Soon that cute “oops” look is back on his face and he’s saying, “Sorry! Please?,” but Michelle seems too upset about his behavior to be able to hold back.
“No, you can’t,” she says, trying to push his arm out of the way.
He looks surprised and pushes his arm the other way as a sort of defense mechanism, knocking the cup of juice over and spilling its contents.
I gasp, and so does Matt and Jason.
“I’m going to get a soapy towel,” says Matt, and Jason begins cutting the cake.
They are all business but you can tell that they’re a bit worried about how the rich resort guest who is paying for this lavish party will react to Michelle’s antics.
“Why did you do that?” I hiss to Michelle, under my breath.
“I’m sick and tired of spoiled, entitled rich kids being brats,” she responds, loudly.
“Hey!” I tell her. “It’s not his fault.”
Under my breath, I tell her, “He can’t help that that silver spoon that was in his mouth when he was born. Plus, he’s cute.”
Louder again now, I say, “Here you go, Charlie.”
I hand him another cup of juice and he says, “Thanks!” and skips back over to the cake, apparently unfazed.
Michelle says, “Yeah, I think it’s more like you think his dad is cute and so you’re willing to cut his kid some slack.”
I don’t say anything in response, just let my jaw hang open. I’m really getting annoyed at her and I don’t know who she thinks she is.
Matt returns with a dish towel that he hands to Michelle.
She looks at him and says, “I’m not the janitor.”
“Come on, Michelle,” Matt urges her. “Do you want to lose your job?”
She begrudgingly begins to clean up the juice.
“You’re really good with him,” Daniel tells me, nodding approvingly. It seems he isn’t too fazed by what just happened. “Would you like a job as his nanny?”
“That’s the lamest pick-up line I’ve ever heard,” Michelle groans, under her breath.
“You don’t think I’m a good ski instructor?” I ask, deciding to throw him a little attitude and play hard to get.
“Oh, of course I do,” he stammers.
I’m glad I’ve managed to make him tongue-tied. It seems he is usually a fast talker but only I can slow him down. Just like out on the slopes, I imagine.
I have a quick fantasy of the two of us shredding some snow and then fucking like little white bunnies on top of it. Maybe after our roll in the snow we could warm up with some hot chocolate and a dip in some hot springs or a jacuzzi.
But I tell myself to stop thinking that way, since apparently, it’s already obvious that I’m into him.
“Then what makes you think I’d want to be a nanny?” I respond to Daniel, before he has time to recover. “Maybe you really are entitled, like Michelle here says.”
“What?” he protests. “I didn’t mean it like that at all.”
I smile at him, resisting the urge to also wink, because that might be over-playing my hand a bit. In reality, this ski instructor gig is only a temporary, seasonal one and it doesn’t pay that well. I would be a fool not to consider other options.
But I still don’t know if he’s married or not and I’m not sure I should take a job working so closely to a man I’m attracted to and who is obviously flirting with me before I find that out. Plus, it is rather presumptuous of him to assume I’d jump at this chance, for a stranger I just met. Even if he is a hot stranger – a hot stranger who knows he’s hot.
“Look,” Daniel says, his voice actually sounding a bit desperate. “The last nanny I had working for me quit, and I really need someone soon, or I wouldn’t be asking. You and Charlie seem to get along. And I’d be willing to pay a hundred.”
“A week?” Michelle snorts, then hisses, “Rich people are always so cheap.”
“An hour,” Daniel corrects her.
I look at him with my mouth hanging open – and Michelle is doing the same, of course. I mean, who wouldn’t be?
What’s the catch? I wonder, but Michelle recovers faster than I do, and asks the question for me.
She’s probably prompted to do so by the fact that Charlie and his friend are now fighting over the Transformers toys he was supposed to be giving out as favors but is hoarding to himself, with his arms crossed tightly over them while the other kids try to rip them out of his grasp.
He yells, “No, never! It’s my birthday, not yours!”
“How many other nannies have you been through?” Michelle asks Daniel. “That you have to pay that much to get one, I mean.”
“Look,” he says, glancing down as if he’s been caught.
Damn, Michelle knows her stuff.