“Well, I’d better get going and let you enjoy your evening,” she said. “But same time tomorrow?”
“Yes,” I replied. I wanted to tell her that she was welcome to stay as long as she wanted to. I was having a great time talking with her. But I didn’t want to come on too strong. And I still hadn’t made up my mind about what I was doing or was going to do here. This was heavy. The attraction I was feeling was overwhelming. She was becoming more amazing in my mind by the minute and I wondered if there was a chance for the two of us.
I knew she was attracted to me. I could feel it in the way she looked at me and the way she laughed at things I said that were only a little bit funny, but that wasn’t it. The thing to be concerned about was whether or not I really wanted to risk losing her as Bobby’s nanny. I had to make sure she was comfortable with it. Beyond that, I was willing to take the chance to see where this could lead.
“Goodnight,” I said as I walked her to the door.
She started to open the door and her hand slipped off the knob unexpectedly. I ended up not being able to stop my own momentum in time and I bumped into her. My crotch actually bumped against her rear end as it so happened. I felt a bit embarrassed by it, mostly because I was hard as a rock. Being near her kind of did that to me. I wondered if she felt it. Shit. That was going to be very awkward now.
Or not. It would be how I reacted to it. If I wasn’t embarrassed then she wouldn’t be as embarrassed either. I didn’t want to let my feelings dictate the way I behaved here. That would only cause me more stress and anxiety. There was no reason to be embarrassed of my feelings.
She looked back at me and smiled sheepishly. She tried to maintain the eye contact, but her gaze went down and she smiled instead. I could tell she was embarrassed. She’d probably felt me and she probably felt all of me…
I embraced it and decided it was funny. That was fine. She could feel what she wanted to. It was an accident and I was not ashamed that it happened. Maybe now she would realize that I had a strong attraction for her just as she had for me.
“Are you alright?” I asked.
“Yeah, it’s just… um my clumsiness.”
I loved to see her being so shy. That was adorable.
I reached around her and opened the door. She looked at the door as if she felt stupid and then laughed. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She stared back at me then and let her stare linger. Was that some signal? Was she waiting for me to make a move? I should have just done it. I knew that it was going to happen eventually. I would not be able to control that impulse forever.
Why was I beating around the bush with this? I should have just gone for it.
But I didn’t. I held it back.
She leaned forward towards me and stared from my eyes to my mouth. I leaned in and before she could see that she turned around and stepped out the door. The moment was past. I had missed it. Fuck.
And I wasn’t sure that Teri even realized it. The whole thing had happened that fast.
“Bye. Drive safe,” I said. I felt stupid for saying that. Dammit. This was really affecting my whole center of self. I felt awkward and out of my depth somehow. I was allowing this attraction to rule my life. I just needed to come out with it and tell Teri that I was attracted to her. If she didn’t want to pursue this then we would just leave it at that.
But she would most likely quit the nanny position. It would be super awkward otherwise. If she said no, but I continued to see her every single day then she was always going to know that I wanted more with her. I wanted something real to validate these feelings. And she was going to have to feel bad about that, or it was going to drive her to want to change her mind.
I didn’t want to cause her any sort of discomfort. That was the last thing I would have wanted for her. She was a great woman.
I closed the door and slumped back against it. I’d blown it. I’d done something incredibly stupid. But it might not matter.
I would have to see how tomorrow went. Would Teri show up and be the same her? Or would she tell me that I needed to find someone else and she would fill in during the interim?
I put away the leftover pasta and then got tucked Bobby into bed. I asked him if he liked Teri. “Yeah, she’s nice. Is she going to be here every day?”
“Yeah, she is,” I said. “Do you want that?”
“I do.”
I tucked him in and told him I loved him. Then I turned off his light (except for his little night light) and then closed the door. I walked down the hall and then down the stairs to the kitchen. I grabbed a beer and sat down in front of the television. I was tired today. It had been a very long one and I was ready for bed but it was too early. I decided to try to find a ball game on.
As I sipped the beer and searched for the game, Teri’s sweet face came into my mind. I thought we might actually have something going. It was the very beginning of something, but it was there. And this made me happy to think about a possible future with this woman.
I just hoped that it worked out the way I thought it might. At any rate, I had to proceed slowly and to make sure that she was ready for this and that she wanted it as badly as I did. I’d wrestled with it in my own mind for a while now and I had finally
given up trying to beat myself.
Chapter 4