The Babysitter (3 page)

“Never.” I climb out of his arms and sashay to my bedroom. It's right at the end of the hallway. I glance over my shoulder. He remains where we stood, but turns his body to look at me as I open the door and enter my room. Not closing it, I sit on the edge of my bed, which is right in front of the open doorway. I tug my dress up and reveal my spread thighs and damp panties to him. “Come here, please.”

Worry for time or our schedules disappears. He walks forward, takes another look at the path to escape, enters my bedroom, and shuts the door behind him.

I begin to take off my dress. He stops me by grasping onto my wrists. “No. That's not why I came in here. Are you crazy? Everyone is downstairs.”

An exasperated breath escapes my lips. “Then why did you come?”

“Too make sure that you and I have an understanding that this stops here.”

“It doesn't.” I struggle to get out of his hold, my breasts jiggling with each movement. His gaze is on them again, searing his desire into my flesh.

“Stop it, Paige.” His voice comes out more like a growl than his normal tone.

I tense. “Blake?”

“I won't let my desire for you end my marriage.”

“It's already gone. She destroyed it long ago. Even you told me that you both hadn't slept in the same room for years.”

He sighs.

“Do you hear what she's been saying on the phone?”

“Yes, I hear it.”

“Then why stay with her?”

“That's none of your business, Paige. It's between her and me.”

“None of my business?”

He can't even look me in my eyes anymore. “No. It's none of your business.”

“You made it my business when you kissed me two weeks ago, and then did it again last week, and then came to my room and made me hot for you. Don't tell me it's none of my business, then come to my room and touch me the way you do.”

“Paige—”

“Please, Blake. Give us a chance.” I search his face for some hint that he's heard me.

“I can't. I won't.”

Tension bridges between us. Silent tension.

How far am I going to take this? It seems like the more I push, the more I end up looking like a crazy idiot begging a man to take me.

“Fine.” I relax my hands and stare at the floor. “Then go ahead and leave.”

“Not before you promise me that the teasing and everything else stops.”

“No.”

“Damn it, Paige.” His grip on my wrists tighten. “This isn't a game. My life isn't something that you can just walk in and change because you disagree with it or somehow think that something else should be for me. I want my life back in order.”

“And you want me out of it?”

“N-no.” He releases me, drops his arms to his sides, and backs away. “I want you here. The kids and Janet would go crazy if they heard you were leaving. I can't just fire you because I have a problem with calming my dick when you're around.”

“That's the only reason why you can't fire me?”

“The kids and Janet wouldn't want you gone.”

The kids and Janet are why I'm still here after she's returned? Not him?

Shocked, I slump my shoulders forward and continue to stare at the ground. “Is that the only reason why you haven't fired me, because Janet and the kids wouldn't like it?”

An eerie silence passes. Janet's voice ranks high on irritating as it rises in volume and rivals the kids' television show.

“Are you going to answer me?” I turn my face up to him.

“It's not a simple yes or no.” He runs his fingers through his waves and looks away. His reaction sickens me. Janet's voice travels through the walls from outside. Up in my bedroom I can't make out what she's saying, but I'm certain her location is still by the pool. By now I'm sure the kids and I will be late this morning. Yet, they won't bother us as long as their cartoon stays on.

“If it wasn't for Janet asking me not to, I probably would have let you go and given you a nice severance package, something to help you spend the rest of your third year in college with ease and not force you to get another live-in babysitting job.” He tucked his hands into his pockets. “The problem remains that you're too important in this household. When Janet left me the second time, almost a year ago, I barely did half of the things I should as a parent or restaurant owner. And now that the house is running so smoothly, I'm also afraid to hand it back over to her. Do you remember how I and the kids appeared?”

“Yes. You had a full-grown beard like a cave man and wore this wrinkled Miami Heat t-shirt with tomato stains on it. I thought you worked as the gardener here instead of owned this huge place.”

“And the worst part wasn't my appearance, but that I'd failed as a father in making sure my kids were okay through the whole ordeal. Both of them failed two quarters at school. Alyssa gained a lot of weight. Sammy was in the principal's office for fighting almost every day.”

“I remember it all. You're wife left you and her kids with no warning or any time to recover. And not only did she not take the time to check on her children, she could care less if you withered away.”

He ignores what I'm saying. “I hired you to come on for the weekend to watch the kids as I desperately tried to get my three restaurants back in order. After two weekends of you being here, I realized that I needed you to stay all week. Within three months, my kids are on the honor roll. Sammy's behavior is so great he receives a certificate for good conduct, and Alyssa has almost lost all of the weight. With you we survived.”

“And as soon as Janet returns you admit to me that you were ready to throw me away.”

He puts his hand in front of him. “No, not throw you away, but release you with a severance package. And it's for your protection as it is mine. What else could I do, Paige? You're young, beautiful, intelligent, and amazing in every way. I kissed you. I can't just parade my wife in front of you like nothing happened between us. You don't deserve to feel bad because I'm a greedy bastard.”

“But you would just let me go?”

“You think I can watch you walk around here and not go insane with lust?” He displays a weak smile. “It was hard enough to not touch you before we kissed. By the end of your first week working for me, I looked forward to your conversations as you told me about the kids' day. By the end of the month, I was making excuses to talk and be around you. For months, I slowly courted you and kept trying to tell myself I should stop.”

“You don't have to court me anymore. I'm right here.”

He sighs again. “Wait. We're off topic. I wasn't trying to go there. There’s no need to rehash this past year.”

You can't even think back to our times together?

What he didn't say out loud was that six months later of my working for him, he came up with the idea for movie night with just me and him. It started as a way to monitor what the kids looked at when we weren't watching them. Both Alyssa and Sammy loved anime movies. Not knowing much Blake let them purchase any of the films due to the fact that they were computer animated like cartoons. I had to take him to the side and explain that some anime boasted strong sexual content and even violent acts intended for adult viewing. He'd blushed when I let him know that there was a whole group of anime dedicated to panty shots.

The next night after I put the kids to sleep, he knocked on my door and asked if I wanted to watch an anime with him. We continued the tradition every Friday night, discovering raunchy adult content among some of the anime. Sometimes I surprised him with gourmet themed snacks—pumpkin spiced pop corn for Halloween, chocolate covered pretzels the night before Christmas when we set out his kids presents and then sat down to watch the latest anime, candy apples in February for Valentines, and green bottles of beer for St. Patrick's day. The Friday before last, my birthday, he'd beat me to bringing snacks by setting out chocolate covered strawberries and two glasses of red wine. In his hand rested all the new period films in the last six months. He knew between college, the kids, and my time with him that I didn't get a chance to rush out and check out my most anticipated films.

“No anime, tonight. It's your birthday. We watch all the ones you've been telling me you wanted to see.” He lay the box in my hand. “But first open up all of my and the kids' birthday presents to you, please.”

But we never got to tearing open any of the gifts after I saw the perfume. We kissed all night.

The next week, Janet returns and he's ready to drop money into my bank account and get rid of me.

I push my dress down and brace myself for the rest of our conversation. Things don't seem possible for us anymore. No matter how adamant I am about not giving up on us, he's even stronger and focused on mending his family back together. I get why, but I don't have to like that it leaves me out of my needs and Janet firmly back into his life.

He watches the bottom of my sundress fall to the floor. “Thank you.”

Those two words irritate me more than Janet's annoying voice. It equals the sound of nails scratching on chalkboard or a baby crying over and over far off in the distance and I can't think of anyway to help. It's the sound of something leaving my grasp and falling away from my fingers, as if I leaned over the ledge of a building with a handful of feathers, wind picked up and shoved all my feathers away.

“This can't happen between us.” Blake motions from him to me. “Regardless of my wife's actions, we've been married for ten years. She's birthed my children, did a good job of raising them, and earned the right to have me give her another opportunity to gain back my trust. Do you understand?”

Sadness lodged within my throat. His words flowed out of those gorgeous lips like sharp razors with wings, diving straight to my skin and scraping my flesh away. I sat there as he continued on and on about how giving me a chance would ruin his kids. He cuts me, slices away at the little barrier outside of myself.

After all the people I've lost in my life. I thought I could come out of my shell and love again. Full of regret, I wrap my arms around me as if that could protect me from the pain of knowing that there could never be him and me. Hadn't it seemed like a possibility this morning? In my mind, our chance at love made sense. He had to know that Janet was no good. He had to see that I could be so much more to him, that I could love him and his kids like they all deserved.

But he doesn't, and I can't make him.

After another minute of his apologizing, I can take no more and stand up. “Okay.”

He tenses. “Okay?”

“Yes. I understand. I don't know what I was thinking.” I place my back to him. “It's been just you, me, and the kids for a year now. I've become a part of your routines and lives. I feel like I'm part of the family sometimes. It's hard to remember I'm not.” I look at him over my shoulder.

“No.” He waved my comments away. “You are family.”

“Stop, Blake. I'm not. You've just made that clear.”

“Okay, wait. Let's start this over. What I'm trying to say is—”

“I don't want to hear it.” I bend over, grab my purse, and head out of my bedroom. “How much is the severance pay?”

“What?” He captures my arm and stops me from leaving. The contact of our skin on skin is fire and heat. Groaning, he grits his teeth. “Damn it.”

How can you feel this and not want more?

He doesn't free me from the contact and draws me close to him. “I'm so sorry.”

“Don't.” I keep space between us and won't allow him to pull me any closer. “I would rather take the release and severance pay option.”

“I said that was what I was thinking about doing, not—”

I climb out of his hold and lean his way. “You took your time this year getting close to me and making me slowly fall for you, didn't you?”

His face reddens. “I-I didn't mean to. I just couldn't stay away, something about you kept drawing me in.”

I hold my finger up to silence him. “You should have stayed away from me if you weren’t going to be man enough to give me a true chance, regardless of if your wife came back or not.”

He parts his lips as if he is going to say something, pauses, and mutters, “I know.”

“I'm not going to walk around here like a good little, silent babysitter while you and her carry out this reunion in happy matrimony. I won't even stay to watch you both fall back into what's already happened over and over already, where she leaves you, yet again, broken hearted, and alone.” I head to the stairs. “Here's my two week resignation. That should give you enough time to find another person. I'll make up an excuse to your wife and kids.”

My chest aches. Water lines my eyelids, preparing to spill over and stream down my face. I don't even look behind me, but I know he stands there, watching me walk away.

Is it really that simple for you to just let me go, because it's so hard for me to leave?

Full of embarrassment for myself and my heart, I spend the rest of the week doing my best to avoid him as much as possible. I get up early and have the kids out of the house armed with one of my homemade breakfast burritos so they can eat on-the-go. It results in never seeing Blake or Janet each morning, which is good.

The evenings are different.

Supposedly Janet signed up for an evening yoga class and ends up not returning home until late at night. I say
supposedly
because she always dresses up in heels, some tiny outfit, and drowning in perfume. Because he's at one of his restaurants, managing, Blake never sees her go. She ends up never returning for dinner. The meals are back to just him, me, and the kids at the table, with her empty seat thickening the room with tension. And the whole time we eat, I catch Blake watching and hurriedly looking away from me. He can't hide his emotions for me anymore. Any stranger could read it on his face.

Or is that what I want to think?

Regardless, we barely ever talk to each other during dinner. Instead, we focus on the kids' long-winded discussions on what amazing thing happened at school, ask appropriate questions during silent moments, and ignore each other until its time to clean up the plates and put them to bed.