Playing the Player(11)

Before lunch, I spent a painful fifteen minutes trying to convince Gillian that she needed to take off the astronaut costume so we could meet Max.

“You’re not the boss of me,” she declared. Again.

I made a desperate ploy. “We’re meeting Slade, you know.”

Her sour expression transformed to syrupy sweet, and she clambered out of the astronaut suit.

I texted Slade. Meet you at the café in five minutes.

At the café, I looked everywhere for Max and Slade. They weren’t sitting at any of the tables in the atrium and they weren’t in line for food. I texted him again.

Hello? We r at café? Where r u?

Gillian pointed. “There they are.”

Framed in the glass windows, Slade was kicked back on a bench in the sunshine, talking to two cute girls. Max sat on the ground playing with rubber dinosaurs.

“Damn him.”

“You cussed,” Gillian scolded. “Mom says no swearing. Unless she hurts herself. Or if Dad’s being a real jerk.” Gillian glared at me, hands on her hips. “And you’re not hurt.” She glanced out the door. “Are you and Slade married?”

My head snapped toward her. “What? No!”

You’re halfway through the day, I told myself. If I could just get her fed, we could relax in the IMAX movie.

After we snaked our way through the long line for food, Gillian rushed outside with her tray, making a beeline for Max and Slade. I followed slowly, not thrilled about eavesdropping on Slade’s pickup lines.

“Hey.” Max stopped his dinosaur battle and stared at Gillian. “I want a hot dog. Where’d you get that?”

Slade and the Barbies turned to stare at us, too. Slade winced as he pulled his cell out of his pocket, reading my messages.

“Damn. I totally lost track of time, Trina. Sorry I missed your texts. I had my phone silenced, cuz the security guard gave me crap about it ringing too loud.” He gave me one of those sexy grins that he used to charm his way out of trouble. But like I’d told Desi, I was immune to his tricks.

The Barbies glanced over their shoulders at Slade as he went inside for food, then giggled as they strutted away. Watching them sashay in their cute miniskirts, I felt like a dork in my shorts and flip-flops.

Gillian plopped down next to Max. “Where’d you get the new dinosaurs?”

“Gift shop.” His T. rex pinned a dinosaur with a fringed head.

“Gift shop!” Gillian eyed me like I was a prison warden. “I wanna go to the gift shop. Max got to go. It’s not fair!” And right before my eyes, she supersonicked straight into meltdown mode. Her screams echoed off the walls of the museum. Max stared at me anxiously, obviously expecting me to do something.

As I sat frozen in shock, the tiny part of my brain that still functioned realized that all of my previous babysitting experiences with Gillian had been at her house. I hadn’t actually taken her out in public before. Still, I knew she was hell on wheels, so I should’ve been prepared. I closed my eyes and wished for a fairy godmother to grant me super nanny powers.

But instead of a fairy godmother, Slade reappeared with a tray of food, just in time to hear the meltdown reach its maximum volume. He assessed the scene, looking unfazed by the chaos.

“So”—he settled himself next to me on the bench—“how much nanny experience do you actually have?”

It took all my self-control, which I have tons of, not to expose Gillian to more swear words than she’d ever heard in her life.

Instead I just glared at Slade, then turned to Gillian. “I will take you to the gift shop,” I said, trying to drown out the tantrum, “if you stop screaming.”

She stopped screaming, wiped a tear off her cheek, and fluttered her eyelashes at Slade.

Slade chuckled as he handed Max a hot dog. “Bribery, huh? Personally, I’d wait until I’d exhausted all my other tricks before resorting to that.”

Using my super-human self control, I squelched the overwhelming desire to attack him with one of Max’s dinosaurs.

“Speaking of experience,” I said, “tell me about yours, oh great nanny oracle.”

He snorted. “It’s not so much experience as having the right attitude. It’s like a Zen thing. You have to let go of expectations.” He shot me a meaningful look. “Let go of schedules. Of plans. Go with the flow.”

We stared at each other, not speaking. It was like whoever blinked first was admitting their nanny style was wrong, so no way was I losing this battle. I wanted to tell him that I was getting paid to teach him, not the other way around.

But while I bit back everything I wanted to say, I noticed his topaz eyes had flecks of green in them. His eyelashes were long and golden brown, matching his messy hair. Desi said that Slade was a golden child, born with the sun god’s blessing, and that was why everyone loved him. Desi was very into astrology and mythology and had made up her own weird amalgam of the two.

I felt a blink coming on. I opened my eyelids wider, ignoring the dryness in my own boring, non-flecked brown eyes. I tried to ignore the odd tightening in my throat. And my rapidly increasing heart rate. I desperately wanted to sniff my wrist but didn’t dare.

“You’re stubborn,” he said, finally blinking.

“Ha!” I gloated, pointing at him. “I win.”