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“You know I like you, Tucker, but you better treat him right,” she says. That warning tone in her voice is perfect for a soon-to-be mother, and dammit, it works on the poor guy.

“Dinosaurs.” I manage to react with the appropriate amount of excitement to Mason’s answer.

“Of course I’ll treat him right, Hannah, what—” My sister cuts off her husband’s boss’s boss’s boss and potentially mine.

She really needs to be stopped, but the boys are telling me about their favorite cars and dinosaurs. I can’t possibly turn around to snap at her to shut it.

That’s the only reason why I stay where I am.

“I mean it, Tuck. He wants a job, and he’s going to be the best damn nanny you could ever dream of, but he needs support. He can’t work twenty-four hours a day, and he’s going to need extra time off for therapy⁠—”

That’s as much as I let myself listen to.

I know my face is red as a tomato, and I can only thank all the stars in the universe for how engrossed the boys are in their discussion of red versus green—which I can already tell is probably a daily occurrence.

“All right, boys, now it’s time for me to talk to Sunny, okay?”

“But Tuuuck,” Mason argues. “He’s drawing with us.”

“I can see that. I need to ask him some questions so he can draw with you some more.”

“Fine,” Mason grumbles, and Maddox pulls on his arm.

“We can do the red dinosaur and green car while they do their boring adult talk and show him after,” Maddox argues, and Mason is instantly convinced. They’re good kids. A bit set in their ways, with Maddox sure that red is the only good color that would look on a car, and Mason sure that a red dinosaur isn’t right. But I convinced them to try. Developing curiosity is a big thing after all.

I stand like a man walking to the gallows.

Yeah, dramatic, but also feels very true.

I avoid Tucker’s eyes and simply sit on the rolling chair he pulls out for me.

Fuck me.

“So, here’s what I’m looking for,” he starts, and this is where I realize he might be a normal twenty-three-year-old after all—okay, semi-normal.

He has no idea what his own days will look like until the night before, but he does know the boys’ schedule off the top of his head, and that bodes well. They have swimming lessons Tuesdays and Thursdays right after daycare, they go to sleep every day at seven thirty on the dot, skating lessons on Wednesdays, and soccer practice at the park on Friday afternoons.

He wants someone who can accompany their bodyguard—because of course the three-year-old twins have a bodyguard—to pick them up. He wants me to live with them. He wants me to help fill their days with activities that are “good for them,” but clearly has no ideas what.

No need to help with food since they have a chef—duh—or bath time, since Tucker handles that every night.

If there’s ever a night when he can’t be there for their bedtime routine because of an event, he assures me one of his sisters will take over. I’d be off the clock officially before dinner, but I’m welcome to eat with them every day.

I’d have the weekends off, and the salary is a bit staggering and finally gets me to look up at him.

I find those soft hazel eyes focused on his phone, and realize he’s put enough thought into this to at least have it all written down.

This isn’t only dangerous, it seems more and more fatal by the second.

“I know Hannah told you about my—” Shit.

I’m really not ashamed of going to therapy, of needing it, so why the hell can’t I just come out and say it?

It’s not like I’m about to confess my whole tragic backstory to him, so it really shouldn’t be this hard.

Worst of all, it gets him to look away from his phone and up at me.

“Your . . .” He trails off, clearly expecting me to fill in the blanks.