Rhett is jogging across the grass from the garage when I look up. He scoops Quinn from my arms and drags the box fort by the window. When we make it to the patio, we’re all staring in a state of shock at what transpired in a matter of seconds.
“I’m so sorry. I had no idea they were going off tonight,” he apologizes.
“Da-eee wet!” Quinn complains, peeling her palms from his soaked shirt and shaking them off.
“You’rewet.” He holds up a clump of curls in front of her eyes. She sticks out her tongue and captures the droplets that fall from the ends of her hair. A smile stretches across his face, rivulets running through the maze of tiny crinkles around his eyes. Then he’s laughing. He’s looking at her as if she holdseverything good in the world. Tucking her under his chin and squeezing her tight.
It’s a tender moment. One that has me desperately yearning for the same kind of love in my life.
The moment ends when he makes a break for the back door. He stops when Quinn shouts.
“No! Da-eee see?” She points to the crumpling structure that used to be her hideout.
I get the impression from the guilty look on his face that he’s never been inside. His eyes drop to the watch on his wrist. The hands are big enough to read from here: seven o’clock. He still has another hour in his studio, and it’s Quinn’s bedtime.
I hold out my hands. “I can take her in and get her ready.”
He shakes his head. “No, it’s okay. I’m all done for the night. Besides, I think I have a cool fort to see.”
I cringe at the soggy cardboard, one side already collapsing in on itself. “Better take the chance while you still can.”
He snorts and sets her on her feet. “Better.”
Quinn drags him by the hand through the opening. When I made the door for this thing, I wasn’t intending for a grown man to squeeze through it. He chuckles when his shoulders get stuck and tears a section of cardboard away to fit.
“Wow,” I hear him exclaim when he makes it inside. “This is cool!”
It’s nothing special, especially now. But the way their voices escalate makes me feel more appreciated than I have in a long time. I wait outside the entrance, unsure if I should go in the house and let them have their time together. A shiver passes through me as wet clothes cling to my skin, but I’m too busy listening in on their conversation to care.
Glass clinks, and I know she’s showing him her collection of critters now—two ants, a moth, and a praying mantis. The factthat the jars survived the choppy ride across the grass and the collapsing cardboard is a small miracle.
A minute later, she peeks her head out the front door and waves. “Tum in!”
Not only was the door not built for adults but the space inside wasn’t made to fittwoof them. I fight my way through the opening, trip, and land with a plop right on a lap of muscle. I scramble for purchase on something to help me stand, but all I’m doing is ripping holes in the cardboard.
“Relax. I don’t bite.” His voice is a rumbly sound in my ear, an octave below his usual one.
You sure about that?I want to joke, but it gets lodged in my throat. My pulse hammers across my skin. There’s no way he can’t feel it with us pressed together. Quinn’s jabbering a whole bunch of nonsense, or maybe it’s fluent sentences, how the hell am I supposed to know when my attention is glued to the hand that’s stroking a circular pattern on my knee. Aside from yesterday when he gripped my wrist, Rhett’s never touched me before. I didn’t know I’d need a warning if he ever did again—a chance to gather my senses before they all went haywire.
My first day on the job and I’ve ended up in my boss’s lap. This would already be completely unprofessional by any standard, but especially with his daughter right here.
I clear my throat, vaulting myself in an ungraceful exit out the door. “Last one inside is a rotten egg!”
The mention of a game lures Quinn right out and into the house, with Rhett trailing behind her.
He snags a hand towel from the kitchen on the way, mopping up the trail of water we leave behind.
There’s technically another forty-five minutes before my nanny hours end, but if he’s not going back out to his studio, I imagine he doesn’t need me. “I should head out,” I alert him as he carries Quinn to the stairs.
He stops on the second step. “You’re not driving home like that.”
I know he’s referring to the clothes that are plastered to my skin. The ones that would soak the seat of my car if I left right now. To show him I don’t care, I wave a hand at him. “It’s fine, I?—”
“You can use the room across the hall from Quinn’s. There’s a shirt in the top drawer, sweats in the bottom.”
He doesn’t wait for my response. I stand there for a minute longer after he’s already gone.
I shouldn’t stay. There’s no need to. The problem is… Iwantto.
