Page 4 of Nanny for the SEALs

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Rick

“I swear,Stan, sometimes you have that iPad stuffed so far up your butt, you don’t think straight!” I screamed at my brother after I’d just seen Diamond, who told me that the nanny had come to pick up the twins.

“What did you want me to do? Besides, Bianca said she could come tonight. You should be thanking me that I got her on such short notice!”

Was he fucking kidding me?

We spent ages hiring her. Bianca was the perfect fit, and I didn’t want to alienate her before she officially started her new role. He took off his glasses, sighed, and looked at me. My brother spent too much time in front of the screen; so much so that he preferred to send messages to us rather than talk face-to-face most of the time, which annoyed the hell out of Pete and me.

“You should have stayed at home and waited for Bianca to start on Monday like I’d planned. Not a fucking Saturday night! Why was that so fucking hard? I don’t get why you dragged yourself to the club to do what you do ninety-nine percent of the time, which is just sit and watch the screen.”

He stood and grabbed his iPad as if it was a precious jewel. “I told you, I had the new security system installed, and I want to see if it works the way it is supposed to work.”

“How the fuck are you going to do that if you’re just sitting and watching the screen?”

I huffed. “I’m going to do my rounds, then go check them out. If all is okay, I’ll go home.”

He shook his head as he approached the door, the same one I was standing in front of, blocking his exit.

“I told you I wasn’t ready to be a dad, yet he decided to go down this route. They’re your kids, you look after them. You’re lucky I brought them to the club. I could have left them at home.”

“With whom?”

He chuckled. “The doorman… it’s not like I haven’t done it before.”

I moved out of his way before I did or said anything else that I would regret. This was exactly the same reason he was dismissed as a SEAL. He got so out of hand and they gave him an honorable dismissal, but it was clear he’d gone over the edge; unlike Pete and me, who were dismissed with PTSD. He moved his hair behind his ears as if to challenge me. My brother was no match for me; we both knew that. He spent most of his time eating Twinkies and sitting in front of his computer, which I was sure was the reason why he was dying to go home. It was as if he was married to the damn thing.

I tried to gain my composure as I thought about Stan. He’d gone from one extreme to the other over the last three years, and I didn’t know how to get him back.

“Anything special on your mind?” Pete said. He put his hand on my shoulder as he walked through the door.

“Shit, I was miles away.”

He nodded. “I could see. Just saw Stan leave. You guys arguing again?”

“You won’t believe this… He has crossed the line, and told Bianca to start on the weekend. I mean, we told her at the interview that there would be no working on the weekends. He’s so out of order.”

“Look, don’t worry about it. If it doesn’t work out, and she’s pissed about starting on a Saturday and not the Monday, then we will get a new one,” Pete said. “You know it’s not good for you to get stressed. You need to calm down. It’s not the end of the world. We’re here during the week, so we can keep an eye on her, or even better, we can get Stan to do it.”

I looked at him, thinking I was usually the voice of reason, but I couldn’t help myself for being so protective—after all, they were my kids.

I sighed. I didn’t need to tell my brother; he thought more like me, apart from the fact he loved getting his hands dirty. He was a builder, and the one who renovated this place. He loved his design and the passion he’d put into the renovation of the strip club, but I could tell he was desperate to have a new project underway.

I walked to my desk, the one Stan had been sitting behind. He made it clear he didn’t want any involvement in the club, so he didn’t want an office, but now he was spending more time here than I was.

“You’re looking sharp. You stripping, too?” I asked as I caught a glimpse of him in his white tux. Pete was naturally built that way, unlike me, who spent a little too much time jogging or in the gym.

“Yeah, I want to look the part tonight. I think after tonight I’ll take a complete step back.”

This was a conversation I knew was coming, but I was hoping it would wait at least a couple of months until the club was really up and running, and we could take a step back.

“We still need to hire a manager.”

He pointed at me. “Diamond says Bianca came, if she didn’t want to start today, then she wouldn’t have turned up, especially this time of the night. So, at least that’s one thing sorted.”

I frowned as I thought about not being hands-on as I’d been for the last five months. They were young, but I would be missing them starting to crawl, their first steps, and all the exciting things that parents look forward to being a part of.

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