Want another hot and dirty read? Check out the first chapter of Penny’s other book, FALLING FOR THE BABYSITTER.

* * *

The trash smells disgusting. “God, did something crawl in there and die?” my friend Clara says beside me as I wheel the trashcan out to the curb. She’s stayed over for horror movie night, a monthly tradition we’ve held since we were twelve.

I hold my breath, face scrunched up tight. “Yeah, whatever that thing was my mom tried to feed us last night.”

“What was that?” Clara says.

“Tofu.”

“Is that some kind of bird, because if it is, it should be hunted until it’s extinct.”

I laugh. Poor Clara. Her family is strictly meat and potatoes. She never even saw a Brussel sprout until we met. She thought it was the cutest little baby cabbage until she actually tried it. Now she calls them devil warts.

“It’s made from soy beans, I think.”

The sun has just risen. There’s a mist curling off the cement as the day warms up. The sky, with its layers of vibrant orange and yellow, looks like candy corn. A beautiful fall day.

The sprinklers come on with a hiss that startles me at first before I realize what made that sound. We have to sprint across the lawn in bare feet to get to the newspaper before it’s ruined. No matter how many times my mom complains, the guy who delivers our newspaper always tosses it onto the lawn instead of the front porch.

I’m shaking off the water droplets when I hear the deep rumble of a pickup truck. I watch as it pulls into Sam’s—my neighbor’s—driveway. But my neighbor drives a Toyota Prius, so I know it’s not him, unless he got a new car. With his office geek appearance, he doesn’t really seem like a truck kind of guy, so I doubt it.

The engine turns off and it takes a minute for the driver to exit the vehicle. Then Deacon steps out of the driver’s side and my heart explodes in my chest.

“Oh my god,” I say, standing there, dumbfounded.

Clara turns toward my neighbor’s house. “Holy shit, is that—”

“Yes, it is. Don’t stare!” I grab her by the shoulders and twist her body to face me.

“Pretend we’re talking,” I say.

“We are talking.”

“Just stand there so I can stare without being obvious I’m staring,” I say as I watch him over her shoulder.

She grumbles. “Fine. But hurry up. It’s freezing out here.”

Deacon is Sam’s brother. He used to own the house, then sold it to Sam after he married. I remember sitting in my old tree house, watching as he loaded his boxes into the U-Haul, half tempted to go next door and put each box back in the house so he couldn’t leave. That was a couple years ago. I haven’t seen him since. Until now.

He still looks just as amazing as he did back then. A little more mature, maybe, and thicker with muscle than I remember. Clearly that confident swagger never went away. That’s easy to tell even at this distance as he goes to the back door of the truck.

What’s not easy to see is what’s in the back seat of the truck. I squint to see better. Is that the top of a car seat I see in the back window?

“Is that …” I start to say, but get distracted and don’t finish the thought.

“Is that what?” Clara says, starting to turn around, but I stop her.

“Don’t look,” I say. “He’ll see us watching him.”

“Then tell me what’s going on!”

I keep watching, holding my breath. Does he have a baby? My heart is thumping so hard I can feel it in my teeth. I stand on the tips of my toes, looking through the mist of sprinkler spray. When I take a step closer, a stream of water hits me dead on in the face. I yelp, and Clara screams as we try to get out of way. Deacon looks over at us, and I pretend I wasn’t looking.

When we’re out of the way of the sprinkler stream, I glance at him again. That’s when Deacon pulls a baby from a car seat.

“Oh my god, he has a baby now,” I say.

Clara gets this irritated antsy look on her face. “Can I please look now.”

“Not yet.”

Deacon was twenty-five years old when I first started noticing him as something more than just my neighbor like all the rest. I was thirteen. I had the biggest crush on him. It was his smile that first attracted me to him. Some neighbor kids and I were on skateboards out in front of my house. One of the boys I hung out with at the time—my first crush—had built a quarter pipe for us to skate on, and we’d drag it out into the street during the summer while most people were at work and we didn’t have to worry about traffic. I was too embarrassed to wear a helmet because I though it made me look stupid, and I wanted to look good for my crush, so I’d taken it off. Well, like a dumbass, I fell. Not in some big, epic way while doing a trick either. I was skating on a flat surface when my wheel caught a rock and I went face first into the cement.

Deacon had been next door and had seen the whole thing. He rushed over and helped me off the ground. At first he looked terrified, his face all bunched up with worry until he saw that I was fine. Nothing hurt, really, except my pride. Just a little road rash. I was a tough kid and had experienced far worse falls. When he saw that I was okay, his face broke out into the most electrifying smile I’d ever seen. “You scared the hell out of me,” he’d said.

All I could do was stare at that magnificent white smile. My other crush was a distant memory. Deacon had consumed my thoughts thereafter.

Every day I would sit in my yard and watch him. Mostly from my tree house because I liked the bird’s eye view. He had an amazing body and was always out in the yard working without a shirt on or washing his car. He had an old muscle car back then and was in love with it. He would wash and wax it several times a week.

I found all the different places in my house to watch him from. In the summer, when it was either too boring or too hot to be outside, I would sit in my house with the windows open, waiting to hear the creak of hinges whenever his screen door would open. I would then find any excuse to go outside. I even volunteered to weed my mom’s garden despite all the earthworms crawling around because it was right next to the shrubs where he parked his car.

I would wear the skimpiest shorts I could find and a low cut top even though I didn’t have any boobs to speak of at the time. While I was watering the garden, I made sure to get my shirt wet so my bra would show through.

I was just a kid so Deacon never noticed me despite my desperate attempts. To try and get his attention, I even went as far as going trick-or-treating at his house dressed as a sexy nurse hoping he would finally notice me. I was all knobby knees and straight lines. My makeup was on dark and thick. I thought I was so mature, but thinking back, I probably looked like the Bride of Chucky.

While at the door of Sam’s house, him standing in the doorway with his bowl of candy, some jerk kid came up beside me and pointed out that nurses wore scrubs and my costume was all wrong. Deacon had laughed without looking at me and dropped a Snickers bar in my jack-o-lantern bucket. That was five years ago and I still have the wrapper from that candy bar. I’d kept it as a souvenir. It’s kind of pathetic when I think about it.

Soon after that he met someone. I don’t remember her name but I’ll never forget how jealous I was when I first saw her. It was on a weekend. I’d passed up an invitation from my friends to go see a movie so that I could wait up to see Deacon. He was out late, which wasn’t normal for him. It was almost one in the morning when his car finally pulled into the driveway. He opened the passenger side door and my stomach clenched, and I felt sick. The woman who got out was gorgeous and curvy. Two things I definitely was not back then. They went inside his house and I cried myself to sleep that night.

It wasn’t long after that that they wed and moved away. The rest is history.

I feel the sting of that night like it’s yesterday, all those old emotions rushing back to me. I watch as he takes his child out of the car seat. I want to say hello, but he probably doesn’t remember me. It would just make things awkward and I would have to explain who I was when the look of confusion crossed his face. I’ve changed quite a bit since the last time we crossed paths. I’m a few inches taller. I’ve grown out my blond hair, which once was a bob. Now it reaches to the middle of my back. The glasses I once wore have been exchanged for contact lenses. My hips and breasts have filled out, my A cups are now Cs. Gone is the flat chest I once loathed.

I was worried there for a while. Afraid my body would never develop. Luckily, when I turned seventeen, it was like someone dunked me in Miracle Grow. Now, at eighteen, I finally look like the woman I’ve always wanted to be. The kind of woman that makes men stop in their tracks just to watch me walk by.

Maybe Deacon will notice me now.

I quickly put that thought out of my mind. He’s a married man, a father, and I’m not a home wrecker.

With a sigh, I watch him and his child disappear into his brother’s house.

“You can look now,” I tell Clara.

All excited, she turns to find an empty yard next door with no Deacon and no baby.

“You’re such a jerk,” she says.

I smile and take the paper inside for my mom.

* * *

I drop the wet newspaper down on the kitchen table where my mom is having her morning coffee. She’s been making breakfast, and the room smells of cinnamon.

“Sorry. I tried to save it before it got soaked,” I say.

She frowns and picks it up with two fingers. Gray droplets fall from the paper and pool on her placemat.

“Maybe you should subscribe to the news website instead,” I suggest.

Clara sits at the table and pours herself a cup of coffee.

“I think I will.” My mom tosses it in the trash. “There are pancakes on the counter if you two want any.”

Clara gives me a questioning look. If they’re anything like last night’s dinner monstrosity, she’s out. But luckily it’s just whole wheat pancakes. Healthy but edible.

I put two on each of our plates and smother them with butter and syrup. Then I grab a glass of orange juice and a cup of coffee and sit next to Clara, across the table from my mom. But instead of eating, my mind starts to wander, and I find myself staring out the window. All those feelings I’d harbored for Deacon as a young teen come rushing back. They’re all consuming just as they had been back then. It’s like they’ve been lying dormant, awaiting his arrival.

Back when Deacon still owned the house next door, I used to get home long before my mom. I’d lie in bed and picture him knocking on the front door. When I would answer it, he was there with no shirt on and a bouquet of long stem red roses cradled in baby’s breath. He’d tell me how beautiful I was and how he couldn’t live without me one more second. Our twelve-year age difference never mattered to him in my fantasies. I was all he could ever want or need. In my daydreams he was a hopeless romantic.

I even used to tell people at school I was dating an older man. Because in my heart he was mine. And though I knew it wasn’t true and being together would probably never happen, I felt that if I said it out loud, tossed it up in the universe, that somehow—like wishing on a star—it would come true. I never said his name or told them he was my neighbor for fear my lies would get back to him, or get him trouble. But I sure as hell hinted at it. Not that anyone actually believed me. Most people thought I was lying. Or, on the off chance I was telling the truth, that the older ‘man’ I always talked about was some freshman in high school.

Sometimes, at night, I would look out my bedroom window and watch him dress. I didn’t think much of it back then, but now I realize I was a total stalker. His window wasn’t large enough to show his whole body when he would change. Just from the waist up. But I had a wonderfully vivid imagination.

“Remy?”

I startle at the sudden sound of my name. “What?”

“Did you hear me?” my mom says. “You were spacing out.”

Clara smirks, and bumps my shoulder. She knows exactly what’s distracting me. She was the only one I ever confessed to about all of my Deacon fantasies.

“Oh, sorry. I was daydreaming. What were you saying?”

She blows at the steam rising from her coffee cup and says, “I was asking if you remember Deacon who used to live next door.”

I try to wipe away any signs of recognition or swooning at the sound of his name off my face.

“Who’s Deacon?” Clara says with that same mischievous tilt of her lips.

I glare at her.

“Vaguely,” I say to my mom.

“Didn’t you used to have a crush on him?” my mom says with a teasing lilt in her voice.

I hold my finger up to keep Clara from making any more comments.

How does my mom know about my crush? Was I that obvious? Or maybe it’s because everyone in the neighborhood had a crush on him at the time and she’s just assuming I was one of them.

“Probably. I was thirteen. I had a crush on everyone,” I say, hoping I sound as nonchalant as I do in my head.

“I talked to him yesterday when he first arrived in town.”

He’s been here an entire day and I’m only now seeing him?

“What did you guys talk about?” I ask, trying to pry more information out of her.

My mom puts her elbows on the table, looking out the window toward the house his brother now owns. “Poor thing got divorced a while ago. His wife left him and the baby in order to go party.”

My eyes open wide. Luckily she doesn’t notice.

That’s so horrible. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to leave Deacon to go party, or for any reason, actually. And who leaves their baby? Deacon and his child are better off without her as far as I’m concerned. While I do feel bad that Deacon had to go through all of that, I can’t say I’m too upset about him being single now. Maybe I actually stand a chance with him …

I shut that thought down again. Best not to get my hopes up.

“He has a job here in town,” my mom continues. “He’ll need a babysitter he can trust. I volunteered you for the job. I hope that’s okay.”

Clara glances at me, a playful twinkle in her eyes. It’s not hard to tell what’s on my mind, I’m sure.

My heart leaps into my throat. Me babysitting for Deacon? The man responsible for all my sexy teenage dreams, the only man I imagined giving my virginity to. I don’t think there’s a number high enough to count the amount of times I pictured myself in his house, on his bed, spread open for him. What it would feel like to kiss him, to have him inside of me. What do his sheets smell like? What does his skin feel like?

Could I really stop myself from acting on the feelings I’ve had for him since puberty?

I’m bombarded by so many questions that my mind starts spinning. I push my plate away, my appetite gone.

“That’s fine,” I say. “I could use the extra money.”

Clara leans over and whispers in my ear so my mom can’t hear her. “And a good lay.”

* * *

That night I hardly sleep. I wanted Clara to stay another night to keep me company, but she has to go to work in the morning. My stomach is in knots. I’m up at four in the morning, wide awake and excited. I shower, do my makeup, make sure everything is perfect, and think about all the things I might say to him. When seven o’clock finally rolls around, I go over to meet Deacon, even though, in my head, I already know him. I stand on his front porch, in front of the door, my entire body shaking. Though it’s fall, it’s still a warm morning. The sun is bright, birds chirping. Not exactly sweater weather, which normally I’d be bummed out about. I love colder weather. The scarves, boots, hats. But at least, when it’s warm, it’s easier to dress sexy.

Sexy but not too slutty because I still want Deacon to give me the babysitting job. It’s a fine line between the two. I decide on a loose tank top and a bra a size too small to give me more cleavage, and shorts. The more skin the better, but at the same time, it’s what any other girl my age would be wearing.

I knock on the door. Blood rushes in my ears when I hear the thump of footsteps on the other side. When it opens, I’m nearly knocked back by the rush seeing him up close gives me. He’s more handsome than I remember. Age has been kind to him.

When I was younger, he’d reminded me of someone, but I could never place the face with a name. Then one day Clara said he looked like Ian Somerhalder, and I was like YES, because that’s exactly who I’d been thinking about.

“Remy, wow, you’ve grown up into a beautiful young woman,” Deacon says, looking genuinely surprised to see me standing at his front door.

“Oh,” I say, taken aback. “I didn’t think you knew who I was.”

“Of course I know who you are. I was always admiring your garden.”

I bite my bottom lip. My head conjures a different meaning to that statement, but I think he’s actually talking about the garden I was always messing around in whenever he was outside in his yard.

“Thank you. Um, if you want, I could bring some vegetables by later. The garden is full and we can’t seem to get rid of them fast enough. They’re better for the baby rather than store bought, and cheaper than buying organic.” I’m rambling. Shut up, I tell myself.

His eyebrows are raised. “I would love that. That’s so thoughtful of you to think of my child that way.”

My face flushes. “I love kids.”

“Come in,” he says and motions for me to come inside.

The house doesn’t look how I imagined it. This is definitely his brother Sam’s style. Boring, basically. It’s crazy to think those two are even related. Deacon clearly got the looks in this family. Sam has a long, horse’s face and jutting chin. He wears the same style button down dress-shirts day in and day out even when he isn’t working, but in different colors to switch things up, and every day it’s khakis. He parts his hair to the side, slicked down with gel. And he drives a Prius for fuck sake. It seems like he actually puts time and effort into being bland. The house mirrors his style. Buttoned down. Muted colors. Basic.

There are a few toys scattered here and there, but for the most part the place is tidy and put together. The clutter must make Sam crazy. He seems like the kind of guy who likes everything in its place.

“Would you like something to drink?” Deacon asks.

“Sure.”

We go into the kitchen. I watch his back as he walks. His shirt is tight enough to see the muscles moving through it. He’s stayed fit. Every dad I know tends to let himself slide after a bit. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Plenty of girls dig a dad body, but I tend to like my men more toned.

He bends over to look in the fridge. Nice ass, too.

“Looks like we have water and juice. Sorry, I haven’t had much time to get out and go shopping.”

“No worries,” I say. “Juice is fine.”

He grabs the bottle from the fridge and pours some into a glass, handing it to me.

“I’ll show you around so you can get a feel for the house, then I’ll introduce you to Bailey.”

The house is two levels. We start on the first level, walking down a long, narrow hall. “If you’re downstairs, this is the guest bathroom,” he says, showing me a small half bath with just a sink and toilet. “And just behind it is the mud room and washing machine in case you need to wash anything. Bailey can be messy and I don’t have much in the way of clean clothes for her at the moment. Everything I have is in storage until I can find a place of my own. I didn’t want to bombard my brother with all of our stuff. I don’t plan to stay too long. He’s not big on kids.”

“I’m so sorry about what happened,” I blurt out without thinking. “With your wife, I mean.”

He turns to look at me, and even though his face still looks friendly, I immediately regret saying it.

“I shouldn’t have said that. It was dumb,” I say, trying to erase whatever damaged I caused by opening my big damn mouth. “I shouldn’t have brought that up. I don’t know what I was thinking. It’s just my mom told me about your conversation with her yesterday, and …” I let my words trail off, not wanting to say anything else just in case I dig the hole deeper and make things worse.

“No, it’s okay,” he says with a gentle smile. “I’m glad it happened when it did. Bailey is young enough so she won’t remember her mother and she’ll be able to move on from this. If it were to have happened when she was older, it might’ve been devastating. I’m actually excited about moving forward. My marriage was horrible from day one. I lived in a house I didn’t love, with a woman I didn’t love, and I was stuck at a job I hated. This change is actually a good thing.”

I let out a sigh of relief. “Good. I’m glad. You don’t have to worry about Bailey while you’re out working. I love kids and I’m really excited about being here.”

I’m gushing. I can hear the longing in my voice. He has to hear it too. I sound desperate. Maybe he’ll assume it’s just because I need the job and not that I long for him. He can’t possibly know that.

“I’m happy to have you here too,” he says. “Should we go meet Bailey now?”

“Yes, please.”

We head upstairs. As we’re walking, he stops abruptly and turns to me. “Oh, and one other thing—”

The quick stop makes me bump into him and I catch the glass in my hand before it falls, but not before it splashes red juice all over his work clothes and on the floor.

“Oh my god. I’m so sorry,” I say, practically in tears. I’m touching the front of him, trying to wipe the juice away but only making it worse by spreading it around. How many times will I have to apologize to him before he leaves the house?

He looks down at the front of his shirt, arms out. He doesn’t look mad like I thought he would. Instead, he laughs. “That is not your fault. Not at all. I’ll just toss this in the wash before it stains.”

He takes his shirt off right there in front of me. My jaw falls open and I can’t help but stare. I think he notices, because he’s looking at me differently too. Shy, almost. Maybe he’s not used to being shirtless and alone with girls.

“There’s still some on your chest,” I say, fighting the urge to reach out and touch his smooth skin. His body is as perfect as I imagined it would be. Thick, corded muscle, but not all sinuous like a body builder. More like a man who stays busy and maybe goes to the gym a day or two a week. There’s a small patch of hair on his chest, and that stomach … I have a thing about men’s stomachs. His is a lovely washboard. I want to lick him from the trail of hair below his belly button up to his sexy full lips. Wait, who am I kidding? I want to lick everything. I want to taste everything about this man.

“It’s fine,” he says. “I’m always covered in some kind of mess. It’s just part of the territory when you’re a parent.”

I’d like to cover him in my own kind of mess. I can already feel myself getting wet with him standing here half naked in front of me.

I start to speak, but I’m interrupted by Sam as he comes up the stairs behind me. “What’s going on here?” he says.

I hadn’t heard him until he spoke. He’s a sneaky guy. Makes sense because he looks kind of sneaky. He just has that weasel appearance that I don’t like. Maybe it’s because he’s the one who bought Deacon’s house and ruined my most cherished childhood fantasies. I secretly blamed him for Deacon leaving, even though I know it wasn’t his fault.

“Oh, hey, Sam,” Deacon says, unperturbed by his brother’s sudden intrusion like I am. “Do you know Remy?”

“I do know Remy from next door. What I want to know is why she’s here and why you’re practically naked in front of her.”

Deacon’s face loses its good natured appearance and turns into a hard, sculpted mask of distaste. “She’s here because I need a babysitter for Bailey and I’ve been around this girl since she was a kid and I know her mom. I’m not going to trust my child with some stranger I’ve never met. A glass of juice was spilled and now I’m about to put my shirt in the washer. So that’s why I am currently shirtless. Any more accusations you’d like to make?” he says, voice flat and curt.

It’s nice of him not to throw me under the bus by telling Sam I was the one who spilled the juice in the first place. What I would like to do is step on the wet carpet and really set that stain. Sam seems like the kind of guy who would cry over a stain.

Sam looks at me, then at Deacon and says, “Can I talk to you for a minute.”

Deacon breathes long and slow, then turns to me, his expression lightening, but I can still see the shadow of anger haunting his eyes. “Could you give us a minute, Remy?” he says.

I chew the inside of my cheek to keep from saying something stupid to Sam. “Sure. I’ll go get a towel to clean up this mess,” I say.

“Do you know where the towels are?” Deacon asks me, his voice softer, nicer when he speaks to me.

I nod. “I saw some in the laundry room.” I also saw some of Sam’s clothes in the laundry room as well as a muddy pair of boots. Let’s see if I can get creative.

This doesn’t look good. Both of them are fuming. I don’t know what I did wrong or why Sam doesn’t like me. I suspect he’s just being a dick because I don’t remember ever having an actual conversation with him, and it’s not like I’ve ever thrown a raging party at my house that would’ve pissed him off. I’m so confused.

I rush downstairs while they argue at the top of the staircase. When I’m in the laundry room, I realize there’s a vent above my head and I can still hear everything they’re saying as clear as if we were standing in the same room. My plot to ruin his fresh pressed clothes is set aside for now.

“What’s going on here?” Sam says. There’s no denying the accusation in his voice.

“Nothing’s going on. It’s completely innocent.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” Sam says. “Did you not see the way that girl was looking at you? She was stripping the rest of you down with her eyes.”

Deacon laughs as if it’s the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard. “She was not.”

I open my mouth, shocked. How long had Sam been standing there before he announced himself? I seriously need to figure out how to rearrange my face to not be so transparent about my feelings. I’m surprised Deacon didn’t pick up on it.

“You’re blind, brother. That girl wants you,” Sam says.

“There’s no way a girl that young and beautiful is going to want an old single dad like me. She could have any man she wants.”

My breath stops. How can he not see how incredibly hot he is? Every woman in the neighborhood wanted him when he lived here. Him being a single dad doesn’t make a bit of difference. Whenever my mom’s book club would come to the house for their Thursday night meet-ups, it was more like the Deacon fan club. Ten minutes were spent talking about whatever book they were reading at the time and the other fifty minutes were spent talking about his ass. I used to sit at the top of the stairs, rolling my eyes at all the sad housewives. It’s been a few years since then, but he hasn’t changed much in looks. If anything he’s gotten better looking with age. He’s still as incredibly sexy as ever.

And he thinks I’m beautiful. I was afraid he’d still think of me as a child—if he even thought about me at all.

The brothers continue to argue. Sam begs him not to hire me. He thinks I’m trouble and that I’m just like Deacon’s ex-wife. What an ass. How could I not be incredibly offended by the things he’s saying? He doesn’t know me. I’ve never had a conversation with him. We’ve never even said ‘hi’ to each other in passing, so where does he get off saying I’m trouble? I would never leave Deacon and my kid to go off and party. I hardly ever party even though I’m eighteen and that’s what most eighteen-year olds do. That’s never been me. I’ve always been the responsible one in my group of friends. The one who always gets A’s, who always gets home before curfew, and I’m always true to my word. Deacon’s ex is a disgrace. How dare he compare me to her.

I take long, slow breaths to calm myself down. I want to storm out and slam the door behind me so that he knows I’ve heard what he said, but I know Deacon really needs a babysitter and I’m not about to bail.

I grab a towel off the top of the stack and go back to the stairs, making plenty of noise so that they can hear me. Sam walks down the stairs, glaring at me when he passes. I keep my expression neutral so I don’t show my loathing for him. This is his house after all and I’m not trying to make things difficult for Deacon. I don’t want to give Sam a real reason to kick me out and not let me come back.

I try to put a smile on my face when I look at Deacon, but I know it looks fake as hell. Deacon gives me an apologetic smile.

“I’m sorry about my brother,” he says. “He worries about me.”

“Is everything okay?” I ask.

“Everything’s great.”

I bend down to clean up the juice mess.

“Here, let me do that,” Deacon says.

He bends down to help. When he reaches for the towel, our fingers touch and he leans back as if the feel of my skin has shocked him somehow. When I look up at him, his mouth is open and he’s staring right at my chest. Glancing down at my shirt, I realize it’s hanging wide open, the tops of my breasts spilling out of my bra, bared to him. My nipples are just barely hidden, but the pinks of my areolas are showing.

I hurry and sit back. I’m just glad Sam wasn’t here to see it or he would’ve said I did it on purpose.

Deacon stands and won’t make eye contact with me. The bulge in his pants is undeniable. He quickly covers it. I pretend not to notice. But I can’t help the stirring it causes between my legs. From the looks of it, he’s hung. Not that I’m an expert on size. I’ve never actually had sex with a man before. I’ve gone down on boyfriends in the past, but they weren’t nearly as big as Deacon looks.

“Do you want to meet Bailey?” he says, flushed.

“I’d love to,” I say.

We go into Bailey’s room and try to pretend nothing happened. I hear a car door slam. Looking out the window, I see Sam’s car speeding off. At least I don’t have to deal with him anymore.

Bailey is asleep in a playpen. The room is a makeshift nursery. It must’ve been Sam’s office before Deacon arrived. There’s a large desk and papers everywhere, books on rare birds and tax law.

Bailey is as cute as she can be, about a year old, curly blonde hair, and rosy cheeks from the heat. There’s a pacifier in her mouth and a blanket clutched in her little hands.

“She’s adorable,” I say.

When I look up at Deacon, he’s staring at me again. It’s a different look than he’d given me before, as if he’s actually just noticing me for the first time. Almost like he’s studying me, trying to figure me out like I’m some complicated puzzle needing to be pieced together. He’s looking at me the way I’d always wished he would when I was younger.

Was it seeing my breasts that gave him this change of heart? Or maybe it has something to do with what Sam had said. Maybe Deacon’s trying to make comparisons between me and his ex-wife. But I don’t think so. If that were the case, I don’t think his eyes would be as open and curious as they are right now. He’d probably look at me with resentment.

No, it’s something else. It could be that he’s checking to see if I really am infatuated with him like Sam had said. If that’s the case, I’m making it kind of obvious. When our eyes lock, I can’t seem to look away. He’s everything. Gorgeous, sweet, polite, and a great dad to his kid. I mean, what’s not to swoon over?

Finally, he breaks eye contact. He spreads his fingers apart, then balls them into fists, over and over again, a nervous tic. When he speaks, there’s a slight tremor in his voice. “Um, when Bailey wakes up, she’ll probably need to be changed, and she’ll be hungry. I have her food labeled in the fridge.”

“Okay,” I say. “We’ll be fine. I’ve spent every summer since I was fourteen babysitting for my mom’s friends. I’m great with kids. No need to worry.”

His eyes widen. “I’m not worried.”

“Oh, I thought you might be. You look really nervous right now.”

He shakes his head. “No, it’s just this new job has my stomach twisted. Not sure what to expect.”

I nod even though I’m pretty sure he’s not being entirely truthful. I think he’s nervous and it has something to do with me. He’s been looking at me strangely ever since his argument with Sam.

* * *

Babysitting is pretty boring. Bailey is asleep so I read most of the time. I don’t want to watch TV downstairs for fear she’ll wake up and I won't hear her.

I contemplate going into Deacon’s room. Just to see what it looks like. My guess is it’s the one closest to the office so he can be near Bailey. It’s the same room he had when this was his house.

Bailey stirs. I glance over at her and she’s watching me with a sleepy look on her face. She’s the cutest baby I’ve ever seen and looks so much like Deacon. From what I remember of Deacon’s ex, she had dark, nearly black hair and equally dark eyes. Bailey’s hair is blonde like her dad’s and she even has those same light green eyes too.

“Hi,” I say to her, smiling.

Her chin wrinkles and starts to bob. I’m a stranger. She’s used to having her dad with her. She must be so scared.

“Oh, sweetie, come here,” I say, and pick her up when she starts to cry.

She continues to whimper as I change her. When I’m done, we go downstairs and I make her something to eat. The crying stops and she watches me like a nervous dog would. No yet sure if I’m friend or foe.

We play with toys and when she gets bored of those, I read to her. It doesn’t seem to matter what the words are. She’s more interested in the sound of my voice. So when we’ve read through all the books in her small library of children’s books, I read to her from the one I brought. It’s a cozy mystery. Nothing with potential of scaring her. Just a good who-done-it. She tugs at a set of plastic keys on a ring, playing contently as I read to her.

After a few hours she starts to doze off. By far the easiest baby I’ve ever taken care of out of all the children I’ve ever babysat. I carry her to her room. Afraid of waking her, I sit on the floor and hold her on my lap instead of putting her back in the playpen.

I’m still reading to her, wanting her to feel comforted by my voice even if she’s asleep. She’s in a new home, surrounded by new things, so I don’t want her to feel alone or scared. Especially with her dad gone.

Suddenly I have this strange feeling like I’m being watched. When I look up, Deacon is standing there, leaning against the door jam. I have no idea how long he’s been watching me.

I smile at him. “She’s a big fan of literature. She needs more books. I have a ton of them leftover from my childhood. I’d like to give them to her if that’s okay with you,” I say.

He has the strangest look on his face. So serious. He looks overwhelmed. Intense. I wonder if he had a bad day at work.

“Yeah, that’s fine,” he says.

* * *

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