Just a few more strokes and the heat of his load pours over my hand, and I’m not far behind him, filling him with my seed. We collapse in a sweaty, breathless tangle and I plant kisses all over his damp face. “I love you.”
“Love you, too.”
“Feeling a little less stressed?” I ask him.
He laughs. “You have no idea.”
Chapter Two
Rudy
“How many is that?” Dustin asks, scrubbing his hand over his face and leaning back in his chair.
“Uh…she was number five,” I reply, glancing down at my list of names.
“And how many more do we have scheduled today?” he asks.
“Just three more,” I sigh, tilting my head from side to side to crack my neck.
It was nearing two in the afternoon, and we’d been interviewing potential nannies for Brianna since about 9 AM. I’d basically packed in as many as we could manage today, all people we’d reached out to. I hadn’t really expected an immediate response to the ad we’d put out, but I guess I’d gotten my hopes up just a little bit.
And meanwhile, rather than subjecting her to the parade of strangers through the house, Dustin had talked his older sister, Elaine, into babysitting her for the day. On weekends, Elaine is the dream sitter, but unfortunately like us, she has a 9-5 during the week.
“So what do you think so far? Any standouts?” I asked.
Dustin shook his head. “Honestly, no. Maybe that brunette who was in that green shirt? Uh, Stacey or-”
“Tracy,” I correct him, “She’s not bad, I think of the ones so far, she could be ok.”
“Maybe our Mary Poppins is one of the three lined up,” he says, trying to sound hopeful, but mostly he just sounds tired.
Some might consider us overly picky, but we don’t trust just anyone with Brianna. She’s not even my kid, technically, but I love her and feel the same kind of protectiveness over her that I would if she were my own blood.
“Maybe,” I try to sound optimistic.
But frankly, the last three interviews are just as lackluster as most of the others, and by the time Dustin’s returning from walking the final one to the front door and assuring her we’ll give her a call, I’m shuffling through all of my notes to find Tracy’s number.
“Maybe I could take tomorrow off, call in sick or something,” Dustin muses.
“All that does is buy us a day,” I shake my head, “I don’t think that’ll make much difference.”
“I could spend the day interviewing more people.”
“I don’t even know if we heard back from anyone else,” I tug my phone from my pocket, “I scheduled pretty much everyone who contacted us.”
I open my e-mail app, and I’m interested to see a new message at the top, from an unfamiliar address. But the subject line is what’s most interesting. “Hey, wait, we got a hit on our ad,” I tap the message open.
“Anything promising?”
“Hang on, I’m reading,” I murmur.
The e-mail itself is short and pleasant, but there are a couple of attachments with it. “She sent her regular resume, plus a separate page of babysitting references,” I tell Dustin, “It includes the time frame she sat for them, plus the kids’ ages.”
“Sounds promising,” he remarks.
As I’m scanning things over, I lift my eyebrows. “This young lady has kept busy. She’s almost always had at least two jobs at a time, plus it looks like she babysat all throughout that.”
“Sounds more like she undersells herself and takes crappy-paying gigs,” Dustin frowns.