Nanny for the SEALs by Cassie Cole

15

Heather

The dads—I started collectively thinking of them that way, the dads—came upstairs around five. There were squeals of excitement and a rush of children to the door to greet them with hugs and kisses. Even Cora excitedly leaped into Asher’s arms.

“How did it go?” Rogan asked me.

Micah answered, “Miss Heather did okay. I think she can stay.”

“Yay Miss Heather!” Dustin agreed.

Rogan laughed at that. The boys then ran back to the table, where they were playing with their tablets.

“They were fine,” I said when the boys were out of earshot. “Lunch was a disaster. I swear they got more food on the ground than in their mouths.”

“Why didn’t you call me?” Rogan asked.

“I didn’t want to bother you. But they turn into wild animals when food is in front of them. Have you never worked on their manners at the table?”

“Manners?” Brady asked. “They’re boys. They’ll grow out of it.”

“That’s not how parenting works,” I said dryly.

Asher cleared his throat. He was wearing a three-piece suit with a cornflower blue tie. “And how was Cora at lunch?”

“She was perfect. No issues at all.”

Brady groaned. “Don’t give him any ammo.”

Asher smiled softly and nodded to himself.

“What’s this?” Rogan pointed at the fridge. “It looks like a schedule…”

I cleared my throat. “You can’t read that! I cast a spell on the words.” I gave him a look. The three children were watching from the table.

Rogan caught on after a split second. “Oh. Right! I definitely can’t read this. It’s all gibberish.”

The boys giggled to themselves.

“Aside from lunchtime, how’d the rest of the day go?” Brady asked.

“There were times where it was easy. And times where it wasn’t.”

Brady scratched at his jaw. “Yeah, well, you haven’t self-immolated yet out of frustration. I call that a good sign.”

“They’re not bad enough to drive me to suicide,” I said. “But they do need structure in their lives.” I lowered my voice. “That’s what the schedule is for. But don’t call it a schedule. It’s an adventure plan.”

“I don’t know,” Brady said. “I didn’t have any kind of structure when I was a boy.”

“And look how you turned out,” Asher said quietly.

Brady started to raise his middle finger to the man, then stopped himself when he realized the kids were watching. “That gesture I was about to make? Pretend I made it.”

I walked over to the dining room table. “Okay. It’s five o’clock, which means tablet time is over.”

“Just one more level!” Dustin insisted. He was playing some sort of driving game.

“Nope. We have a plan, and the plan means we stop now. As soon as you finish that lap.”

He finished, then groaned, but then handed me the tablet. He didn’t look happy about it, though.

“Now,” I said, “can you show your dads what you learned today?”

All three of them hopped down from their chairs and arranged themselves in front of the dads. Dustin and Micah stood proudly, but Cora hung back a little bit out of shyness.

I counted down on my fingers: three, two, one, go. Then all three of them spoke in unison:

“How was work, daddy?”

It was adorable. It was simple, but again, simple things were how we got started establishing that I was in charge, and they had to do what I said.

Rogan beamed down at them. “Work was good. But we missed you. Now that we’re home, we—”

Suddenly, the boys reached into their pockets and began hurling Play-Doh at Rogan. Balls of blue and green and purple smacked him in the chest, falling to the ground on the tile.

Cora didn’t take part, but she watched and giggled at the scene.

“That wasn’t what we rehearsed!” I scolded. “What did we learn about making messes?”

The boys must have reached the end of their rope for the day, because rather than answering me, they went sprinting down the hall to their bedrooms. I heard the squeaking of springs as they jumped on one of the beds.

I gritted my teeth. “They’ll be better tomorrow.”

“Don’t get worked up about it!” Brady said cheerfully. “We didn’t expect them to be perfect angels after one day.”

Asher looked around the room. “The residence looks good.”

I snorted. “Is that sarcasm? There’s colored pencils everywhere, and Play-Doh all over the couch, and I haven’t had a chance to clean up all the paper because they got into a paper-ball fight…”

“I guess it looks better than I normally expect,” Asher said. “This is an improvement from their typical behavior, I assure you.”

“We have a maid that comes twice a week, in the mornings,” Rogan said. “Don’t worry about it.”

I led them over to the fridge. “The big thing I’m establishing is a daily schedule. It’s crucial that they have a set routine every single day. I need your help reinforcing that routine when I’m not here. It will be hard at first, but you need to stick with it. They’ll accept it eventually.”

Brady elbowed Asher and whispered, “I didn’t know the nanny was going to give us homework.”

I rounded on him. “I didn’t think I needed to say this out loud, but having children is a big responsibility. You need to establish good habits with them. If you don’t fix these behaviors now, it will be harder down the road.”

“We know,” Rogan said gently. “It hasn’t been easy raising them while working at the same time.”

“Are their moms not in the picture?” I asked.

“It’s just us,” Rogan said simply. I waited for him to explain more, but he just stared at me.

“The contract stipulated that I nanny until you get home each day,” I said. “But I’d be happy to stick around and help you with them. To reinforce these new routines.”

Rogan shook his head. “It sounds like you’ve had a long first day. We can take it from here.”

I had hoped they would invite me to stay for dinner, but I was also exhausted from playing lion-tamer with the boys all day.

“Okay then. I guess I’ll see you again tomorrow at eight.”

“Want a ride back to the hotel?” Rogan asked.

The offer seemed innocent enough out loud. But it was loaded with subtext.

“I’m not going straight back to the hotel,” I said. “I need to swing by my apartment to pack a bunch of clothes.”

“I don’t mind giving you a ride to both,” Rogan said. “Uber’s going to be rough at this time of day. I know the back roads.”

“Sure,” I said. “Okay.”

But in my head, I was thinking, I’m the one who wants to give you a ride.