Conner
If someone told me a year ago that I’d be excited to find out that Magic Erasers really are magic and that one of my best friends was going to be named Roomba, I’d have throat punched him and had another beer.
I have to admit the living room looks bad. Toys strewn everywhere, blankets spread across the floor, and chair cushions in place of baby gates. I did everything in my power to stop the girls from tearing down the fucking walls, but my efforts were laid to waste by the twin tornados I call my nieces. Even now I have almost no idea where the toddlers are. I’m too busy cleaning up the mess they left behind.
I don’t want the babysitter to see this mess when she gets here.
Fuck if that doesn’t sound stupid. Like cleaning a house before the maid comes.
Oh man, if I could hire a maid, my life would be so much easier.
Instead, I’m running around trying to make the house presentable for the nanny so she doesn’t think I’m some kind of useless loser that can’t handle a few hours alone with two kids.
I just wanted to give her one night off. She’s eighteen years old. She should be out with friends, dating, shopping. Hell, whatever eighteen-year-olds do. It’s been too long for me to even remember.
But instead of having a carefree life, Cassidy is stuck here with me most nights. Taking care of tornado clean-up. Playing house to two babies who aren’t hers and a grumpy old fucker who doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing unless it’s the eight hours he spends outside of this house doing brickwork.
I don’t know how I got so old in such a short amount of time. I’m twenty-eight, but I feel like the best of my life has passed me by already. Maybe it will get better. Maybe when I’ve had more time with the grief of losing my sister and her husband. Maybe when the twins can use actual words to tell me what they want and what the fuck is wrong so I’m not just trying to guess all the time.
Until then, I need Cassidy. She’s an angel. The girl-next-door who stepped in the night of the accident to make sure I didn’t fall down. She’d already spent the first three months of the twins’ life helping my sister take care of the house and the girls after her rough delivery. Cassidy babysat or helped out whenever my sister needed, so my nieces know and trust her. Hell, they know her better than they know me. Cassidy has been with them since day one.
And now she’s practically their mom.
She’s somehow also managing to go to college. Her classes are online, but I don’t know how she does it. So, I gave her one fucking night off, and the place is falling apart.
After wiping up sweet potato puree from the hardwood floor, I make my way toward the alarming sounds I hear coming from the bathroom. The bathroom that supposedly has a child lock on the doorknob so babies can’t get into it. When I reach the open doorway, I turn on the light and freeze.
The baby in yellow, Ashley, has circumvented another child lock, lifted the toilet seat, and pushed her pretty sandals (the ones she screamed to have at Target) inside, along with her stuffed bunny. Her twin sister Hayden has shoved her tiny red dress down to her ankles and managed to pee all over it. I don’t know where her diaper has gone. I don’t want to know.
I don’t care about the dress. I don’t even care about the sandals. But I’m torn apart by Mr. Bunny.
No way Ashley will go down tonight without Mr. Bunny. She’ll be up all night screaming. My life has effectively taken a turn for the worse.
I feel like I need seven more hands. I don’t know where to start. How to start. I just want a goddamned beer and to watch a game on TV. But not tonight.
I start with Hayden. I clean her up, put her red pajamas on her and stick the one-year-old in her crib. Her cries are loud, but Ashley’s are louder. Shrill wails paused only by incoherent mumbles that sound a lot like backtalk. Ashley is the fighter of the two, the one that causes the most trouble.
The one more like me.
After putting Ashley’s yellow jammies on, I plop her in the neighboring crib, sighing as the girl screams her little lungs out. I try everything from singing, to rocking her, to kissing her angry, red cheeks. Nothing helps.
Hayden has drifted off to sleep, but Ashley is still fighting it by the time Cassidy comes through the nursery door. I guess I was so caught up in trying to soothe the baby that I didn’t hear the front door open or close. Some protector I am.
Cassidy comes all the way into the room, hovering behind me. After watching me struggle, she reaches around me and picks up the crying child, hushing her.
“I was trying to calm her down, but she just wouldn’t stop,” I apologize, feeling like a fool. “I don’t know the nursery rhymes, but she seemed to like Luke Bryan for about five minutes.” Cassidy chuckles and waves me off wordlessly, motioning for me to leave the room. But I stay for a minute, watching.
She begins humming something my sister used to sing, a soft lullaby that soothes the baby in a way I can’t. I really don’t think I’d have been able to keep this family together without Cassidy. I’ll never be able to repay her for the sacrifices she makes for my nieces. For me.
Cassidy is a slim girl, though you wouldn’t be able to tell from the oversized sweatshirt she wears all the time. The glimpse I catch of her figure as she bends over the crib has me rock hard, though. The tight-fitting jeggings she wears stick to her generous thighs because she’s slim but round and thick at the bottom. Lush.
I start to sweat.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been with a woman. And it’s going to be a lot longer as far as I can tell. But this babysitter shouldn’t suffer the consequences of my overactive desires. It’s not her fault. She’s done nothing but help me, and I repay her by thinking about how I’d like to see that thick ass jiggle while I’m coming at her from behind.
She is driving me crazy.
Sometimes, her gaze lingers a little too long on me. Then she blushes and looks away. She’s shy, sweet. Part of me wonders if she’s biddable and pliant, too. The part of me that’s an asshole.
I can’t take advantage of a young woman’s innocent crush. I would crush that innocence. That’s not who I am. Or at least, that’s not who I want to be.
But I can think about it all I want to. And I do.
When I get into bed every night, I dream she is there with me. My dreams are always about pleasuring her, making her see how beautiful she is, appreciating her body the right way. My pleasure comes from seeing her fall apart at the touch of my fingers. Hearing that sultry voice cracking as I bury my tongue deep in her pussy. Watching her breasts bounce as she comes hard around my cock.
I have to jerk off at least twice a day at this point. It’s shameful, to be honest. I try to rid myself of the fantasies, but they are still there. Her innocent eyes staring up at me as I pound into her, the sounds she would make. Cassidy has taken over my mind, and there isn’t much I can do to stop it. Not that I really want to.
No, what I want to do is take her. Make her mine.
By the time Cassidy comes downstairs, I am barely restraining myself from pinning her to the kitchen counter and tearing off her pants. I just can’t risk coming on to her. The girls need her. I need her.
I can’t lose her. She’s the only thing holding my world together right now.
“She asleep?” I ask, turning in a way to hide my erection.
She nods. “Mr. Webster?” Cassidy asks. “What are you planning to do for your birthday?”
“I told you to call me Conner, Cassidy,” I correct her. For her own self-preservation, she needs to use my first name. When she calls me Mr. Webster, it feels even dirtier. Taboo. Mr. Webster and the babysitter kind of thing. It shouldn’t turn me on so much. The taboo of it. Christ. She’s barely legal. I am such an asshole. “And I don’t want to do anything for my birthday.”
Birthdays are hardly anything to celebrate anymore. Just another year closer to death, basically. God, is that really me? I’m not old enough to feel this old.
She bites her lip like she’s worried about what she’s about to say. “I think we should do something.”
“We?”
I know exactly what I want to do. And she’s standing in front of me.
What I want is the right to touch her when I want to, instead of having to clench my fists. I want the right to taste her, instead of having to bite my tongue. I want her body, but I know I can’t have it. I’m so frustrated. By this life I didn’t ask for. By the pain those girls upstairs are going through. And by the desire for this innocent babysitter than I can never, ever act on.
“We should do something together. The girls need to be part of a normal family celebration.”
“We aren’t a normal family, Cassidy. We aren’t really a family at all.”
She shrinks back, and I feel like a douche.
She looks at the floor now. “You’re right. I have some reading I need to do tonight. I guess I should get to it.”
“Cassidy, I’m sorry.”
I hate that I hurt her feelings. I know she’s got everyone’s best interests at heart. But I’m afraid of what will happen if we act like we’re playing house any more than we already do. I don’t know that I’ll be able to know the difference.
She gives me a shaky smile. One I know is fake. “It’s fine. I’m going to crash in my room here tonight. It’s late.”
She’s been doing that most of the time. I don’t remember the last night she went home next door. It’s easier on us both, since I go to work so early. I can’t imagine her parents are okay with it, but they haven’t said anything. She stays in the guest room. I sleep in my sister’s old room. It’s all on the up-and-up. Except for the part where I want to wake her up by eating her pussy until she’s screaming my name.