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“Excuse me?”
“I couldn’t help overhearing how you lost your nanny. I just happen to know a lot about raising kids, and if you only need someone for the next two weeks, I might be able to help.”
“I don’t know… what kind of experience do you have?”
“I’m ten years older than my oldest sibling, so I’ve done a lot of babysitting while I lived at home. I’m kind of between jobs right now, and I’d be more than willing to help out.”
“Sounds like a good fit,” Tammy said. “You should jump on her offer, Austin.”
“Ha! Tammy’s a smart woman,” I added, glad she was on my side.
“No offense, but I don’t know anything about you,” Austin said, almost staring me down. His deep whiskey-colored eyes seared into my soul.
The music that pumped through the sound system made it almost impossible for us to have a real conversation, or was I simply falling even harder for this man now that I’d finally gotten to meet him.
“If you tell me what service you use, I can make an appointment with them and fill out all the necessary paperwork, if that will make you more comfortable?” I offered, hoping this would put his mind at ease.
“You’re willing to do that?”
It was hard to concentrate with the music drowning out some of our words.
“Is there somewhere we can talk that’s a little bit less noisy?”
“Sure,” he said. “Will you be around after the next set? I’ve got to get back up onstage now.”
“I’m enjoying your music. I’ll still be here.”
“Great! We can talk then,” he said.
What the hell?
How did this man have such a crazy effect on me? Nanny? Me?
I’d hated babysitting for my siblings. I did it, but only because I was forced into it by my overworked parents who were trying to make a living to afford all of us.
“Thanks,” he said, grinning, as if I’d sounded perfectly normal, when I knew I was making no sense at all. How this would get me closer to my goal, I didn’t know, but it was too late to back down now. He knocked off the rest of his beer and grabbed his plain soda. “Well, you have a great night, and if you’re still here, we’ll have that talk during the next break.”
“I’ll be here,” I told him, sounding confident, but wanting to run and hide. “You have a great night, as well. I mean, you’re probably already having a great night, but if you aren’t, I hope it gets better… great, even.”
I forced myself to shut up and grinned over at him as he stared at me, holding his plain soda and beer, looking as though I was a unicorn that just dropped in from the sky, and he was trying to figure out how that happened.
I cleared my throat, gazed at the floor for a moment, then back at Austin.
He was still staring at me, but at least he was smiling now, and when Austin smiled, everything around him seemed to melt away. He literally took my breath away.
“Thanks. I will,” he said, then his grin grew a bit wider right before he turned and walked away, leaving me to feel like a total idiot.
“What have I done?” I mumbled to myself.
Normally, I was in complete control of whatever came out of my mouth. I had perfect mind-mouth coordination, which made for a great orator or a potential politician. My thoughts easily flowed from my mouth with great clarity and precision. I never missed a beat or had to think of a challenging word or phrase. They were all right there, eager to leap from my lips with the dexterity of a centipede on an early morning stroll through a vegetable patch. This magnificent ability had served me well during many difficult situations and had helped me to obtain entry into private worlds that would otherwise be closed to a so-called outsider.
However, when a man I was attracted to entered my realm, a man I wanted to impress because I’d dreamed of something more than a business relationship with said man, the kink in my mind-to-mouth flow was as gnarly as a string of used Christmas lights. It was as if my mind told me to say all the right things, but my damn mouth couldn’t receive the data. Instead, there was a total disconnect, and no matter how hard I tried, everything that spued out made little or no sense at all.
I would have to learn how to curb this affliction if I would ever have a chance with signing Austin to my talent agency, especially now that I’d made such a fuss about taking that nanny position.
I could do this, I told myself once again. It was the perfect way to get close to him and his band.
Of course, I’d have to figure out a way to close off my feeling mind from my business mind. After all, they were two very different parts of my thought process.
