Page 106 of Our Nanny is a Vampire

“You’ve mentioned that in some form or fashion several times now,” she said softly.

“I know.”

“And?”

I exhaled carefully. “And I apparently need you to know I mean it.”

Color rose faintly in her cheeks. Then she smiled at me slowly over the rim of her glass, and somewhere behind us, somebody started playing a slower jazz song while my heart completely lost its ability to behave professionally.

By our second drink, I’d officially stopped understanding my own life. Six months ago, my weekends consisted of spreadsheets, late-night emails, and falling asleep halfway through financial reports with the television still blaring downstairs. Now, I was sitting beside a beautiful woman in an underground jazz club while somebody in rhinestones tap-danced near a taxidermy peacock.

Life came hurtling at you when you least expected it.

Winnie seemed entirely at home in the chaos. That might have been the most unsettling part. The more time passed, the more the composed nanny version of her dissolved into someone vibrantly funny and dangerously charismatic. It was a side of Winnie I’d never been introduced to. It also made it increasingly difficult to think of her as simply the woman I’d hired to help with my kids. Somewhere along the way, she’d become...Winnie.

She knew bartenders by name. Knew the pianist. Knew a drag performer in silver sequins named Vivica LaRue who blew her a kiss from across the room and shouted, “You still owe me fifty dollars and emotional closure!”

Winnie lifted her bourbon. “You’ll survive without it.”

I stared at her after Vivica disappeared backstage again. “You have an entire secret life, don’t you?”

She squirmed in her seat. “Everyone has a secret life.”

“No, I think yours might objectively qualify as more interesting than the average person’s.”

“That depends entirely on how much tax fraud the average person commits.”

I nearly choked on my drink.

Winnie laughed into her glass while I tried to determine whether she was joking.

With her, the odds hovered around sixty-forty.

The band shifted into a livelier tune while conversations and laughter swelled around us. At the bar, someone was celebrating a birthday. One corner booth held three elderly women in feather boas aggressively playing poker.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d sat somewhere without checking my phone every ten minutes. Couldn’t remember the last time I’d relaxed enough to let background noise become just background noise instead of something to work around.

Winnie rested one elbow against the table and studied me. “You’ve unclenched.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your shoulders.”

“You’ve been admiring my shoulders?”

She giggled. “It’s hard not to notice. You carry stress like it’s an Olympic sport.”

“Well, I do have three children.”

A gong suddenly rang somewhere deeper in the club. People started cheering, and several patrons started moving toward a velvet-curtained lounge area near the back.

Winnie’s eyes lit up. “Oh!” She immediately set down her drink and grabbed my hand. “It’s time.”

My brain stopped at hand.

Her hand.

Holding mine.