Page 147 of The Nanny and the Nerd
“Are you serious?” she snapped, poking him in the chest as soon as he was within poking distance.
He glanced at her finger and grinned. “I trust my team. I made Jerome VP of Gale Gaming and Boomer VP of Gaming Development.”
She wasn’t expecting that!
She lifted her chin, not ready to give an inch—not yet. “They deserve it. You’re also a controlling overlord of a boss.”
“I’m working on that,” he answered.
“You also crashed my contest,” she added, not backing down.
“The Denver Poetry and Short Story Competition is now sponsored by Gale Tech. So, it’s pretty much my contest,” he countered, taking her poking hand into his.
“You bought the contest? You’re the late entry?” She glanced at her friends, who appeared one hundred percent gobsmacked, holding on to each other, jaws on the floor. But when she spied her mother, her sisters, Cecelia, Regina, and Chuck, none of them appeared surprised.
“What did you do, Rowen?” she asked.
“Uncle Row and I wrote a story for the contest, Penny. We went to see your friend, and she told me that Uncle Row and I did a real good job writing it.”
“What friend?” Penny asked.
“Miss Delores,” Phoebe chimed.
“Which Miss Delores?” Penny pressed. There was only one. But there was no way Rowen and Phoebe had jetted off to the Caribbean to have an acclaimed writer proofread for them.
“She lives on an island with her husband. He calls me Mademoiselle Phoebe!” the child answered as she adjusted her hot dog backpack.
“Really?” Penny uttered.
“Yep, Miss Delores helped me add in the punctuation while Uncle Row and Mr. Auguste played AI-77,” Phoebe continued.
She turned to Rowen. “You went to the Caribbean to have one of the most celebrated authors of our time edit Phoebe’s story?” she asked, incredulity coating her words.
Rowen shifted his stance. “And don’t forget, I played AI-77 with Auguste and his grandsons.”
She shook her head. Between the helicopter and the Delores revelation, she was lucky to remain upright.
“Can we read our story to you, Penny?” Phoebe interjected, adjusting her hot dog headband.
Penny surveyed the judges’ table. “Is this the plot twist?”
Elle Reynolds-Bergen nodded, then turned to the audience. “What do you say, folks? Would you like to hear Phoebe and Rowen’s story?”
The whole place came to life, clapping and cheering.
Rowen pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “That sounds like a yes.”
A stagehand hurried out and set a stool behind the podium. Phoebe climbed up and rested her little elbows on the lectern as Rowen went to the child’s side and removed a folded piece of paper from his pocket.
Paper!
A freaking piece of actual paper!
Maybe Rowen was the one who’d suffered a knock to the skull!
The boisterous applause died down, and Rowen and Phoebe took their places.
“Once upon a time, there was a robot and a hot dog fairy,” Rowen began. “They lived in a crystal castle on a hill. The hot dog fairy loved to swing and eat chocolate chip cookies.”
