Page 24 of The Spice Play

“I’m already on it,” I grumbled.

I added the largest pack of crayons to my basket, along with a pack helpfully labeledColors of the World, and tried not to balk at the price before hitting the quick checkout button and shoving my phone back in the pocket of my joggers.

“How about we hang this one on the fridge, hmm?” I offered, extending my hand to Matty. I glanced over his head at Nelly, catching her gaze briefly as I added, “We can call it a truce gesture.”

After spending half the night imagining the ways I wanted to take her, I told myself that I needed to make the current situation work and decided I’d plow on and put up with the temptation. I needed this to work, needed a reliablenanny with the playoffs coming up and the hectic schedule that would inevitably follow, and I couldn’t risk losing another one or getting involved in any way, shape, or form with Nelly. I could do my best to be kind to her without throwing her over the counter and burying myself inside of her.

Matty squealed as he ran over to the fridge, one hand going flat against the front of it as he pointed up toward an empty space between the calendar and the collection of mismatched magnets. “Can we put it there?”

I nodded at him and picked out a couple of magnets to hold it in place, then secured it to the front.

“Truce gesture?” Nelly chuckled, leaning back against the cabinets with her rear still firmly placed on the wood floor. She looked up at me, her blue eyes practically twinkling in the morning rays of sun that poured through the kitchen window and spilled across her, painting her in an almost ethereal way. I couldn’t stop myself from wishing she was on her knees, instead. “So, you’re not going to be sour with me anymore?”

I sent a glare in her direction. “I didn’t say that.”

“Matty, why don’t you go finish your breakfast so your Dad and I can clean up?” Nelly offered. Her gaze flicked between me and my son, and the moment Matty chirped in agreement and ran back to the living room, a weight settled heavily on me and me alone. “Do you have a problem with me?”

Her unwavering confidence in those seven words felt like whiplash. “What?”

Heavy lashes blinked once. “Do you have a problem with me?” she repeated.

I struggled to think of something decent to say. Whatwantedto come from my mouth was ayes, I can’t stop thinking about fucking you and you get under my skin, careto fix that?But I couldn’t say that, no matter how much I wanted to let those words slip past my teeth. “I literally just hung a drawing of you on my fridge as atrucegesture. Why would you think I have a problem with you?”

“Precisely because you called it atrucegesture.” She crossed her arms over her chest and folded her legs in, sitting forward just enough so her face was out of the direct sunlight. “I was under the hopeful impression you were just having a few bad days. Is that not the case?”

I gulped down a mouthful of coffee to give myself time to think.Has she not considered that my irritation with her is permanent?“Does it matter, Nelly? I’m offering a truce.”

She rolled her lip together between her teeth, her gaze not averting once. “I need this job, so no, I guess it doesn’t,” she said, her voice a little smaller, a little softer. It shouldn’t have felt like a knife to the chest, but it did. “I guess I’ll just put up with your attitude.”

I took a deep breath in through my nose and said nothing but the truth. “I’m working on it.”

Chapter 11

Nelly

Warm water enveloped me as I sunk further into the bathtub. I’d left the jets off this time to keep the noise down just in case it was loud enough to be heard in the main house — I didn’t want to interrupt Matty’s bedtime routine with his dad.

Rosie’s voice filtered out through my phone’s speaker, cutting through the light sloshing sound of the water. “So, it’s going well, then?”

“I mean, I’m currently sitting in a bathtub with jet capabilities. So that’s an easy yes.”

A chuckle filtered down the line, a little tinnier than she normally sounded. “Yeah, I figured it would be a nice place once I realized he was aplayeron the Atlanta Fire and not just a staff member,” she said, the unmistakable sound of nail clippers breaking up the silence on her end. “I’ve only spoken to the dad once to get the basic information, but he seemed nice enough. I’ve mostly just been in contact with the coach. Casey, I think?”

“Yeah, Casey.” I leaned my head back on the littlewaterproof pillow, heat and weightlessness soothing my bones.

The temptation to mention that the dad she had spoken to was the same man I’d told her I had met at Smokey’s gnawed uncomfortably at the back of my mind. I wanted to talk about it, wanted to spill the beans to literally anyone who would listen so I could get a morsel of advice. But the one person I wanted to tell most was also my boss, and she had gotten me this gig in the first place.

The fear of jeopardizing the best-paying job I’d ever landed kept me from opening my mouth and letting the words fly out.

“Have you heard anything else about the wedding?” she asked, her tone a little hesitant as a much largersnap!rang out, followed by a mumbled, “Shit.”

“Trim too much nail?”

“Yeah,” she groaned.

“That sucks,” I sighed, slipping just a little bit further down. My chin touched the water, my breasts floating almost comically beneath it. “And no, I haven’t heard anything else about the wedding. I don’t think they’re insane enough to invite me.”

“Didn’t you introduce them?”

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