Page 96 of Anything But Lonely

The tight set of her mouth nearly makes me grin.

The barista hands back my card a second slower than necessary, just as another barista sets our coffees down on the counter. “Enjoy your coffee.”

“Thanks,” I offer, grabbing the cups and handing Emerson hers.

“We will,” she says with a saccharine smile, but there is nothing sweet about it.

I turn to her as we step away from the register, finding an open table near the window.

“Enjoy your coffee,” she mocks, her voice going an octave higher than usual. “I’m literally standing right next to you.”

“And?” I take a sip of my coffee, pulling out her chair before sitting down in mine. She looks from the chair to me, rolling her eyes before she sits down.

“She was trying to flirt with you.”

“Like I said, and?”

She groans, but I don’t know if she’s more annoyed with me or with herself. “And I was standing right there. She’s just going to blatantly drool over you right in front of me?”

And there it is. Jealousy.

Tiny. Barely there.

But enough to send an embarrassingly satisfying warmth through my chest.

Emerson is usually impossible to rattle. She's the one with a smartass comment always loaded and ready to fire. The one who never hesitates to poke fun at me when I'm the one stumbling over my words or saying something stupid.

Most days, I'm the easy target.

Not her.

Which is exactly why watching her get flustered is so damn entertaining.

My lips part with a small scoff. “That's what you took from that interaction?”

“Whatever,” she says, swiping her bangs from her eyes, just for them to fall back exactly where they were. “It doesn’t even matter.”

I laugh. “Right.”

Her eyes narrow. “It’s not like I’m your girlfriend. I’m your nanny.”

The second the words leave her mouth, her expression pinches.

There she is.

Not the confident woman who always seems three steps ahead of me. Not the one who can level me with a look and leave me scrambling to recover.

This is a side to her I haven’t seen—and one I could definitely get used to.

Flustered.

Human.

Cute as hell.

I lift a brow. “My what?”

She slaps a hand against her forehead with a groan. “Your son’s nanny,” she grits through her teeth.