First Chapter: Night & Day

About Night & Day:

Ty's parents seem to have their shit together, and his little sisters are old enough that he doesn't have to constantly worry about them anymore. He could even enroll in some college classes if he could find an overnight job that won't kill him. One where he might be able to study occasionally, or catch a nap. When he sees the advertisement for a night nanny, it sounds perfect. After all, he's got a soft spot for babies, and raised his sisters himself.

If Ty is having some seriously sinful thoughts about Isabel's handsome, melancholy father-well. His thing for older men is nothing new, and he can keep himself under control for the half-hour their paths cross in the morning and evening.

Jonathan is overwhelmed by his wife leaving abruptly--though, to be honest, he'd known it was over for years--by the new responsibilities he's just been handed at his law firm, and by the baby daughter he adopted three months ago, Isabel. The baby his now-vanished wife had been begging for. He was lucky to get a place for Isabel in the best infant care program in the city, but it closes at 5 p.m. Before Isabel, Jonathan had never held a baby or changed a diaper. He needs help day and night.

When Ty answers his advertisement, Jonathan looks past the tattoos and piercings at the way Ty expertly soothes the baby and hires him on the spot. The only problem in the weeks that follow is how much Jonathan begins to look forward to Ty's arrival every night, and not just because he's ready to hand Isabel over and get some sleep. There's something that fascinates him about the kid who steps out of the darkness late each night with a crooked smile.

When Isabel's daycare temporarily closes unexpectedly, a desperate Jonathan asks Ty if he can work more hours. Ty says he can--if he can crash in the guest room, too.

AMAZON (US) | AMAZON (UK) | AMAZON (AU) | AMAZON (CAN)

CHAPTER ONE

Ty stood on the sidewalk outside the town house that matched the address he'd saved in his phone. The longer he waited there, the more strongly he considered turning around and walking straight back to the bus stop.

The area was one of those trendy mixtures of commercial and residential properties. On the ground floor of the building next door to the town house, there was a flower shop. Above it, a boutique restaurant with a tiny balcony. The woman sitting there at a single table crossed her legs, flashing the red soles of her heels. A waiter appeared to present her with a bottle of wine, and she wrinkled her nose at the label.

Along the wide sidewalk, concrete planters the size of plastic kiddie pools spilled over with blooming flowers.

Ty wasn't the only person in sight who was wearing a T-shirt and jeans, but the worn spots at his knees hadn't been distressed in a factory in the name of fashion, and he'd replaced two of the eyelets in his ancient Doc Martens himself when they'd pulled through the leather. The results weren't perfect but the cuffs of his jeans mostly hid it.

He should have borrowed something from Kent. His sister's boyfriend had clothes for every occasion. Ty and his sister, Emily, gave him shit for it all the time. On the inside, Ty marveled at the way Kent always knew exactly what to wear whether he was going to some luncheon to schmooze with his medical school professors, or hitting up a club. Kent would probably be horrified if he knew that Ty was showing up to an interview in this part of the city wearing jeans.

But according to Google, he should dress for the job he was applying for. Granted, Ty had gotten that tip from a website that seemed to have more of a corporate environment in mind. All the people in the stock photos were wearing ties. Still, the spirit of the advice made sense to him. For a job as an infant nanny working from eight p.m. to eight a.m., jeans and a T-shirt had to be about right.

A young woman who was probably about the age of Ty's middle sister, Danielle—so, eighteen or nineteen—walked around the corner and right up to the townhouse. She was probably interviewing for the position, too, he realized as she rang the bell. Scanning her outfit, he was impressed. She wasn't wearing a business suit, but she had a strong, kindergarten-teacher-chic vibe, with her long flowing skirt and her flowered top and cute-but-practical ballet flats.

Damn it, he thought. He totally should have dressed like a kindergarten teacher. Kent probably could have loaned him the exact, bland combination of nondescript khakis and a polo shirt.

When the door opened, Ty moved down the sidewalk a little so that he would be harder to notice. That meant that he couldn’t see whoever answered the door, only the young woman smiling at them as she went inside. He did hear the familiar, sharp squeak of an angry baby, and he smiled to himself.

If he only had to impress the kid, rather than the parent, he wouldn’t be so nervous. He wondered if he would get to hold her. He would, right? How could you hire a nanny without letting them hold the baby? That seemed like it should be at least one of the tests. Ty remembered when his siblings were little and some people would look at them with abject, bewildered fear. Most people had no idea what to do with a baby, and if you handed them one, you found that out in a hurry. 

Ty checked his phone for roughly the tenth time; he had to tilt it a little so the sun's glare didn't refract off the jagged crack down the middle. He still had twenty minutes before his scheduled interview time. He had been there for forty. Always over-budget for travel time, he used to tell the girls. His sisters included that phrase on the list of what they called his "Dad sayings." They meant the kind of line that would come out of the mouths of dads in movies and sitcoms, certainly not from their actual dad. Their dad didn’t dispense wisdom. Or hold a job. Or sign assisted lunch applications and permission slips, or remember to file his tax return.

"Are you casing that house?" a voice asked matter-of-factly from somewhere to Ty's right.

He frowned, turning to find someone was sitting on the stoop of the building at his back. It was another townhouse, two doors down from the one where Ty had his interview. He had been leaning against the railing that boxed in its miniature, rocked yard to either side of the steps that led up to the door.

The speaker wore an oversized navy blue sweatshirt with the hood pulled up, and was frowning at Ty assessingly. The combination of smooth skin, the heart-shaped face dominated by acrylic-framed glasses, and the hoodie made age difficult to guess, though Ty had the strong impression of speaking to a teenager. Maybe because he couldn't imagine an adult in this neighborhood interrogating a stranger from their stoop. 

"No," Ty said, hunching his shoulders defensively. "I'm waiting for an interview." It wasn’t anyone's business, but then again, he was a little out of place in this part of town, and he didn't want to wind up with the cops called. Ty rarely felt self-conscious about his tattoos, but he almost wished he'd worn a shirt with long sleeves as the kid on the stoop gave him a careful once-over.

"What's the job?"

Ty considered spouting off one of his Dad sayings, like Is that really any of your business? Instead he just shrugged and answered. "Nanny."

Behind the glasses, dark brown eyes widened. "You're a nanny?"

"Well," Ty huffed, "not, like, presently, no. But hopefully I will be," he added, "starting in three to seven days." He blushed when he realized he was quoting the timeline for a start date in the job posting he'd answered.

"What do you know about kids?"

He narrowed his eyes at the kid. "What do you know about minding your own business?" he snapped at the kid. Their brows climbed, and he cursed himself internally. For all he knew this kid’s parents were besties with the family he was about to interview with. "Sorry," he said curtly. "Just, pre-interview jitters, I guess."

The kid was looking at him warily. "I guess you’re right. It’s none of my business."

Now Ty felt like an asshole. What was he doing interviewing for a job in this part of town, doing anything other than scrubbing floors at night or some other task where he would be neither seen nor heard. Actually talking to people who outclassed him to such an extent they may as well live in another world? He was an idiot.

Then, Ty heard a baby crying. He turned instinctively toward the sound to find that the door to 1101 had opened again and the kindergarten-chic woman was already coming out. He frowned, glancing at his phone to confirm that she'd barely been inside for five minutes.

"I’ve gotta go," he murmured to the kid on the stoop, thinking as he walked toward the sound of the baby’s cries that she was really working herself up. He'd never been able to ignore a crying baby. When Emily was born, Ty had only been eight, but on the first night, when she had started crying and wouldn't stop, he’d gotten out of bed, padded past the firmly closed door to his parents' bedroom, and bent over the big laundry basket they had been using as a cradle.

Little Emily had been writhing, hands curled into fists and her face bright red. In hindsight he was terrified at the thought of that eight-year-old boy picking up a newborn, but he'd had good instincts, scooping her up with a careful hand under her bottom and another behind her neck. She'd stopped crying immediately, and he'd nestled her in the crook of his arm, holding her until morning, when his parents had woken up and he'd asked one of them to show him how to make her a bottle.

Ty itched with the same urge now, to go and cuddle the crying baby into happy submission, and he was halfway to the bottom of the townhouse’s stairs as kindergarten-teacher-chic was coming down. Her expression was twisted into a frown and she didn’t make eye contact with Ty as they passed.

He had trotted up the steps and his eyes had latched onto the baby, held cross-body style and not looking very happy about it, before Ty realized that he probably should have waited and knocked at his appointment time. Instead, he’d accosted his potential employer in his doorway. 

"Can I help you?"

Ty looked up at the sound of the strained voice as the baby, who looked to be about three months old, arched her back, waved her clenched fists, and wailed even louder.

Ty's heart, already wrenched by the desire to soothe the baby, flipped over in his chest again. Because the tall man with his arms wound inexpertly around the baby was gorgeous. Not hot, which was the word Ty used for the smirking, uber-confident guys he looked for when he occasionally found time to go out and get laid. Not pretty, because even though his dark eyelashes were long enough to curl and his lips were full and slightly pink, there was a sternness to his eyes and a strength to his jaw that was incongruous with such a soft word. He looked like he'd stepped out of the centerfold of a catalog for luxury products, or one of Ty’s most ambitious wet dreams.

Ty swallowed, and because he didn't know what else to do, he held out his hands for the baby. "Can I take her?"

The guy hesitated, but didn’t say no, exactly. He took a small backward step into the foyer, cocking his head in an invitation to come in. "You're Tyler Burns?"

Ty nodded, stepping over the threshold and taking the liberty of closing the door behind him. "Mr. Evans, right?"

The man nodded. "Jonathan," he corrected, and apparently decided that now that they were indoors and had exchanged names, it was acceptable for him to hand off his infant daughter, because he half-extended his arms to hold her out to Ty. A small, pink-onesie-clad and very unhappy offering.

Ty ignored the way his hands skated across the smooth skin of Jonathan’s hands as he accepted the baby, adjusting his hold as he gently lifted her up against his shoulder, her little bottom cupped in his palm so that she could draw up her knees and tuck them between her tummy and his chest. That was the way that Emily had liked to be held; he hadn't realized he'd remembered that, but then, some memories lived in your body, not your head.

And apparently, this baby liked to be held this way, too, because she took a deep, whimpering breath, and then fell quiet. Ty grinned automatically at the swift victory, and then looked back at his baffled prospective employer, this time more prepared for the combined effect of the eyelashes and the eyes and the lips and the jaw and, Jesus, those arms.

"This is the way my little sister liked to be held, too," he said, just to say something into what always felt like ringing silence in the wake of a baby crying. "It's funny how you remember those things. She's twenty now."

The man continued staring at Ty, but now his gaze was roaming, like he was pretty sure Ty had worked some kind of magic on the baby and was searching for signs of a wand. Or maybe he was just noticing the worn jeans, battered old Docs, and tattoos, but Ty was hoping for the best.

When his eyes returned to Ty's, the man pressed his lips together, his stern face growing sterner in an expression of resolve, like he'd reached a decision.

The uncertainty Ty had felt a few minutes before while he was being interrogated by the neighbor kid returned. The kindergarten-chic woman had been in and out in approximately five minutes. Ty wondered idly if she'd seen the same look on their interviewer's face before he'd shown her out. He gave the baby a preemptive farewell pat on the back, and waited to find out.