Page 56 of The Nanny Game Plan
I willnot.
I am a grown adult, a father, and a player known for his cool head. I can come face-to-face with Clover making out with another man and remain in control.
Probably…
Willing myself to remember that there’s no one to take care of the girls if I end up in jail for strangling a meathead, I thread through the people now bouncing to the Beastie Boys to the black door.
I open it just far enough to slip through and close it behind me, surprised to be greeted by a gray cement wall. Guess it’s not a backstage area. It appears to be some kind of utility hall, wide, cool, and…strangely quiet.
There must be several layers of cinder block between the hall and the dance floor. The sound is significantly muffled, the lyrics of “Brass Monkey” reduced to a vibration against my palm as I brace a hand on the wall and follow the sound of voices coming from my right.
I peek around the corner, where the hallway continues behind the stage, to see Clover and Roid Rage locked in an awkward embrace.
Awkward in that Roid Rage clearlywantsto embrace, and Clover clearly doesnot…
“Seriously, dude, back off,” Clover says, her voice hard and flat in a way I’ve never heard it before. “I really just wanted to talk. It’s so loud in there, I couldn’t hear anything you were saying.”
“I couldn’t hear you, either, but who cares?” he slurs as he lifts his other arm, caging her on both sides. “I think we both know talking is a waste of time.”
She pushes harder against his chest, maintaining the distance between them by force as he tries to lean his face closer to hers. “No, we don’t.Idon’t, anyway. And I don’t like kissing people I barely know.”
“Sure, you do. Or you will once I’m done with you, baby girl,” he says, thrusting his bulging pecs into her palms.
“Ew. No. I’m not yourbabyanything. Stop.” Her biceps shake for a beat before losing the battle against his roid tits.His next push sends her elbows slamming into the cinder block behind her.
The pained sound that escapes her lips is all it takes to carry me across the last few feet between us. My fingers land on Handsy’s shoulders seconds before his fat lips smash into hers.
“Nope,” I grunt, tugging him backward. “Not today, buddy.”
Gripping handfuls of his polo, I swing him around, releasing him on a collision course with the opposite wall. He hits it—hard—and stumbles a few steps before reeling with his fists raised. “What the fuck, asshole? You don’t sneak up on a guy like that. If you want a piece, come at me straight, bro.”
“Leave,” I bark, glaring at him with enough heat to set his stupid pink shirt on fire. “Now.”
He starts forward, but hesitates as he gets a better look at what he’s up against.
He’s a big guy, but so am I. And I’m sober and older and at least five inches taller. Without those lifted tennis shoes, I’m betting Roid Rage isn’t even as tall as Clover.
And he’s a coward, the kind of man who only picks fights he knows he can win, a fact he proves by dropping his fists and whining, “She started it, man. She brought me back here, acting all horny and shit.”
“I did not!” Clover huffs. “I suggested we find a quiet place to talk. Totalk. It’s a thing people with more than three brain cells to rub together like to do sometimes, Protein Powder.”
“I don’t want trouble, dude,” he says, ignoring her. “If she’s yours, that’s cool. I’ll just go.”
“Women aren’t property, dipshit, and no means no,” I say, pushing on before he can respond, “but yeah, you should go. Now. Before I decide it’s worth the hassle to smash your face.”
Anger and fear flare in his glassy blue eyes, but he hesitates only a second before backing away.
At the corner, he tosses a petulant, “I don’t like skinny bitches anyway. No cushion for the pushin’,” over his shoulder before sprinting for the door in his haste to escape the fallout of his dumb mouth.
Clover expels an outraged sound, her upper lip curling as she glares after him. “Ew. So muchew.”
As the door slams behind him, she shifts her focus my way, her brow wrinkling as she adds in a rush, “I’m so sorry. Seriously, I just wanted tohearhim. That’s it. He kept shouting into my ear with his hot whiskey breath, and I thought if maybe I could…” She winces and shakes her head. “I don’t know what I thought, but I never should have gone anywhere with him. Not even into a hallway in a public place. That was stupid.”
“It was,” I agree, my throat tight. “Very stupid.”
She blinks, clearly surprised by my intensity. “Okay. No need to rub it in. I said I was sorry.”
“I don’t need you to be sorry, I need you to be careful. Next time, there might not be anyone around to step in.”
