Nanny for the SEALs by Cassie Cole

33

Heather

“That’s wonderful!” Asher said when we were upstairs. I had just corralled the kids around the kitchen table for snack time.

“I guess so,” I said.

Asher gave me one of his thoughtful looks. “You guess so? Isn’t this the first role you’ve ever gotten?”

“I like carrots!” Dustin announced to nobody in particular. He chewed with his mouth open, revealing a maelstrom of orange bits inside.

“Chew with your mouth closed.” I turned back to Asher. “I didn’t expect to get the part. I only auditioned because my acting coach has been pushing me.”

“You’re understandably shocked,” Asher said, rubbing my arm comfortingly. “It’s impostor syndrome. It’ll wear off when you get there and start acting. This is wonderful! We should celebrate.”

The guys were more supportive than I ever expected. In fact, they were downright sweet. Rogan brought home a bottle of expensive champagne to celebrate me getting the part, and Brady bought me flowers.

“I knew you were a big softy underneath it all,” I told Brady while moving the bouquet to a vase.

He kissed me. “I didn’t know how else to thank you. So, you know, flowers usually do.”

I frowned. “Thank me?”

“Yeah. You know. For all the sex we’ve been doing on each other.” He gave me a puzzled look. “What’d you think the flowers were for?”

Okay, so maybe the flowers weren’t about my commercial role. But Brady was excited for me when he learned about it.

But even after we had celebrated with champagne and a nice meal at the residence, I struggled to feel good about the part. I didn’t want to do commercials. I wanted my shortcut to fame and stardom, damnit!

The next few weeks were a whirlwind of activity. The script for the commercial was delivered by a courier. I had to sign for it, like it was a summons. Fancy.

I only had a few lines, but the script was three pages long and filled with stage directions. My character’s mood, their background, their motivation. All for a thirty-second commercial. It seemed excessive.

The dads beefed up Amirah Pratt’s security with a second guard, but they still took turns watching her property at night. Even Asher got into the rotation.

I actually kind of liked the situation. Not the part about Amirah having a stalker who was trying to kill her. I mean the part where the guys took turns on the night shift. It made it easier to decide who to fool around with every night.

When Brady was gone, Rogan and I slept together.

When Rogan was gone, Asher and I cuddled on the couch and watched a nature documentary. Sometimes we fooled around too, but we didn’t have to.

And when Asher was gone, I told Brady to manhandle me however he wanted. Which was a request he was very happy to oblige. As soon as the kids were fast asleep, Brady carried me into his room and gave me the rough, hard, no-holds-barred sex that I had been craving from my SEALs. He treated my lady parts like they were his dick’s personal punching bag.

And Brady could throw a mean punch, if you know what I mean.

I was having the time of my life with the dads. And for their part, they seemed to love it every bit as much as I did. There was almost zero jealousy, and the kind that did pop up was fun and playful. “Oh, Brady did that last night?” Rogan would comment. “Well, I’m certainly not going to let him one-up me. Time to invade your stronghold.”

Okay, he never actually said invade your stronghold. But you get the idea.

Everything was perfect except for the most important thing.

The kids.

The first three weeks, they were great. Every day saw a little bit of improvement. Slowly and steadily, the boys were becoming well-behaved little gentlemen. Chocolate was one hell of a motivator.

“You’re just as good as Cora!” Brady told the boys one evening. Cora rolled her eyes, but the boys beamed.

Then, at the start of my fourth week nannying for them, the boys started to regress. I didn’t think anything of it, at first. There are always ups and downs with children, and sometimes a kid had a bad day. No big deal.

But they had two bad days in a row. Then three. Every day was a little bit worse than the last. We were going in reverse.

“If you don’t sit down and behave right now,” I warned Micah during an episode of Trollhunter, “your’re losing your star.”

“I don’t even care!” Micah shot back at me. He glared as if I was his enemy. “Stars are stupid!”

“Stars lead to rewards,” I said patiently. “Remember how you didn’t get any treat yesterday? If you keep doing what you’re doing…”

Micah got up and ran down the hall, shouting about how he wanted to play with his toy truck. Once that happened, the last thread of Dustin’s control snapped, and he went stomping down the hall to follow him.

“I’m being good, Miss Heather,” Cora said in her high-pitched little voice.

I gave her a little hug. “Yes, you are.” I went down the hall to try to get control of the boys.

Generally, I preferred positive reinforcement over negative. But with the way they were behaving, I needed to institute a system of time-out. This may seem obvious to anyone who has kids, but up to that point my star system had done great by itself. Time to change that, though.

I put the boys in time out. They had to sit in the corner, facing the wall, for fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes is an eternity for a six-year-old, and by the end they were sobbing and apologizing and promising me they would behave.

That’s what I thought. I smiled to myself.

But the time-out system created a floor of behavior for them. Micah and Dustin would misbehave enough to lose a star, but as soon as they were threatened with time-out, they shaped up. It was strange.

“Micah only has one star,” I announced one evening after dinner. “Dustin has two. That’s not enough to get a treat from either bucket.”

“I’m disappointed in you,” Rogan told the boys. “You’re better than this. Why aren’t you behaving for Miss Heather?”

The boys shrugged their shoulders gloomily.

“Cora, however, was very good. She gets a treat from the big bucket.”

I lowered the bucket to the ground. Cora peered inside, shifting the packets of candy back and forth. Finally she came out with a king-sized Twix. The boys watched with wide eyes as she held the packet up.

“I’m going to save it for later,” Cora announced, sounding as haughty as a queen commuting a prisoner’s sentence.

“Nuh uh!” Dustin said. “You have to eat it now!”

“Cora can do whatever she wants with the candy,” I said. “As long as you eat it before brushing your teeth.”

The boys mouths practically watered as they watched their sister disappear into her room.

“That’s three days in a row she has gotten candy, and you haven’t,” I told them.

“We know,” they said in unison. Micah’s freckled cheeks drooped.

“Then why don’t you behave better?” Rogan asked them.

They both shrugged.

“I don’t even want it,” Micah said, which was such a bold-faced lie that I almost laughed.

“Go put your jammies on,” I told them. “Then I’ll read you a bedtime story.”

“Bedtime story!” they cried excitedly, and went stumbling down the hall in a race to get changed first.

I sighed and looked at Rogan. “Were you and Brady this bad when you were kids?”

“I was very well-behaved,” Rogan said. “And I didn’t know Brady when he was six, but I’m assuming he was exactly like this.”

“No problem with Cora,” Asher said while sipping a glass of water. “She got a big piece of candy tonight.”

“It’s not a competition,” Rogan said dryly. Asher shrugged and walked away.

The misbehaving continued. More time-outs were handed down. I began brainstorming new ways to incentivize them. New items added to the buckets, like small toys or puzzle games. I even considered giving out a small piece of candy at the end of every single activity—basically moving the carrot much closer to them. If a reward at the end of the day was too abstract, then maybe a reward every hour would work.

But I hated the idea of giving them candy all day. That wouldn’t fix the core problem, and it would just give them more bad habits.

My commercial was set to be filmed on a Thursday. At ten in the morning, Brady’s sister Patty came over to watch the kids.

“I don’t mind at all!” she said when I greeted her at the door. “They’re practically different children than when I was watching them full-time. Especially if you’ve whipped them into shape over the past couple weeks.”

I winced. “Well, actually they’re starting to regress. The last week has been… problematic, to say the least. The boys aren’t motivated by the reward system anymore. They haven’t had any candy in over a week.”

Patty barked a laugh that was eerily similar to Brady’s. “I’ll tell you what the problem is. They found a way to get into the bucket themselves.”

“I thought of that, so I started counting the candy inside,” I replied. “There were two missing from the big bucket yesterday. But it turns out Brady raided it when he got home from watching Amirah’s place. Aside from that, all candy has been accounted for all week.”

“Oh.” Patty shrugged like it couldn’t be helped. “I’ll do the best I can do. I can’t believe you’re going to be acting today! Wicked exciting! How long will you be gone?”

“It’s only a commercial. So… a few hours, maybe? I’ve never done one before.”

I said goodbye to the children and went downstairs. All three guys were waiting for me—even Brady, who looked like he could barely stand up after being out all night on watch-duty.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

“What’s wrong is that we haven’t wished you luck,” Brady said. His eyes were lidded, but his smile was warm and full of life. “Fucking break a leg, all right?” He clapped me on the shoulder.

Asher’s hug was tender and loving. “Relax. You’ve practiced, so this should be easy.”

I had been too busy to do much practicing, but I didn’t want to say that.

Rogan took hold of me by the shoulders like a coach who was about to give an inspiring speech. “Even though it’s only a commercial, this is a big step for you. Go out there and be the Heather Hart I know you can be.”

For a few moments, his words found purchase in my mind. If Rogan could believe in me, then surely I could believe in myself. I was Heather Hart, goddamnit, and no role was too small for me.

Here we go, I thought as I got into my Uber. Time to kick some ass.