I stole one more look at the sleeping Logan and made for the door, tiptoeing down the hall and out of the apartment. I hurried down the stairs, praying that I wasn’t going to run into any of the neighbors, and just made it back to my place before I heard some movement upstairs. I winced and hoped that I hadn’t come across as too much of an asshole for what I had just done. But I had a bad feeling the ship had already sailed on that.
Chapter 6
Logan
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“What did you say, Daddy?”
“Nothing, baby,” I assured Erin, smiling at her as she continued with her coloring in front of the television. I planted a kiss on her head. No need for her to have to hear about any of this. I wanted her to live an easy, calm life, and not have to worry about the fact that I couldn’t for the life of me find anyone to take care of her while I went to my shift at work.
I had called Ant, but she wasn’t answering her phone; knowing her timing, she would get back to me right as I confirmed someone else to come along, but that was no good to me now. I had tried my usual babysitter, Taylor, but she was out at some after-school club and couldn’t do it that evening. And now, here I was, twenty minutes from having to leave, with no one who could step in and take care of Erin for me.
I made my way through to the bedroom and tried to catch my breath. There was no point working myself to hysteria over this. I needed to stay calm and consider my options.
I couldn’t just skip out on work. I needed the paycheck something awful that month and dropping a shift would mean Elijah would start handing off more of them to other people. I needed to go. So who could I get to take care of Erin for me?
My mind drifted downstairs, and I pushed the idea out of my head at once. She had shown no interest in Erin at all, and besides, I barely knew her—we had hooked up a couple of times, and that was it. I hardly knew if I could trust her with the most important thing in my life.
Just thinking about Nina was enough to drag up a mess of feelings I had been trying my hardest to shove down for the last few days. She had come up to my apartment looking like a gift wrapped especially for me in a pair of skimpy pajamas, and the two of us had had a crazy-hot hook-up in my room while Erin was sleeping. I couldn’t remember the last time I had experienced anything like that; sure, I’d had hot one-night stands before, but this was way more than that. I still went over the moment she flipped around on the bed, arched her back, and asked me to take her from behind at least once a day.
But we had fallen asleep together, something I never would have let happen if I had been thinking straight, and when I woke up, she had snuck out of the apartment and left me alone once more. Which was a good thing, really, because I didn’t want to have to explain to Erin what the fuck was going on between us, but I felt a jolt of sadness when I saw that she was missing from the spot next to me. I had reached out my arm to cuddle her close, but she was gone. And that sucked.
I had to keep reminding myself that I didn’t know this girl at all. Sure, she was Ant’s best friend, and if my sister had kept her around for all this time that meant she couldn’t be a total wash, but we had only hooked up a couple of times and exchanged one frenetic conversation outside of that. Whatever we were doing, it was clearly and blatantly a bad idea. She didn’t seem to want anything to do with Erin, and I couldn’t keep someone around who was like that, no matter how good the sex was.
We hadn’t exchanged a word since then, and I hadn’t been able to shake her from my head. Was it the same with her? She was the one who came to me, after all, and told me that she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about me. But maybe that last hook-up had been all she needed to get me out of her system once and for all, and now she had her fill and wasn’t going to bother with me again.
But she was the only person in my immediate vicinity who I could ask to do this. I had heard her moving around in the apartment downstairs a few times today, so I knew she was in. I ran through the pros and cons—sure, I didn’t know if she was any good with kids, but she had the Ant seal of approval, and that was good enough for me. And it would only be an hour of sitting near Erin while she did her own thing before she would send her off to bed, so it wasn’t like I was asking her to take Erin on a trip to Disneyland or something.
As I sat there on the edge of the bed, I tried to slow my thoughts and figure out if this was just an excuse for me to see her again. I knew in the back of my mind that was the truth; I really wanted to lay eyes on her, to be in her presence, to enjoy the way she looked at me and the playful certainty with which she flirted with me. But I also needed the money and the shift and to keep the promise to work that I would deliver when they wanted me to. And that was more important.
Before I could stop myself, I told Erin to wait in the apartment, and I was on the stairs and heading down to Nina’s place. I knocked on the door, and she opened it a moment or two later. A wide smile spread across her face when she laid eyes on me.
“Well, well, well,” she purred playfully. “You’re coming to me now, huh? Can’t say I’m not interested—”
“I actually need to ask you a favor …” I cut her off, doing my best to shove the realization that she would have fucked me right then and there out of my mind. I had to keep focused.
She furrowed her brow. “What kind of favor?”
“I need someone to look after Erin for me,” I told her. “Just for an hour before she goes to bed. I really have to get to work, and there’s no one else around who can take her for me.”
“Oh, I, uh,” she stammered, and it was clear she was running through every excuse she could find to wriggle out of this. “I don’t think this is a good idea—”
“It’s not for long,” I promised her. “I’ll pay you.”
That seemed to catch her attention. She chewed her lip and then shook her head. “No, I’ll do it for free,” she replied, and she sounded resigned, as though she had known this was coming and couldn’t believe it was already here. “I’m really not good with kids,” she warned me. “I’ve never been good with kids.”
“Honestly, all you have to do is let her finish up her coloring, get her to brush her teeth and put on her pajamas, and then send her to bed.” I held my hands up. “It’s pretty hard to fuck up.”
“You say that like I’m not going to find a way to do it anyway,” she muttered, and she pinched the bridge of her nose and shrugged. “Okay, alright, I’ll do it,” she replied, and my heart leaped with relief.
“But if you come home and find the apartment on fire or something, then don’t blame me,” she warned.
I grinned, and before I could stop myself, I leaned forward and planted a kiss on her mouth. She seemed surprised at first, but after a moment she softened, her fingers playing against my chest. When I pulled back, she had a smile on her face, though a resigned one.
“I guess I should go up there, huh?” she remarked, fixing my shirt where the collar had come a little unstuck.
“Guess you should,” I replied, and she kissed me once more, stealing a little peck on the lips.
“I’ll expect some kind of payment,” she murmured against my mouth, and I grinned.
“And I’ll be happy to provide it,” I assured her. In fact, if I knew I wasn’t already running behind schedule, I would have closed this door, got her to plant her hands against it, and taken her from behind once more. But I had bigger things to focus on.
“Come on, let’s get upstairs,” she said with a sigh. “Show me what I need to do.”
“Sure thing.” I stepped back and let her follow me up the stairs and opened the door to the apartment to find Erin still sitting where I left her.
“Erin, this is Nina,” I told her, and she glanced up and smiled at the woman standing beside me.
“Hello,” she greeted.
“Hi,” Nina replied, a little awkwardly. But I ignored that; she was here, and that was by far the most important thing. I didn’t care if she was a little out-of-place d
oing something like this, as long as she was here to actually do it.
“Nina’s going to be looking after you tonight while I go to work,” I told her. “Is that alright?”
“Sure!” Erin replied cheerfully and picked up her coloring. “Can I show you my pictures?”
“Of course,” Nina replied, and she got down onto the floor in a cross-legged position and gamely held her hand out for the drawings Erin had been working on.
“I’ll see you both later.” I dropped a kiss on top of Erin’s head, and Nina shot me one last “really?” look before I headed out the door to work. At this rate, I was actually going to get there early.
When I arrived, Elijah came to find me as I was scrubbing up, and I noticed that he had a heavy look on his face. I furrowed my brow.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “I’m not late, am I?”
“No, you’re fine,” he replied, but then he dipped his hand into his pocket and produced a small piece of paper, which he handed to me.
“What’s this?” I asked, confused, as I started to unfold it.
“We found it next to your chef’s whites a couple of days ago when you’d finished your shift,” he told me. “We don’t know who put it there, but …”
I scanned the note, and my heart dropped when I saw what was written there ...
GIVE IT UP, YOU FUCKER
… in big, spidery letters, all capitals, like someone was yelling that at my face. I crunched the note up in my hand at once, not wanting to pay it any more attention.
“Do you know who might have put this there?” he asked, and I shook my head. But the truth was, I had a good idea of who might have been trying to spook me.
“Nope,” I replied firmly. “Must have just been someone trying to play a bad joke on me.”
But the truth was, I had a pretty good idea who was behind it—and I intended to confront him about it as soon as I got the chance.
Chapter 7
Nina
I stood there in that apartment wondering what the hell I had gotten myself into. I stared down at the little girl in front of me, the one who was showing me all the pictures she’d worked on over the last few weeks, and I nodded along and hoped that whatever I was doing was enough to keep her entertained for the next hour.
“And this one is an elephant!” She held out a picture to me, and I looked down at the page in front of me; I had to admit, she was pretty damn cute, and the way she was so enthusiastic about showing me her art was making my heart melt just a little.
“It’s really good.” I smiled at her and glanced around to figure out what I was going to do for the next hour; Logan had just said to let her get on with her coloring, but I felt as though it would have been a little weird if I had just sat there and watched her do her own thing. And there was some part of me that wanted to make sure that Logan saw that he could trust me; that I was worth asking for help like this.
I spotted a cupboard in the small kitchen that was half-open, and inside I could see tea, coffee, and hot chocolate powder.
“Hey, you know what always helps me sleep?” I asked.
She perked up and grinned. “What?”
“A milky hot chocolate,” I replied, and she bounced up to her feet and scurried through to the kitchen.
“Can I help you make one?” she asked keenly, and I couldn’t help chuckling. She was so damn sweet. Maybe it was just really little kids I had a problem with because she was just like a little grown-up. Except that I couldn’t tell her the truth, that I usually had a few glasses of wine on those nights when I knew I was going to be struggling to get to sleep.
I made both of us a hot chocolate, with her helping me find everything I needed, and we sat at the dinner table sipping on the steaming sweet drinks. She kicked her legs back and forth happily, and I realized I was going to have to make conversation with her. I had been the one to pull her away from her coloring, now I had to be the one to make sure that it had been worth it.
“So, Erin,” I asked, trailing my finger around my drink and sucking off the spot of foam that got on to my fingertip. “What else do you like to do? Besides drawing?”
“Uh,” she blinked at me for a couple of seconds as though I had put her on the spot, but then she seemed to gather herself and nod with certainty. “I like to read,” she replied as though it was the most important thing in the world. I remembered, all at once, all that reading I had done when I was her age—these days, I was lucky if I managed to get to the end of a full article without clicking away. But I used to be a voracious reader, going through whole series like they were chapters over the course of single weekends. I didn’t have a whole lot of friends, but none of that mattered when I had my nose deep in a book.
“Oh? Who do you like to read?” I asked her. And just like that, she was chattering away about the authors she liked, her favorite books, what she wanted to read next. We even chatted a little about the books that I read when I was growing up that she had picked up as well, the classics that never got old. I finished my drink, and she finished hers, though I noticed that she was going really slowly, as though she didn’t want to finish the conversation. Hey, maybe I wasn’t as bad at this as I thought.
Eventually, I noticed her eyes drooping, and I got to my feet and pointed to the bathroom. “You go brush your teeth,” I told her. “And I’ll wash up here.”
“Will you read me a bedtime story?” she asked hopefully, and I paused for a moment—I hadn’t even thought about that.
“Uh, sure,” I replied at last. “You go get ready for bed, alright? And I’ll pick us something to read.”
I finished cleaning up and then headed to her bedroom to pick out a book to read from; I chose one with short stories, to make sure that if I somehow fucked this up, at least the ordeal wouldn’t last for too long.
She appeared in the door a moment later, dressed in a pair of pink pajamas with a kitten wearing a crown on the front; I grinned when I saw what she was wearing.
“They’re very cool,” I remarked. “I wish I had a pair like them.”
She was about to climb into bed when I held my finger up and pointed to her mouth. “Let me see those choppers,” I told her, and she opened her mouth and beamed widely.
“Gleaming,” I agreed after I pretended to inspect them for a moment. She bounced into bed, and it seemed like she was so full of energy that I would never get her to close her eyes. I perched on the edge of the bed, in that tiny little girl’s room, and I read her a story. The short story idea seemed to go out the window at once, as I found myself enjoying reading to her, seeing the way her face lit up when I got to certain points or when I snuck in the odd funny voice to keep things lively. But then I noticed she was struggling to keep her eyes open just to be able to hear me continue to read, and I finished up the story I was on and pulled the covers up over her.
“You should get some sleep now,” I told her.
“Goodnight, Nina,” she yawned, and before I could reply her head had hit the pillow, and she was out for the count. I chuckled, carefully put the book away and switched the light off before making my way back to the living room. Okay, that hadn’t been so bad at all. I couldn’t imagine doing it for much longer, but I had survived an hour or two. Even if I felt as though I could have just gone to bed myself now.
The landline rang, and without thinking I picked it up, forgetting that I wasn’t in my own place. Well, I could just take a message for him or—
“Hey, it’s me,” Ant yawned down the line. Well, that made things easier.
“Hey, Ant!” I replied.
“Wait, what—” she stopped herself, caught her breath, and then tried again. “Are you in Logan’s apartment?”
“Sure am,” I replied. “I’m looking after Erin. Or I was, she just went to bed.”
“He was calling me all evening to try and get me to come and take care of her,” Ant remarked, still sounding a little shocked. “I thought he must have found someone else by now …”
“He just came downstairs and asked me to watch her for a little while,” I shrugged. “We … uh, we bumped into each other in the halls a couple of times, so he knew who I was.”
“That’s crazy,” Ant murmured. “He doesn’t trust anyone with Erin. You must have made a really good impression on him.”
“Are you telling me that I don’t immediately come across as the kind of woman you’d want to leave your children with?” I shot back, playing at being wounded by her implication.
She laughed. “Hey, you can’t blame me,” she protested. “You’re the one who’s always telling me how much you hate being around kids. Are you starting up a babysitting business on the side now?”
“Oh, hell, no.” I shook my head. “I just did this as a favor. You know, good neighbors and all that.”
“Right.” She sounded a little suspicious, but she let it go.
I wondered if she had caught on to the fact that it was hardly the halls Logan and I kept on ending up in together, but I breezed on by in the hopes that she wouldn’t focus too intently on what I had told her already.
“She was really good tonight,” I remarked, and I could hear the smile in Ant’s voice as she replied.
“Yeah, she’s a total little star,” she agreed. “She’s so cute. And she’s so easy to take care of. Logan’s an amazing dad, he makes sure she respects the people taking care of her.”
One Night Stand Page 5