Lana (18 page)

 
I glared at his back.
 
“What did you picture?”

 
“I don’t really know.
 
I didn’t have a clear picture in my head.
 
I just wasn’t expecting someone like you.”
 
He turned his head to flick me another unreadable glance.
     

 
I gave him a very unfriendly look, offended, and a little wounded.
 
“What is that supposed to mean?”

 
“Nothing bad.
 
Quit giving me evil eyes.
 
Nannies just don’t usually look like you.
 
You’re like what Hollywood would cast to be a nanny to add sex appeal to a movie.
 
You’re sexy.
 
Really sexy.
 
Don’t play coy.
 
You know you’re gorgeous.”

 
I stopped glaring, but I was wary of the compliments.
 

 
“Relax, okay?” he said, studying my face.
 
“I’m not hitting on you, and I won’t.
 
What are you, like eighteen?
 
Way too young for me.
 
I’m just stating facts.
 
Normally women don’t appreciate other women as hot as you underfoot.”

 
I was glaring again.
 
“I’m twenty-one, and Bev is my best friend.
 
I’ve been working for them for two years.”

 
He threw up his hands, giving me an apologetic smile.
 
“Sorry.
 
I’m not trying to be a dick.
 
It just surprised me that you were the nanny Jerry was telling me about.
 
He gave me no hints that you were, well, hot.”

 
“How old are
you
?” I asked him, still smarting from the too young comment.

 
“Twenty-six.”

 
“That’s not that old,” I told him.

 
“I know.
 
Just too young to be dating eighteen year olds, or even twenty-one year olds.
 
Frankly, though, I’m bad with women my own age, too, when it comes to relationships, which is why I don’t do them.”

 
I couldn’t help it.
 
I had to ask.
 
“So what do you do?”

 
“Hookups.
 
Brief, casual hookups.
 
How about you?”

 
I shook my head at him, pursing my lips at him.
 
I couldn’t quite believe that we had jumped to this already.
 
He was a scoundrel, to be sure.
 
“I do relationships.
 
No exceptions.
 
Never had a casual hookup in my life.”

 
He sighed, measuring some flour into the mixing bowl.
 
“Well, I guess that makes things less complicated.
 
We’ll be friends, then.”
 
He shot me a sidelong smile that was downright irresistible.
 
I thought that this was one of the strangest conversations I’d ever had, being that we had just met.
 
Only, it didn’t feel like we’d just met.
 
He spoke to me like he’d known me forever, and it was hard to refuse anything he said in that low voice of his.
 

 
I nodded, giving him my own, rather begrudging smile.
 
“Okay, friends, since we’ll be living under the same roof for the next week.”

 
“Okay, then.
 
My first job as your friend will be to show how to make the best damn chocolate chip cookies in the world.”