Halftime Husband

by McCarthy, Erin

  The enormity of what I was saying occurred to me as the words came out of my mouth. Adjoining rooms. That each locked. We would have complete access to each other without the girls ever questioning it. Hell, it was Poppy’s idea.

  What could possibly be better than that?

  Dakota clearly caught the significance too because her eyes widened and she dug her teeth into her bottom lip. “Oh, I see. I don’t know…”

  Poppy abandoned me and went to Dakota. “Please? I’ll help you unpack. Dad’s bathroom is better than the hallway one, anyway. It has a big tub.”

  I pictured Dakota naked in a tub full of bubbles. I was instantly turned on.

  Dakota accepted Poppy’s bribe hug. She hugged her back. “It’s that important to you?”

  “It’s so important,” Poppy said, her tone imploring. “It’s life.”

  “Well, in that case, I suppose I don’t care if it’s okay with your dad.”

  Okay? It was life, to steal Poppy’s melodramatic terminology.

  Elijah’s expression was comical but I didn’t think either of my daughters was looking at him.

  I had to finish out this little act. “I don’t know. I’m not sure it’s appropriate. You usually only share a bathroom with someone if they’re family or you’re dating.”

  Poppy burst out laughing. “Dad. Stop. Dakota is way too young for you to date.”

  The kid was savage, geez.

  One, how old did she think Dakota was? Two, no. I was not too old.

  “Oh, Lord,” Elijah said.

  I didn’t dare look at Dakota. Maybe she agreed with Poppy.

  “That’s not the point,” I told my daughter. “I’m just not sure it’s a good idea.”

  “I’ll give up my allowance,” Poppy said.

  Apparently she really hated sharing a bathroom with me. I wasn’t exactly thrilled about it either, but we had been stuck with it. I hadn’t been about to share a bathroom with any of the previous nannies.

  “Fine, you can change rooms.” I looked at the movers, who had been watching the drama play out with very little interest. “So change of plans. We need to move my daughter’s things to the empty room across the hall.”

  Poppy was jumping up and down in excitement screaming multiple “thank yous!” as she fist-pumped.

  “You’re welcome. Now as soon as these gentlemen move your furniture you need to clear out your closet as fast as possible.”

  “Yes, sir.” She took off running down the hall. “Willow, help me!”

  Dakota was looking around the apartment, but she started down the hall after the girls. “I should supervise this.”

  I touched her arm when she went by me. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”

  The look she gave me went straight to my cock. “I’m very okay with it. As long as I’m allowed to take a bubble bath on occasion.”

  “Whatever you want.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” she said. “It’s whatever I want.” Then she winked and went to find the girls. “This way,” she told the movers confidently. They silently followed her with their boxes.

  Elijah was shaking his head. “I hope you’re wearing a protective cup because she’s got you by the balls.”

  “Who? Dakota or my daughter?” I honestly wasn’t sure which one he meant.

  “All three of them.”

  This was going to be a fucking disaster. I was seriously outnumbered by females and a total pushover when it came to my girls. And Dakota tested my willpower. “I wish I could argue with you but I’m not sure I can. I’m going to go pack so I can get on a plane and go yell at a bunch of men and feel like less of an idiot than I do right now. But I’m going to have a bourbon first. Care to join me?”

  “I’d love to.”

  Moving on up, indeed. This was a sweet-ass apartment. The girls hadn’t oversold it when they had said it was cool.

  It felt like it went on forever. Just miles and miles of space.

  Whereas Felicia and Michael had a traditional brownstone with narrow rooms spread over five floors, this was just a totally modern and open space with a multitude of windows. The view was amazing. Just Manhattan everywhere you looked, and if you leaned really close to the glass, you could see the park. But then I pulled back quickly. It gave me vertigo to be that close to the window when we were on the fortieth floor.

  The kitchen was bigger than my entire apartment. By double.

  The bedroom in question, that Poppy has been so eager to move out of because it was small, was substantially larger than my old bedroom. I took a peek across the hall at the room she had coveted so aggressively and it was massive. There was a built-in desk. I went back to the smaller room and found the movers disassembling her bedframe to carry across the hallway. Poppy was buried in her closet, filling a laundry basket with stuffed animals for the transport. I grabbed the bedding off of the mattress and carried it across the hall.

  This was an unexpected turn of events. A doorway that led to Brandon. It was truly my lucky day in an otherwise not-so-awesome year.

  When I got back to my new room, I opened the door I assumed led to the bathroom. Oh, hell, yeah. This was a bathroom. It was sleek and modern with a huge shower with a rain head. There was a floating mahogany double vanity and backlit mirrors. I was going to have amazing makeup, that was for damn sure. The soaker tub was an asymmetrical statement piece with no hardware in sight. I wasn’t even sure how it turned on, but it was basically begging me to hang out in it. Wet, hot, naked.

  With Brandon sharing the adjoining room.

  I had no idea where he was but that didn’t stop me from opening all the doors. I lived here now. Two were closets, both filled with his clothes. Lots of suits. The remaining door led to his room, which had a king-size bed. A king in Manhattan. It was absurd. I had no trouble visualizing being in that bed with him.

  The door to the hallway opened and he stepped inside his bedroom. He stopped when he saw me in the bathroom doorway. “Hi.”

  “I got lost,” I told him. “I was checking out the bathroom.”

  “Does it meet your approval?”

  I was almost embarrassed that he had spent the night—well, most of the night—at my apartment when he lived here. But screw that. It was what it was. “It will do.”

  “I need to pack.” He came over to me.

  I didn’t move.

  “Excuse me,” he said, his eyes darkening.

  “Sorry.” I turned a mere inch for him to go by.

  “We’re in so much trouble, aren’t we?” he asked as he shifted past me. Most of him touched most of me.

  I shivered. “So much trouble.”

  He made a move like he was going to reach for me. The bathroom door was open though to my room, so I shifted out of the way. “I’m going to help Poppy, then we should go over the critical information I need to know. Allergies, health insurance, how to reach you. All of that.”

  He groaned and nodded, then abruptly turned and disappeared into the closet.

  Elijah was drinking a bourbon in the living room. “You can leave if you want,” I said. “This room switch is going to set us back at least an hour.”

  “I will in a minute. I have a drink to finish.” He gestured to the right. “Did you see that terrace? It’s sick.”

  “There’s a terrace?”

  He left the couch and gestured. I followed him and I saw almost immediately what he was talking about. It wasn’t big but it was a private space. In the city. It was amazing. It was about ten by ten, with potted plants and a table and chairs.

  “Wow. I feel like I’m on top of the world.”

  Elijah sat down at the table with his drink. “I’ll just be chillin’ right here, don’t mind me. I’ll catch up with ya later. How are you going to be real again after living like this?”

  “I’m not like that, you know me. I can be real.” It was practically my middle name. Dakota Be Real Tanner.

  “I wish I didn’t have to be real.”

 
; “Doesn’t everyone? Enjoy your drinky-poo. I need to help Poppy or I’ll be sleeping surrounded by boxes tonight.”

  He gave me a wave. “Bye.”

  I went and found Poppy and helped her cart more of her stuff across the hallway. It was going to be a really long day. She didn’t have an outrageous amount of stuff, but she wasn’t a minimalist either. It would have helped if she had broached the subject of room changing with her dad the day before.

  “Where do you want your bed?” I asked her, as the movers brought in the bedframe. “This wall?” She had at least three options to choose from. I hoped this wouldn’t be a drawn-out process.

  “That’s fine.”

  Well, that was refreshing. There was no screwing around on that, thank God. “Perfect.” I gave the movers a smile. “Right here, thanks.”

  Willow came into the doorway. “You know why she wants a bigger room, right?”

  My heart almost stopped. Was the kid onto us? Was she matchmaking? “Why?”

  “She wants to set up a science lab. You might want to check Amazon and see what she's ordered from Alexa.”

  “Shut up!” Poppy said, looking furious. She charged her sister and shoved her.

  “A science lab, huh?” I eyed Poppy. I made a mental note to discuss with Brandon how serious this whole lab situation was. But for now I knew better than to show fear to a child. “As long as you’re not making moonshine, I think we’ll be fine.”

  I wasn’t sure what Willow’s motivation for telling me was. Irritation with her sister? Or was she trying to help me out? It was too early to tell. But this wasn’t going to be an easy gig, that was obvious.

  “What’s your room like, Willow? What are you into?”

  “Nothing,” she said, looking self-conscious of the question.

  “Clothes and boys,” Poppy said, making a face. “Stupid stuff.”

  “Shut up, Brain. At least I have a life.”

  This wasn’t going well. Poppy looked ready to attack her sister again, so I said, “Back to your old room and get more stuff. We can’t keep these movers here all day.”

  “Do you mind helping?” I asked Willow when Poppy went running out of the room. “I would appreciate it.”

  “I will do it for you, not for her,” she said, with great dignity. Willow was in that awkward preteen stage where her arms and legs seemed too long and she constantly folded her right arm over the left, like she needed to hide her emerging chest.

  I wondered how often they talked to their mother and why they didn’t live with her. It would suck to be twelve and going through the shitshow of puberty without a mom to talk to.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I don’t have a sister, you know. I always wished I did.”

  “Were you an only child? That would be awesome.” She walked across the hallway with me.

  “No. I have two younger brothers. It was fun growing up with them because there was mostly no drama. Now, if I had been younger than them, it probably would have been different. I suspect they would have beat me up a lot. Instead, I did most of the beating up.” I grinned at one particularly horrible moment on my part where I had shoved my brother outside in December in nothing but a towel after I learned he sent a text from my phone to a guy I liked.

  “Yeah, but if you had older brothers, they would bring their cute friends over.” Willow looked moony over the very thought of having a fictitious older brother with fictitious hot friends.

  So now I knew what Willow’s deal was. She’d gotten bit by the boyfriend bug. She wanted to enter the world of “hanging out.” I was going to need to investigate what if anything Brandon had discussed with her regarding boys, hanging out, sex, curfews. All of it. Or maybe I wasn’t supposed to interfere when it came to real-world stuff.

  Elijah was right. I didn’t know a damn thing about being a nanny.

  “That is true,” I told her. “But boys are better when they’re not in a group. They get obnoxious when there are more than two of them together at the same time.” I glanced at the movers, who were lifting Poppy’s dresser for transport. “No offense,” I said.

  “I’m not even listening to you,” the thin guy said. “So no offense right back.”

  “Excellent. Willow, let’s grab more of Poppy’s clothes while she packs up her desk.”

  The project was taking forever. All day. Elijah had left, effectively drunk, at four, right when my stuff finally all got into the nanny room. I stood there, surrounded by boxes, and felt some serious anxiety. The nanny room. I was Fran Drescher. How the hell had that happened?

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Come in,” I called. Maybe whoever it was could help me figure out where to start with this mess.

  It was Brandon. After closing the door behind him, he snaked his way through boxes and furniture. “I know this is overwhelming but we need to talk before I leave.”

  “I’m not calling you Mr. Macnamara, so forget it,” I said, feeling salty.

  He paused. “How about Coach? Or is that just for sex?”

  That made me laugh. “To use Poppy’s favorite phrase, ‘shut up.’ I have never called you Coach during sex and I don’t plan to.”

  Brandon grinned. “Does that mean no cheerleader uniform either?”

  Now that idea had some appeal. But I wasn’t telling him that. “Says the man who keeps insisting on discretion.”

  “Ouch. Throwing my own words back in my face.”

  “You’ll live.” I leaned on a box, resting my chin on my arms. “Is it embarrassing if I say I don’t want you to leave?”

  “No. I don’t want to leave either. I feel bad that you’re just being thrown into a new situation like this. But the girls are excited, so hopefully they’ll behave themselves. Somewhat. Just keep an eye on Poppy gathering odd ingredients. She seems to have a thing for explosives.”

  “Where’s their mother?” I asked, quietly. “I’m not trying to pry, but I feel like I need to know what’s going on with them so I can be what they need from a nanny, you know what I mean?”

  Brandon looked away for a second, then back. His jaw was working. “Yeah. I know what you mean. But you’re the first person to ever ask me that. Their mother lives in Florida. She has substance abuse problems and right now she’s in rehab again. They haven’t seen her in six months.”

  “I see. I’m sure that’s upsetting to them.”

  He nodded. “It is. Her moods are erratic. She hates me, though I’m not exactly sure why. She fought the divorce tooth and nail. She fought for custody tooth and nail, even though there was no way she was going to succeed. She’s a complicated person and the girls have had a hard time.”

  I reached out and squeezed his arm. “So have you.”

  “Yeah. But I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself.”

  “Sure. But you shouldn’t always have to.”

  Brandon instantly backed away from me. “I’m going to order some takeout for the girls. Is Chinese okay? What would you like?”

  I was disappointed he was retreating, but not surprised. We weren’t in a relationship. He was the boss, I was the nanny, and we were just having sex. Or had had sex. He wasn’t going to give me a goodbye kiss, even though I really wanted one.

  An image rose of him in my apartment, digging into Chinese food containers, wearing nothing but a towel and a satisfied smile.

  Boundaries. We’d destroyed most of them, but we had to stay inside the confines of casual sex or we were going to be in serious trouble.

  “I’ll take steamed vegetables.”

  With a donut on the side.

  Chapter Ten

  Fresh off the flight to New Orleans, I sat with Matt, my best friend and offensive coordinator, in the hotel bar. It was classy and quiet, lots of traditional gold decor all around us.

  “Are we moving?” Matt asked after ordering an old-fashioned.

  “Yeah, you dumbass. It’s called the Carousel Bar. The bar is moving in a slow circle.”

  “Oh, cool.�
� He looked around, eyeballing the street of the French Quarter outside the bar window. Despite the heat, people were walking up and down Royal Street. “Too bad we can’t hit the town tonight.”

  “Yeah, that sucks.” Not really. I didn’t care about hitting the town at all. I cared about what was going on back in my apartment in New York. I had a pit in my gut thinking about Dakota and my daughters hanging out for the first time without me. I was feeling left out, to be totally honest. I was also a little worried what might come out of Dakota’s mouth. She was impulsive.

  “Another day, another nanny, huh?” Matt shook his head. “Have you ever thought about bribing your parents to move in with you? That might be easier.”

  “My parents have no interest in living in New York. Trust me, I asked them. I was informed they love me and my children but they love San Diego too and they’re entitled to live their own life. That’s a direct quote.” I didn’t blame them for that. They did deserve to live their life the way they wanted.

  “Damn. The Macnamaras are holding tough.”

  “My sister did offer for the girls to move in with her in Texas, but I can’t stand the thought of not seeing them all the time. Really not being the one raising them. Besides, it would open up a fucking can of worms with Bridget. She always hated my sister.”

  “I don’t know what I would do without Shelly,” Matt said. “You know she’s the glue in our house. I’d be lost without her.”

  Matt had been happily married for ten years. “Way to rub it in, asshole.”

  He made a face. “Sorry, man.” Then he grinned. “But maybe if you weren’t such a prick, you could find someone.”

  “You’re so right,” I said dryly, thanking the bartender when he set my bourbon down on the bartop. One drink was my limit, so I had to savor it. “I slept with the nanny,” I told Matt.

  Carson was the only one who knew and he was not known for his understanding nature.