Nanny for the SEALs by Cassie Cole

16

Heather

I said goodbye to the children—Cora gave me a hug, which made my heart melt—and then followed Rogan downstairs to their SUV. As soon as we got inside, he leaned across the console, cupped my cheek, and gave me a deep kiss.

“I’ve been waiting to do that all day,” he said afterward.

“Me too.” I licked my lips. “I probably taste like crayons and fingerpaint.”

“You taste amazing.” He proved it by giving me another, quicker, kiss. “What’s your apartment address?”

Before I could give him the full address, his phone rang. “HLS Security, Rogan Holt speaking.”

He nodded, said a few words, then hung up. “Work emergency. Be right back.”

Rogan got out and rushed back inside. A few minutes later, it was Brady who emerged and jumped in the driver’s seat. He had changed into jeans, a T-shirt, and a leather jacket over it all.

He smiled widely at me. “Rogan said you need a lift.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that…”

“Nah, it’s nothin’. Don’t sweat it.” He put his hand across the back of my headrest and twisted to look backwards while he went in reverse. “I know the back roads better than Rogan. Just tell me where we’re heading and I’ll get you there faster than Nomar.”

I had no idea who Nomar was. Especially since he pronounced it no-maah. But I did know that I was disappointed Rogan wasn’t driving me anymore.

So much for some sexy time at the hotel, I thought.

Sure enough, traffic was terrible at that time of day, especially driving over to my apartment. But Brady avoided the interstate and took back roads everywhere, managing to avoid most of the lights. He also drove like a maniac, but there was a method to the chaos. He was always in control.

That’s what I kept telling myself, anyway.

“How was your day?” I asked.

He looked sideways at me. “The last persons who asked me that followed it up by pelting me with Play-Doh.”

I groaned. “Sorry about that. At least they remembered the part we rehearsed. It took over an hour to get them to do it, believe it or not.”

“Oh I believe it. My Dustin is stubborn as all get out. Just like his namesake, Dustin Pedroia.”

“Dustin who?”

“Dustin Pedroia!” He looked at me like I was pulling his leg. “The best goddamn second baseman to ever put on a Sox uniform. He was a stubborn little gym rat, too. Figures my Dustin is the same.”

“Ah, I see. So your day was good?”

“My day was mostly good,” Brady explained. He gripped the steering wheel with one hand, which made his bicep flex out of his shirt. “We signed all the paperwork with Amirah Pratt. She’s the lady you pretended to be the other night. I shadowed her all afternoon to give her an idea of what to expect from a typical bodyguard. Then one of our other guys will watch her tonight. We’ll establish a rotation after that. So, yeah. Mostly good.”

“You guarded her?” I asked. “Do you always give clients the personal treatment? Or is it because she’s a hot young actress?”

Brady chuckled. “Ain’t gonna lie. She’s hot as fuck. She’s a good actress, don’t get me wrong, but her looks are the real reason she got that Netflix gig.”

Brady changed lanes and made a sharp left turn down a side street, then continued. “But naw. We’re giving her special treatment for a few reasons. One, she’s a new client at The Weiman Agency. We want to impress them so we get their other clients, instead of Heimdall stealing them away. And two, I was covering her personally because of the nature of the threats she’s been getting.”

“That bad?”

He nodded. “Now, I’m not a woman. Obviously. But doing this job for as long as I’ve done, I’ve come to learn that social media’s always rough for a woman like her. The average female celebrity gets seventeen death threats or rape threats a day. Amirah is getting thirty-seven. Per day. You believe that? And some of these aren’t your normal threats. Some are… personal. I won’t get into the details.”

“I’m starting to rethink my career choice,” I said. “Picking Play-Doh out of my hair doesn’t seem so bad anymore.”

“Amirah will be all right,” Brady said. “At least, she will be now that she’s hired us.” He patted his chest above the heart.

“You’re awfully cocky about it.”

“Not cocky. Just confident. We’re good at what we do, let me tell you.”

“Why, just because you were Navy SEALs?” I asked.

Brady nodded. “It’s the same skill set.”

“It seems like the opposite skill set,” I argued. “As a SEAL, you probably barged into places and shot everyone up. Being a bodyguard means protecting someone.”

He only smiled at me. “There’s a lot more overlap than you would think.”

I rolled my eyes. “So you’re saying you rush around, clearing rooms ahead of her like it’s some covert operation?”

“Nothing that dramatic. But being a SEAL means always being on alert for potential threats.”

The discussion ended as we reached my apartment. “Give me five minutes and I’ll be back,” I said.

But he hopped out of the car and ran to the door. He dramatically put his finger to his ear like he was listening to an ear-piece. “No ma’am. I’m under strict orders to protect you from any and all threats in the building.”

I stifled a giggle. “You’re a bad actor.”

He ran up the first flight of steps, then quickly looked one way, then the other. “Clear!” he shouted, loud enough to send a flock of birds into the air from a nearby ledge.

I laughed and followed him. That’s when I noticed the gun holster on his hip, underneath his leather jacket.

“I didn’t know you were allowed to carry one of those in California.”

Brady glanced at it like he had forgotten it was there. “You need a special permit. Which unit is yours, ma’am?”

“You know, it’s kind of fun being called ma’am. Although I’m several years younger than you.”

“Ma’am, please!” Brady insisted, as if it were a matter of life and death. “The unit!”

“Third floor, unit B.”

Brady rushed ahead cartoonishly, leather jacket swirling as he went. He paused at intersections to look both ways before continuing. When I got to the third floor, he was waiting by the door.

“I’ll perform a sweep of the apartment before you go inside.”

“It will be a quick sweep. It’s a studio.”

He grabbed my keys from me, unlocked the door, then rushed inside.

“You’re a really bad actor!” I said as I followed him.

He dropped the act and laughed once we were inside. Then he looked around.

“You weren’t kidding. This place is tiny. No wonder you were soaking up all the hotel luxuries last night.”

“How’d you know about that?”

“Rogan told me,” he replied. “He said that’s why it took so long convincing you to take the job. Because you kept ordering room service.”

My poker face fell into place. “Yeah, it definitely took a long time because of that.”

“You share this with someone?” Brady asked. “Wait. I remember. Maurice, the one who likes—”

“Don’t say it,” I warned. “I’ve spent most of the day trying to forget all the things I said after you drugged me.”

“Consensually,” Brady pointed out. “You agreed to it. We all heard you.” He winced. “But, yeah. That was fucked up. Sorry about that. Not our usual M.O.”

“It’s all right.”

“You gotta look at it from our perspective,” Brady said. “Thing is, you don’t have much of a record here. Been living in Hollywood for three years and you’ve only had, what, seven auditions? Kinda fishy, you ask me.”

I retrieved my suitcase from the closet and opened it on the bed. “It’s not easy to make it in this town.”

“Lady, I get that, but seven? In three years? We know people in this town. Even the lowest, most awful actors do at least an audition a week. So what gives?”

I started folding clothes into my suitcase. “I’m just waiting for the right role, I guess.”

Brady shook his head. “You gotta work your way up, first. Shovel some shit before you find gold.”

“You sound like my acting coach.” I shrugged. “I don’t know. All the roles I’ve auditioned for feel beneath me. Maybe I just need to be challenged.”

Brady chuckled. “You sound like Asher. He said the same thing.” He sat on the edge of Maurice’s bed and waved a dismissive hand. “Forget I asked. I was just tryin’ to apologize for the kidnapping. We don’t usually do that kind of thing.”

“Rogan said you’re in some kind of competition? With the other security companies?”

“You can say that again. It took us years to get to where we are in the personal security business. Blood, sweat, tears—all of those clichés people say. Well, Heimdall Security didn’t like that. They didn’t like it at all. Been trying to sabotage us at every step.”

I grabbed a handful of panties from the drawer and quickly moved them to the suitcase before Brady could see. “And they would really send some sort of spy to your suite to make you look bad?”

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned,” Brady said emphatically, “it’s that people will do anything when money is involved. And personal security is big business in this town.”

I closed my suitcase and zipped it up. “Thanks for the ride. Hopefully traffic back to the hotel is better now.”

“It’s no problem,” Brady said, grabbing my suitcase for me and carrying it to the door. “I’d rather be drivin’ Miss Heather than dealing with the kids.”

I rolled my eyes and locked the apartment behind me. “Kids are a big deal. It’s not like adopting a cat.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said in a softer tone. “The way we had them… It’s complicated. Raising them ain’t been easy. They drove my sister Patty crazy, and she’s a tough woman.”

He stopped on the next stair landing and turned to put a hand on my shoulder. His touch was strangely gentle for a man his size. “I guess I’m tryin’ to say, we’re glad to have you here. To get them under control.”

Brady was every bit as sexy as Rogan, I realized. A little goofier, but in a charming, easy-going way. I found myself liking him.

I smiled. “And I’m glad you’re paying me an insane amount of money to do it.”

“Money?” Brady scoffed. “You mean you’re not doin’ it out of the kindness of your heart?”

“Not even a little bit!”

We laughed, but as we went downstairs, I thought to myself, I’m also doing it to stay close to Rogan.

When we got outside, Maurice was walking up the street toward us. I saw his face contort into several different emotions:

First he was happy to see me.

Then he was excited to see that I was with a man.

Then he was jealous to see that I was with a big, muscular hunk.

And then, finally, he was shocked to see that it was one of the men from the Lakers suite.

“You…” Maurice said, frozen in his spot.

“Hey!” Brady said, pointing at him and grinning. “You’re the dicks guy! I mean…” He glanced at me. “Shit. I wasn’t supposed to say that. It just slipped out.”

Maurice was too concerned about the suitcase Brady was carrying to notice. “Heather? Honey? I’m going to ask a question no black man in Los Angeles has ever asked before: should I call the cops?”

Brady busted out laughing at that. “No way, pal. Everything’s good! Right, Heather? Tell him. We’re all friends here.”

“Everything’s fine,” I told Maurice. “Brady’s helping me with my stuff.”

Maurice kept his eyes on the big former SEAL and leaned close to me. “Is this one of those Stockholm Syndrome situations? If you’re in danger, blink your eyes in Morse code. Wait, forget that. I don’t know Morse code.” He turned to Brady and crossed his arms. “What business do you have with my friend? Because if you mean her any harm, we’re going to have problems.”

The scene was comical. Brady was a huge, lumbering man whose muscles threatened to break through his T-shirt at any moment. Maurice was a skinny kid who looked like he could barely lift a grocery bag. It was like a Chihuahua staring defiantly at a German Shepherd.

“Everything’s fine, I promise,” I said, putting a hand on Maurice’s arm. “But thank you for rushing to my defense.”

“I’m glad it didn’t come to violence,” Maurice said to Brady. Then he leaned to me and added in a whisper, “Because I don’t think I could take him.”

“Heather’s working for us,” Brady said to deescalate the situation. “She’s our new nanny.”

“I told you this morning,” I said. “Remember?”

Maurice looked at me, then at Brady, then back to me. “I thought I dreamed that. You said a bunch of gibberish that made no sense. Like that you were nannying for the guys who kidnapped you?”

Brady chuckled. “Oh, yeah. That’s our bad. We totally did that. We drugged her too, although Rogan clearly got verbal permission first. But yeah, we’re sorry about all that. Everything’s cool now. Promise.” He extended his fist for a fist-bump.

Maurice ignored it, leaned toward me again, and hissed, “Now’s the part where you send me a distress message with your eye-blinks!”

I gave him a hug and said, “I promise it will make sense later.”

“Forget later. I want to know now. I just got off my lunch shift at Outback. Let’s get drinks.”

I glanced at Brady. “Yeah, let’s get drinks. I know just the place.”