Brady Bunch episode? Didn’t one of them steam open a letter seamlessly and never get caught? I mean, I’m sure seeing how goody, goody they all were, one of them confessed to Mom or Dad about how awful their behavior was, but I’m not Marcia, Jan, or Cindy. Unlike them, I clearly have no morals. Maybe I’m imagining this episode, but I swear I remember it.
I bring the letter into the kitchen, fill the tea-kettle with water, and turn the stove on. A watched pot never boils.
I’m not listening to the voice in my head telling me this is wrong. Not listening. I tap my fingertips on the granite countertop nine-hundred fifty times before the steam spouts from the opening. I hold the letter over the steam for a couple of minutes, ignoring the burning sensation running through my han
d. This is so wrong. I should stop. I can’t. I don’t do this kind of thing.
I don’t need to know what’s inside.
I mean, we’ve just been fucking . . . for like a day.
But he has had a finger up my ass . . . That’s something. I should know his deepest darkest secrets now, obviously.
A finger up the ass is just for fun—it’s not a commitment.
However, he did cuddle with me. He told me I was beautiful. He obviously likes me, which means my heart is at stake.
I hear tires crushing the rocks in the driveway. Liam’s back. Shit! I need to breathe, relax, get this fucking thing to cool down, and place it back on top of the pile of mail.
Waving it around like a Polaroid picture, I blow on it simultaneously. Come on, cool down.
There are footsteps over the crunchy rocks outside, and I’m running out of time.
The screen door opens, and I’m spinning around like a freaking moron, still holding his letter.
“Hey, Julia, could you give me a hand?” Liam shouts inside. Hearing his voice trail off as he heads back to the SUV, I breathe a sigh of relief.
I run into the living room and toss the envelope down on the coffee table. It’s still a bit warm, but by time he’s done bringing in the groceries, it should be completely cool. That was so dumb. I never should have considered opening his mail. It’s a federal offense. What the hell was I thinking? It would have been hard to explain, but probably not nearly as hard for him to explain if he needs to break the news of a love child, or something of the sort.
Quickly meeting Liam at the door with more bags, I take as many as I can carry and bring them into the kitchen.
As soon as I place them down on the table, I realize I never stopped Dylan from playing his video games, nor have I checked on him in an hour. I’m the freaking nanny? And such an amazing one, obviously. God, knowing my luck, he choked on something. Oh no. I need to go check on him before Liam gets up there.
I run up the stairs. “Julia?” he calls out again. “There are a ton of bags. Where did you go?”
The Man Cave Collection: Manservant, Man Flu, Man Handler, and Man Buns Page 22