Manservant

by Shari J. Ryan

  “You don’t understand anything,” he snickers and hops down from the table.

  “So you hang around all day, clean the house, fold laundry, and cook meals, right?”

  He nudges me out of the way as he takes over the counter space I was leaning against and grabs the muffin tin. “That’s all I do. I prance around this house in a maid’s uniform with a feather duster,” he scoffs. “God, you’re all the same.”

  I create some space between us, moving over to the kitchen table. “Ohhh, okay, I get it. You were in love with one of the nannies and she left you high and dry, breaking your poor weak heart. Is that it?” The first half of my question came out cynically, but as I came to the end of my assumption, I assured myself I hit a nerve. I’m totally right.

  Except, who am I to judge a weak heart? I’ve written off men for the past year because of what Andy did to me. Lousy son of a bitch.

  Liam didn’t take another jab at me like I assumed he would, which is worse because now I just feel like a jerk.

  “I’m sorry,” I offer, painfully.

  “For what?” he rebuts quickly.

  “What I just said?” I’m looking at his back as if he has two heads. I’m pretty sure he knows what I’m apologizing for, so I can assume he just wants me to grovel now. Nope.

  “Whatever,” he says, turning the sink on high.

  “And for your information, I plan to last longer than ten days, so you better get used to me being here.”

  “Great, well then, there’s one thing I should make real clear right now.”

  He turns the sink off, twists around, and leans back against the counter. “You clean up after yourself. I don’t do your dishes, your laundry, or make your bed. Got it?” It’s not like I asked for this or insinuated it. Why would he assume I’d expect something like that? Unless the previous nannies did. Maybe that’s what has his feathers so ruffled. I almost laugh at my own joke, but he still looks pretty ticked off, so I keep it to myself.

  “Fine, got it. So, you’re not my manservant, you’re only Samantha’s. Point made.”

  Liam’s eyes widen. Actually, they look like they might pop out of his head. “Excuse me?” I shrug and prance out of the kitchen. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up.” I don’t plan to stop as I head back up the stairs toward my room. “Did you just call me a manservant?”

  He’s standing at the bottom of the stairwell, yelling up to me. As much as I’d like to encourage his anger, I continue walking until I reach my room. “Yes, that is what I called you,” I say as I close my door. Ha! I had the final word. That’s what you get for being a jerk. He is kind of a manservant. I believe it’s the male terminology for maid, and well, men still call women cleaners maids. So, there you go.

  As I sit down on the edge of the perfectly made bed, I realize my bags are all in my car, and I’m going to have to lug them up here one by one, past the manservant who is probably trying to find a way to get me fired as I sit here. I’m going to ignore him. I’m a grown woman, and I know how to ignore annoying men, no matter how unpleasant looking they are with their stupid, messy, light caramel hair and piercing eyes. Not to mention that gross tan and those big, ugly muscles that are about to tear through his tight t-shirt the next time he gets mad. God, he’s a mess.

  I’m not sure how long I can tap my foot against the side of the bed before I pull up my big girl pants and head back out there. Maybe he’s gone.

  I open the door slowly, hoping to avoid any noise. I don’t hear anything downstairs, so maybe I’ve lucked out and he left.

  Jogging down the steps, I keep my focus pinned on the front door. Why do I care what he could say to me? It’s not like I know him. He’s the one being an asshole, so where’s my self-confidence? I’m not a fifteen-year-old girl.

  I’m four steps from the bottom when his voice booms from the open living room that looks up at the stairwell. “Forget something?” he asks.

  Being that I was so focused on the door and retrieving my belongings, he scared the shit out of me, and I stumble down three steps, landing directly on my butt. Shit. I hit the last step so hard; the wind in my lungs feels like it’s been sucked out of my body.

  I’m just going to pretend my ankle isn’t throbbing and my ass bone doesn’t feel broken. I grip the railing to pull myself up, but shockingly, Liam grabs my arm and helps me up. He’s laughing, which is a real jackass move considering he doesn’t know if I’m okay, and it was kinda his fault that I fell, but it’s not like I should have expected much else from him. I’m surprised he’s even helping me up. It seemed like the perfect opportunity for him to get back to whatever dishes he was washing.

  “Crap.” A dull pain shoots through my ankle, forcing me to drop back down to the step I was sitting on.

  “You okay?”

  “Like you care?”

  “Fine.” He releases his grip from my arm and leaves the room without another word.

  I wait a few seconds before trying to put weight on my foot again. I’ll have to grin and bear it. Hobbling down the last step, I limp over to the door as Liam makes his way back over to me. “You should put ice on that,” he says, handing me a bag of frozen peas.

  Again, his hand makes contact with my arm, but this time he lifts it up and places it behind his back as he helps me over to the couch. I fall into the feathery couch and Liam pushes the coffee table toward me, so I take the hint and lift my foot, placing it down on top of the dark, oak table. Liam places the ice pack gently down on my ankle, and with one swift movement, he grabs the stack of magazines on the other side of my foot and straightens them out.

  “Thank you.” My voice comes out in a whisper compared to the way I’ve been responding to him for the past hour. It sounds meager now that I’m in this position.

  “Sure,” he says while stalking back into the kitchen.

  Forced to sit here on this family’s living room couch, I scan the area, looking at the various pictures of their son, different vacations they were on, and shots from their wedding. Looks like the perfect family. Hopefully, Dylan knows how lucky he is that his mother wants to be around him and apparently give him everything in the world.

  I feel ridiculous right now. I need to walk this off. Removing the peas from my ankle, I roll my foot around a few times and lower it down from the table. Oh no, is that my—yup.

  “Isn’t that the theme song from Fifty Shades of Grey?” Liam shouts out from the kitchen in laughter. So, I guess he is capable of laughing? “Of course that would be your ring tone.”

  My phone is blaring upstairs on the bed where I left it, stupidly thinking I would be right back up. “Yes, yes, it is. I like the song, and I’m sure you have a problem with that too.”

  “I’m not the one who likes to be tied up and whipped, so I don’t have any issues with it.”

  I limp over to the stairs, groaning along the way. “Just because I like a song doesn’t mean I’m into BDSM.”

  He’s quiet for a long second as I trudge up the stairs, and then I hear the faintest hint of, “That’s too bad.” My eyes widen as I consider what might be going through his head. Maybe being an asshole is his “game” with women. Well, you’ve got another thing coming to you, jerk. It isn’t going to work with me.

  What kind of girl would be into that? Maybe someone who doesn’t know any better, but I’ve grown up with the model dad. I watched him struggle to support his family, working from six in the morning until eight at night, all while never spending a dime on himself. It’s the one reason I’ll never forgive Mom for throwing that all away for Declan, the thirty-eight-year-old gym buff who cares more about his appearance than her. Come to think of it, my parents have been perfect role models of what to avoid and what to desire for my future.

  I grab my phone from the bed and hold it up to see who the call was from. One missed call from Jade Winston. Shouldn’t she be at work right now?

  I click the missed call and wait for it to dial her number. She answers after two rings with a loud huff. �
�Oh my God. I’m so freaking late this morning,” she groans into the phone.

  I glance down at my watch. “Jade, it’s ten. That’s a little more than late.”

  “I told them I got sick this morning, but I’d still be able to make it, so I think I’m off the hook at least.”

  I sit down on the edge of the bed, feeling the pain fester in my ankle. “Do you do this a lot?” I ask her. This isn’t Jade. Jade has always been a little aloof, but she’s usually fairly responsible. I don’t remember a time she’s been late to a job. Between last night and hearing this conversation, I’m more than a little concerned about her.

  “This is only the second time.” She says this without a glimmer of remorse.

  “And they’re understanding?”

  “I guess,” she says while crunching down on something.

  “Jade, I’m worried about you.”

  “I’m fine, truthfully . . . but enough about me. I was calling to see how your first day with Grumpy Pants is going.”

  I cup my hand around the bottom of my phone to conceal my words as much as possible. “You freaking knew about him and didn’t warn me?”

  “Oh, he’s not that bad once you get to know him.”

  “Jade. Is it true that no nanny has stuck around here for more than a couple of weeks?”

  She laughs in response to my question, but I’m not sure I see what’s so funny. “Yes, it’s true, but it isn’t because of Liam.”

  “What made you think I’d be a viable candidate for this? Was it all of my experience in childcare?” I know I sound ungrateful for the position she acquired for me here, but she made it sound like it would be a fun experience.

  “Jules, I know you. That’s why I thought you could handle it. You’re the sweetest, most tough-as-nails, girl I know.”

  “Obviously, this kid sounds like trouble,” I tell her.

  “Easy with that one,” she warns. I don’t know if she means Dylan, or the topic, but I’m starting to get a little nervous.

  “So, tonight, you and I are going out for dinner by ourselves, and we’re having a long talk, okay?” I say this with a smile to my tone, but I’m feeling a lot of things right now, and none of it seems happy.

  “I’m all you—Oh my God, can’t you use the crosswalk like everyone else?” she yells. “Sorry, people like to jet out in front of cars in this area.”

  “It’s okay. I have to get going, though.” I hear Liam coming upstairs, and who knows what wrath he’s bringing.

  “Okay, I’ll see you tonight. Meet me at my place when you get out,” Jade says.

  Liam is standing in the entryway of my room with every one of my bags draped over a different part of his body. “Don’t get used to this,” he says, dropping them off beside my bed.

  “I didn’t ask you to do that.” But, I do appreciate it.

  “I’m aware.” He folds his arms over his chest and looks at me as if he needs to figure something out.

  “I don’t understand why you’ve been such an—” Maybe I shouldn’t call him an asshole when he brought my bags upstairs for me.

  “Look, girls like you come and go. They see me as a free ride to play house with Dylan all day and leave all their dirty work for me to clean up. For some reason, every nanny this family has had was under the impression that this job is easy.” The thought may have crossed my mind a few times. I figured it would be fun to play with a kid all summer, then move home and start looking for a real-world job.

  “That’s why the other nannies have left after a week?”

  “Partially,” he responds, dropping his hands to his sides. He walks over to the long dresser and straightens the tall lavender vase filled with white lilies. Perfectionist or OCD? We may have one thing in common, at least. I noticed the crooked vase almost the second I walked in.

  “Well, I’m not afraid of a challenge, and I’m not a messy person, so you can take it down a notch.”

  A hint of a smile touches his perfect, cupid-bow lips, and for a reason I will not look into, it makes my stomach tighten. Why is it the good-looking, I mean . . . super ugly guys . . . are always the assholes? I promised to stop going after men for their looks after dealing with Andy—the quarterback, Indiana State’s Mr. August, and the eye-candy for every girl in English Lit during sophomore year. Now knowing I was just a monthly calendar girl he strung along for an entire year, I don’t understand how a man can hide eleven other girls in his life, but that whole experience taught me how naive and gullible I am. I refuse to ever let someone break my heart like that again. Andy killed the image of any good-looking guy in my future.

  “So, you’re friends with Jade?” he asks, staring out the French windows.

  “Best friends since middle school.” She isn’t making me look too good at the moment, though.

  “She’s a handful, huh?” What can I say to this? She was certainly the definition of that last night, and from the sounds of it, she’s been acting this way since she arrived here.

  “I think she’s going through something right now. For the most part, Jade has always been pretty cool.

  “Are you friends with Jared and Cale?” I ask. Obviously, they’re friends. Cale said so, and why else would he have met up with them last night? This whole awkward conversation is not quite necessary.

  “Yeah, they’re my buddies. The area isn’t too big around here, so everyone kind of knows everyone, and we grew up together.”

  “They’re both very nice,” I offer.

  “Until they try to play matchmaker, yeah.” He looks at me with a sheepish glare until it dawns on me what he meant by that. They were trying to set Liam up with Jade.

  “Ohhh, they wanted you to—with Jade.”

  “She’s just not my type,” he says with a sigh and a raised brow. He means the overbearing, just dumped her fiancé, drunk college girl, can’t hold her own, type. Yeah, I can understand that. “She wasn’t looking for anything either, though, so we sort of became friends . . . but her nightly routines have gotten old over the last few weeks.”

  That kind of explains last night, kind of, still . . . not.

  “I suppose Jade requires a certain type of man,” I say, not exactly sure how to respond to this either.

  “Yeah, that’s not me,” he says.

  Normally if a guy were talking about his “type,” I might be intrigued enough to ask him what his type is, but Liam is a good-looking man who I work with, and has an obvious asshole side to him, so, no, I’m not going there.

  I will not complain about my first day because I can’t do anything to change it now. The stomach acid burning a hole in my gut is making it clear how wrong this decision was for a “fun” summer job. The temptation was too hard to resist, and now I’m going to pay dearly for skipping town to avoid becoming a full-fledged adult. The worst part is, today wasn’t an actual first day because there was no child to care for.

  I pull into Jade’s parking lot and gimp up the stairs to the second level of apartments. I hear her singing at the top of her lungs, which means she’s most likely in the shower. I try the door knob, finding it unlocked. Of course, she wouldn’t think to lock her door while in the shower. Growing up in a small town where farm animals were our neighbors, neither of us realized how lucky we were to feel safe while walking around at night, not until we got to college and found out real quick that you don’t leave your doors unlocked unless you want something stolen.This town does seem fairly safe, but I’m not sure I could ever get myself to trust as easily as she does.

  I knock on the bathroom door. “Jade, I’m here. I didn’t want you to freak if you heard me come in.”

  She kicks open the door and the burning smell of hair fogs the air around me. “How was the rest of your day?” She smirks at me in the mirror as she irons a strand of her unruly, coarse hair.

  “Just as great as you might imagine with that jackass.” I limp over to Jade’s pullout bed and plop down.

  I hear the straightening iron fall into the sink wit
h a loud echoing clunk as she bursts through the door to look at me. “What happened to you? Why are you limping? Oh, my God, that kid . . .”

  “What kid?” I question.

  “The boy you’re caring for . . . Dylan, isn’t that his name?”

  “He wasn’t even there today. Do you know something about him that I don’t?”

  Jade flips her head over and fluffs her hair around, but as she whips her hair back, I only see a look of puzzlement on her face. “No, I don’t know much about him at all.” She reaches behind me and snatches a short dress that was draped over the side of the bed.

  “I thought we were going out for dinner tonight?” I ask her as she pulls the tight, hot pink dress over her head.

  “Yeah, we are . . . why wouldn’t we be?”

  I glance down at the clothes I’ve been wearing all day. My blue leggings and white short-sleeve blouse can hardly compare to her fashion statement. “I guess I’ll be your underdressed date for the evening.”

  “I knew you’d show up like that.” She walks around the other side of the bed and pulls another dress out from under her rumpled sheet. “That’s why I pulled this one out for you.”

  “I’m three inches taller than you and if this dress fits anything like yours does, my ass will be hanging out of it.”

  “And that’s a bad thing when you’re single?” Her brow raises as a sinful gleam teases her glossy lips.

  “Speaking of which . . .”

  “No,” she stops me.

  “What happen with Chip, Jade?”

  Jade drops down to her knees in front of her tiny closet and tosses several pairs of shoes out before she finds a matching pair. “Come on, get dressed,” she says, ignoring my question.

  I stand up from the bed and kneel beside her shoe pile, catching her arm in mid swing. I pull her toward me and wrap my arms around her. “How could you keep this from me?”

  A struggling breath rips through her as she falls limp against me. “I didn’t tell you because,” a faint cry hitches in her throat. “I’m a horrible person.”