by C. D. Reiss
CHAPTER 42
BRAD
I should have invited Mom and Dad, but it happened so fast I didn’t even think of it. Fuck it. I’d bring Nicole around after Thailand. Maybe I’d fly my parents into Bangkok. Or not. Maybe I’d just give the fuck up because I couldn’t do a damn thing right.
“Cara,” I said as we walked off the helipad. I had Nicole wrapped around me. “You’re freaking me out.”
“Why?” She smiled. Fake as shit. But I couldn’t kiss the phony thing off her. And she needed to be kissed. By me. A lot.
“Because you’ve turned into an icicle.”
She smiled again, but there was something sad about it. At least it wasn’t fake.
“Let’s give her a nice day and we can talk later.”
“Good idea.”
Four people in dark blue suits got out of a red-and-white polka-dot golf cart and greeted us. Three men and one woman.
“Hi!” the middle-aged woman in a blue suit said through a toothy smile. “My name’s Erin. You must be Nicole!”
My daughter nodded and leaned into me.
Erin crouched to eye level. “I brought you something special.”
Nicole hugged my leg tight but looked at the woman deeply enough to give her the time of day. Erin pulled a little pink bag from her satchel and held it out. Nicole looked at me, then Cara, then Erin.
“Take it,” she said. “It’s a gift from us.”
Gingerly, Nicole took the bag and said, “Thank you.” She held the bag up to me. It had fluffed pink tissue paper coming from the opening. “Can I open it?”
“Sure.”
Erin helped her with the tissue paper, and Nicole pulled out a headband with two huge, pink-sequined mouse ears at the top. Eyes wide, smile the shape of half a peach pie, she hugged it to her chest, then handed it to Cara, patting her head and saying, “Can you put this on me?”
Cara did the honors while Erin held her hand out.
“Mr. Sinclair,” she said, shaking my hand. “This is Steve, John, Bob.” I shook hands all around. “We have everything set up for you. As we discussed, we can’t prevent you from being photographed since it’s a regular session today. We can keep other guests from getting too close to you or your daughter, and we are pleased to let you know you’ll have access to all our rides and attractions without any wait times, as long as you let one of us know where you’re headed next. This cart is at your disposal all day, and we’re happy to show you through our VIP areas to all attractions and events.”
Her excitement was palpable.
“Erin,” I said. “You forgot to introduce yourself to Cara.”
I stepped to the side.
“Of course,” Erin practically exclaimed with delight. Fake. What was with the fake today? “I’m Erin.”
Cara shook her hand, and we all got into the golf cart. Nicole was as excited as a puppy on a new hambone. Hopping on my lap, then Cara’s, then insisting on sitting between us, then at the edge where she could see.
Cara wasn’t looking at me. She was sweet as sugar to my daughter, which is what mattered . . . but to me? Snow queen.
“Did I do something wrong?” I asked Cara.
“You don’t introduce the nanny.”
“Before that.”
“Hey Nicole!” she said, “Do you see the castle? It’s that way!”
Nicole squealed and climbed over me to get to the side of the cart where the white castle poked over the tree line.
“Careful,” Steve or John or whatever said.
I held her in the seat and leaned in to Cara so only she could hear.
“The next time I ask you something and you use my daughter to change the subject, I’m going to kiss you, and I don’t care who sees it.”
Her head snapped around. Eyes sharp. Mouth tight. She was mad. I liked it, in a way. Fire was better than ice by a lot.
“You better not let your daughter see again.”
“Why’s that?”
“What happens when I’m gone?”
“When you’re what?”
“I mean it.”
Gone?
Did she mean dead?
You’re thick as grits that set too long, Bradley Sinclair.
Gone meant gone. Out of our lives personally and professionally. I’d always figured she’d find a reason to stick around. I thought the whole “I don’t like working for celebrity families” thing was a front. But no.
She wasn’t lying. She meant it, and she was getting real about it.
I was going to get real about it too. I was going to admit to myself what I always knew.
She wasn’t going anywhere. Personally or professionally.
One adjustment. It wasn’t going to be easy. She wasn’t going to stay just because I was doing whatever I did. I was going to have to work for it.
“I mean it,” she repeated, then whispered, “keep your lips to yourself.”
That made me want to kiss her more. Not because she was telling me not to, but because she was so whipped up. I could have stood on my head and spit nickels, and she wouldn’t have budged.
No. She would have budged if I kissed her hard enough and long enough. Those tight little lips would have softened right up. No nickel-spitting required.
And working for it turned me right the fuck on.
I leaned closer.
“Don’t you worry. There’s not going to be any kissing today. Even if you beg me.”
Nicole squealed and the cart came to an abrupt halt right in front of the pristine white castle. The cart wasn’t the only thing that came to an abrupt halt. A family of four with a stroller and a little boy in a yellow T-shirt stopped dead when they saw me. I smiled at them. I expected a little holdup, but the security guards got in front of me.
Cara picked up Nicole and started for the castle. She knew where the VIP entrance was, because that sweet bottom knew exactly how to cut the line with the row of security guys behind.
She looked back at me, half a smile. A four-ton bag of shit and nerves lifted off me.
Just that. A smile to let me know she wasn’t so mad anymore. She was trouble. Bad trouble. And somewhere in my guts I’d decided that she wasn’t leaving when she said she was. She was leaving when I said she was.
I was going to have an easier time standing on my head and spitting nickels than letting her go.
CHAPTER 43
CARA
I’d spent a few weeks with Kevan Delight’s kids, including a VIP, drive-the-cart-around trip to Disney. I had no idea how it was done any other way. I’d gone to Euro Disney once with my third-grade class, but barely remembered anything besides the lines and a really good hot dog.
Nicole was beside herself. She wanted to do everything at once. Haunted Mountain, the baby roller coaster, the games, the candy apples, the go-karts. And Brad was game. He went on every ride with her. Whatever junk she ate, he ate and they discussed the relative merits of kettlecorn to its buttered cousin with utter seriousness.
Security kept a nice zone around them. Brad ignored them and focused on his daughter. This was going to become her normal. A buffer zone from the public and a free pass from inconvenience.
I tried to keep a step or two away. It wasn’t my day. I was just there to help, but Nicole kept pulling me close and checking to make sure I was within arm’s reach.
I always thought of her first, but her father made it hard to keep a professional distance. If he wasn’t talking to me, asking a question, or inviting me to join the Great Popcorn Flavor Debate, he was eating me alive with his eyes. He was totally inappropriate. He was exactly the dad all the nannies talked about over coffee. The one you had to watch, because given the right moment he’d pounce.
But he wasn’t that dad. Not wholly and not indiscriminately. Blakely hadn’t been on the receiving end of the inappropriate-daddy vibe. It was just me. I hoped none of the people photographing us with their camera phones or shouting his name for the gift of a wave or a smile saw the way he loo
ked at me.
“You need to go on one ride,” he said, folding a tuft of cotton candy in his mouth. He and Nicole were on a bench by a cluster of shade trees. I crouched in front of her.
He wore sunglasses, but I knew he was looking at me. I could feel his eyes burning through my clothes. We’d stopped for strawberry pie just ten minutes before. He’d speared his pie, watching me with one message.
Us southern boys eat pussy like pie.
Turns out, Nicole didn’t like strawberry pie. I had to finish her piece.
“No,” I said, wiping sticky pink strings from Nicole’s right hand while she licked the paper cone she had in her left. “I don’t like rides. And it’s not about me today. It’s your day.”
“My day means you do what I say.”
“Forcing me onto a ride might be fun for you—”
“It is fun for me. Completely fun.”
“I’m here to facilitate. No more.”
He leaned up, elbows on knees, dropping his voice to the exact timbre of my spine’s vibration. “You’re a professional. We get it. Now loosen up, buttercup.”
“Has any woman ever resisted you?” I asked. He shook his head ever so slowly. I wasn’t surprised I didn’t have company.
“Teacups!” Nicole pointed back the way we came. “Come on! The teacups!”
I looked back that way for no particular reason. I knew where they were. I just had to look away from him. But if I could resist him, Nicole had other equally powerful talents against me. She hopped off the bench and pulled me down the path.
“Teacups,” Brad announced to John/Steve/Bob, and the entire entourage trundled down the brick path. We hustled past the line, through the back, and were seated in our own personal lavender-and-white cup with purple and pink flowers.
Nicole pulled me close to her, then Brad, until we took up half the cup. She held one of our hands in each of hers and giggled uncontrollably.
“Was she like this on all the rides?” I asked.
“Yep. She knows how to have fun.”
“Oh, like I don’t?” The ride started churning. Slowly at first. Almost pleasantly.
“I want you to spend the next three minutes on this ride not worrying about something.”
He slipped to the spot across from me. The world behind him zipped out of focus with a smear of color.
“I have to worry.”
“I admire the way you think you can take care of anything that comes along. But now you’ve gotta put that away . . .”
His last few words were drowned out by the whipping wind and Nicole’s delighted cries. I lost control of my body, sliding around before I could grab on. Brad had his arms on the backs of the seats, and Nicole hung on to the edge for dear life, her smile a point of stillness in the swirl.
Was this a kid’s ride? The force of the spinning was incredible. I slid into Brad and landed with my head on his chest and he laughed, arm casually draped behind me. I tried to straighten up, got halfway, and laughed with him as my face got pushed into his.
I didn’t worry.
Not for a second.
He put his arm around me and held me fast. The torque threw all the worry and anxiety out of me. The laughter dislodged it and inertia flung it away to a far corner of the park. We had now. These two wonderful people and me, in a purple teacup, screaming with music I could barely hear over the whooshing wind in my ears.
I let the ride push me into him and we laughed together, squealing with Nicole at this silly spinning teacup. Even when my stomach lurched, it lurched up to a smile. Even after I knew I was going to lose the handful of blue-ribbon strawberry pie, I didn’t worry. I was happy. Centrifugal force was like a drug that separated body and mind.
I puked midlaugh. It landed on Nicole, whose squeals of delight turned to screams of horror. My stomach flipped again and a stream of bright red pie made a circular pattern from my mouth to, well, everywhere.
How much pie did I eat?
The volume of pie puke far outweighed the piece, but it kept coming, splattering the back of the teacup, Nicole, and my shirt.
Brad got a little on him, but he was more worried about me. The arm that had been coolly behind my seat grasped my shoulders and held me still.
I can’t say I wasn’t happy. In a way, because my mind was there while my body was here, the carefree minutes stuck with me. But I was certainly sick to my stomach.
The ride came to a stop after about a dozen more turns and body and mind snapped together again.
“Oh my God,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”
Puke everywhere. Brad gathered up Nicole. I covered my mouth as he crouched by me with his crying daughter on his knee.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m so embarrassed.”
“That’s not gonna kill you.”
You know what was funny?
I wasn’t embarrassed. I just thought I should be. By the time the team of suits got to us, I was chuckling behind my hands and Brad was laughing as if I’d just done a world-class sight gag.
I was a part of something. A little triangle of people. I didn’t stop to worry about inappropriate intimacy or attachment just then. Didn’t stop myself from naming it and accepting it because Brad had me. Stupid party boy Brad Sinclair in sandals and shorts. He had me.
And he had Nicole, who was beside herself.
“My dress! We have to clean my dress!”
Brad helped me up with his free hand. “Are you going to be sick again?”
“No. I’m fine.” I stood, hands hovering over my puke-soaked shirt.
“How much pie did you eat, woman?” Brad joked.
“Don’t say pie.”
Even the blue suits laughed as they led us off the lavender cup of hell. Nicole kept her hands a few inches from her sides, sobbing softly, saying “my dress my dress.”
Once we were on the golf cart, I peeled her dress off. She folded her arms across her chest and made a shivering motion. Brad took his jacket off and put it over her shoulders as the polka-dot golf cart whipped around the park.
“You should take yours off.” Nicole wrinkled her nose and pointed to my puke shirt.
“I agree.” Brad wrinkled his nose like his daughter. “You’d smell better. Not to mention look better.”
“Be good.”
Brad smirked. Nicole curled up close to him, breeze in her hair, and he put his arm around her. They were so damn cute.
Erin twisted around from the front seat.
“I called ahead to the first aid station.”
“No, really. It was just motion sickness. I’m fine.”
“I’m sorry, but park liability. You know how it is. If we let you go, you have to sign a waiver.”
“I’ll sign—”
“Just go,” Brad said. “They’ll take your blood pressure and look at your pupils. It’s a free checkup.”
“Brad . . .”
I had a list of good, solid arguments. But the way he looked at me stopped me from finishing my thought. He didn’t care about the free checkup, he cared about me.
“You don’t have to worry about me,” I said.
“I’m not.”
The cart came to a smooth halt at the first aid station.
“Was that the first lie you ever told me?”
He shrugged, letting a little smile curl the edges of his mouth. He hopped off the cart.
“We’re going to keep her company, right, pumpkin?”
“Yeah.” She held up her pink pony and made a squeaky voice. “We’ll go with you.”
Brad helped me off the cart while Steve led me through the glass doors. They opened automatically, but he still guided me as if I could trip over motion sickness.
Inside, the room was decorated to brighten the mood of injured children, with a train chugging along the perimeter of the room just below the ceiling and heavily branded toys and decorations everywhere. No corner was left uncheered.
A young woman with a pixie cut and pink scru
bs met us at the door. Her stethoscope hung around a long neck, and she spoke to Brad before she even looked at me.
“Hi! I’m Dr. Barnes. We heard you were coming! Welcome!” Her gaze lingered over him 20 percent too long. She finally looked at me. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m really fine.”
“You’ll be out of here in no time. We get this a lot with the teacups. Come on in!” Back to Brad. “Mr. Sinclair, we have a VIP waiting room for you and your daughter.”
She led me to the exam room and pressed her back against the closed door and took a breath. It was only a moment, but the way she put the clipboard to her chest told a long story.
“He is magnificent,” I said. She seemed relieved I’d broached the subject.
“How do you even sit next to him?” She shook her head, pulling the pen from the top of the clipboard.
“I don’t do much sitting, to be honest. His daughter’s a handful.”
“I bet. Okay, sorry. That was terribly unprofessional.”
“He has that effect on people.”
“Yeah. Phew. Okay. Sit over here, and we’ll just make sure this was an isolated teacup incident.”
The brightly colored paper crunched when I sat on it, thinking about how Brad Sinclair had utterly crushed my professionalism.
CHAPTER 44
BRAD
When we got back to the hotel, Nicole chose a new set of clothes. She’d latched on to a DVD about bows and a blue submarine with squeaky little animal creatures. I’d tried to pay attention, but the text from Ken, my PR guy, came in just as I realized I’d never care about finding all the bows in the submarine.
Ken didn’t bug me about what happened on social media unless I needed to do damage control. That was rare, since my reputation was so borderline bad even mooning an employee barely registered a blip. I never explained why I didn’t do social media. Everyone assumed it was because I didn’t want to say anything I couldn’t deny later. They were right. Partly.
I skipped over the tiny words and went right to the photo Ken sent. Me and Cara on the teacup ride and the headline in bold yellow.
Shit. It was going to take me a few minutes to figure out what that said. I didn’t have a piece of paper either.