Page 23 of The Spice Play

“No,” I snapped, but I lowered my voice, eyeing Matty’s tablet and feeling a sense of relief when I realized they were mid-song. He couldn’t hear us. “He’s not coming to the game, andthat’s final. He can come to the next one that isn’t on a school night.”

“You’re being unreasonable,” she scoffed. “Look, I’ve nannied for plenty of kids, and rewarding them during the early stages makes the transition period easier. But fine. I won’t tell you how to parent him.”

“I said it’s final, Nelly.”

————

It wasn’t final.

After taking a couple of ibuprofen, I’d calmed down significantly, the pain in my right arm dulling to a mild annoyance. And I’d relented about the game.

She’d taken her leave nearly an hour ago after I’d told her, reluctantly, to bring Matty on Sunday night. She’d stared at me as if I’d told her that the sun had exploded and held her tongue. Whether she thought it was best to stay quiet out of a desire not to argue with me or if it was due to a worry about me changing my mind if she spoke, I wasn’t sure. But all she’d done was nod once before saying,I’ll be in the guest house if you need anything.

Those words played over and over andoveragain in my head as I stood in front of the agonizingly hot blast of water from one of the three shower heads. It was aimed directly at my right shoulder, the mode swapped to the jet function. The water beat against my muscles, loosening them and distracting me enough from the pain that I could find relief in more waysthan one.

I’ll be in the guest house if you need anything.Fuck, how literal was she being?

This was getting out of hand far too quickly.

And annoyingly, the pull I felt toward her wasn’t just physical. I knew myself well enough to pick it apart in my mind and separate that out, but it was there, clear as day — she was great with Matty, she wasn’t a pushover by any stretch of the word, and goddammit, she justhadto likeSurvivor. I wished there were parts of her that genuinely angered me, parts that made me want to walk away from her, but they just weren’t there or hadn’t shown themselves yet.

And I was swimming in her.

I hadn’t felt this trapped in my own house with the last nanny, or the one before that, or the one before that. And maybe it was because I was actively trying to beat down the fact that I was stupidly, annoyingly into her that made it feel far more intense than things had been with the other nannies. She just felt so…present.

I’ll be in the guest house if you need anything.

It wasn’t as if I hadn’t enjoyed myself that night I’d met her at Smokey’s. I had. Probably far too much, despite not letting her touch me where I’d been aching for it. The way she’d come apart in my hands haunted me so thoroughly that I worried I’d never get those images out of my mind. Had I never seen her face again, I’d have bet money on being able to wipe her from my mind after a bit of time had passed, but she washere.She was on my goddamn property, being “protected” by Carl the House Goalie, as Matty had put it. She was in my phone, in my home, in my head.

And I’d be the worst liar on earth if I tried to say that I’d felt like that about every woman I’d touched since Taryn.

But I had more than enough self-control to deal withthis. I had to. I wouldn’t get out of the shower, wrap myself in a towel, and storm down the stairs at eleven at night, just so I could cross the yard and catch a glimpse of her. I was better than that.

And I didn’tneedto anyway. I could see the guesthouse’s living room from my bedroom window.

————

“It’s Nelly!”

I tried to contain the creeping laughter bubbling up my throat as I stared down at the image Matty had drawn on printer paper. There were two houses, one much larger than the other, and four stick figures in front of them. The one to the far left, tall and wearing what looked somewhat like my jersey, was colored in with a peach crayon for my skin and a brown one for my hair. The smaller one beside me, wearing the same jersey and much, much shorter, was colored exactly the same. The far right was what I could only assume was Carl the House Goalie with his arms out wide and a helmet on, and then smack dab in the center, in front of the smaller house, was… Nelly, from what Matty had said.

Except he’d colored her in with a deep brown crayon.

“Matty, this isgreat,” Nelly snickered, pointing out the yellow marks in her stick figure’s hair. She sat on the floor beside him in the middle of the kitchen, her pajamas still on, the brown waves of her hair falling around the sides of her face from where they’d come out of her braids in the night. “You even got my highlights!”

Part of me wanted to applaud my son and encourage him, but another part was screaming at me to correct him. “He colored you in with?—”

“I know!” Nelly grinned. “It’s cute. I love it, I look like I’ve got a tan.”

I nearly choked on my coffee as I squatted down beside them, my body still flaring with pain from the night before. “Yes, but?—”

Nelly shot me a glare over Matty’s head that said, without a doubt,don’t push me on this.

Matty’s brows creased just barely in the center as he looked from Nelly to the paper in front of him. “I didn’t have a light brown,” he said.

I’d never opened the Amazon app so quickly in my life.

“That’s okay,” Nelly chimed, that smile breaking across her cheeks the moment she looked away from me and back at Matty. “I still love it. If you want more crayons, though, I’msurewe can talk your dad into buying you a better variety pack?—”

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