Page 62 of The Nanny and the Nerd
This day hadn’t ended like she’d thought it would. But as strange and unexpected as it turned out, she’d succeeded. Rowen wouldn’t be gone another night. Phoebe would get to see her uncle. That’s what she’d wanted to happen.
But it wasn’t only that Rowen would be back. She’d written, and this video game opportunity could be something good—something really good for her. Writing for Rowen had pulled her from the slushy no-man’s-land of chronic writer’s block. A writer’s block she needed to be rid of—especially since she’d signed up for the contest.
Oh crap! She had done that, hadn’t she!
As she left the building and stepped out into the sunlight, an epiphany hit. Her focus had to be writing—and keeping the idea floodgates open. It was the one way to prove to not only her mother but to herself that she wasn’t a failure—that this quest to become a writer wasn’t some silly pipe dream. And that meant no more kissing her boss. She had to keep her relationship with Rowen professional. No more pining over the hot nerd—especially if he wanted her input on the video game’s narrative.
She pulled her notebook and a pen from her tote. “Do not think about kissing Rowen Gale,” she murmured as she wrote the words onto the page, hoping that would force the idea to sink in. Starting now, there was to be no more replaying that kiss in her head. But as if on cue, her treacherous lips tingled—a physical reminder that getting her head and her heart on the same page might not be as easy as jotting it down in a notebook.
But she didn’t have a choice. Libby would say that the universe gives us opportunities. We simply have to take them.
“Penny Fennimore, this is your opportunity,” she whispered, writing the sentence below the no kissing disclaimer.
If she wanted to write as a career, this was a seriousG-Y-L-Tmoment.
Get! Your! Life! Together!
And she’d only have herself to blame if she screwed it up.
Thirteen
Rowen
The last raysof sunlight peeked through the clouds as Rowen turned into the Crystal Hills neighborhood. His pulse raced. He wanted to gun the engine on the Rover and tear through the pristine streets. He’d never wanted to get back to his modern mansion on the hill so badly. But today, a day that had started with the loss of another developer and a flurry of maddening complications, had ended with a new direction—and renewed vigor.
After Penelope left, it was as if she’d sprinkled fairy dust in her wake. The entire atmosphere of Gale Gaming turned on a dime and became electrified. Boomer and Goose had shared Penelope’s ideas with the team, and the once weary band of coders and developers, near delirious from a week spent staring at a computer screen and pounding energy drinks, harnessed their second wind. As the hours passed after her departure, he observed as his now vibrant employees sauntered up to the storyboard and drank in her ideas and dialogue as if they were paying homage.
Just Randy compiled a database of Penelope’s suggestions, synthesizing the new with the old, typed up her edits, and created a fresh, new narrative template. But when Jerome went to the board and started to remove Penelope’s handwritten notes, in a flash of panic, he’d bolted down from his office and stopped his assistant. Reflexive and primal, he couldn’t figure out why he’d prevented the man from disposing of the colorful clutter or why, staring out from his office, he could still smell the faint scent of orange blossoms.
She hadn’t stepped foot in his space, yet she was there—her energy and her enthusiasm, infecting everyone who entered her orbit. It was like anyone who’d come in contact with Penelope held her spirit or vitality or some type of magic that left them with a heady buzz. And that magic didn’t go to waste. In the handful of hours since she’d gone to pick up Phoebe, they’d gotten more work done than they had all damn week. But it wasn’t only the coding and modeling. He and his team had crafted the framework for the video game. With her total lack of gaming knowledge, Penelope had given AI-77 that intangible piece that changes a game from a simple diversion to a memorable experience.
A soul—that’s what she’d given the game. But it wasn’t just that. She’d taken the tin character of AI-77, with his battle armor and laser eyes, and had given him a heart. The game’s hero might be part robot and part human, but in the end, his heart became the vehicle that propelled the game forward.
But it was too soon to celebrate.
There was more work to be done—a lot more work. And this work required Penelope’s input. The thought of collaborating with her sent the strangest zing through his body. He couldn’t discern if it was because she’d taken the limping game and revived it or if it were simply the fact that he had a real, substantive reason to interact with her.
He had to shut out Penelope, the nanny. But Penelope, the narrative consultant, was someone he’d have to work with—for the sake of the game, right?
Jesus! Who the hell was he kidding? When he’d caught sight of her in the Gale Gaming building, he’d had to restrain himself from breaking into a sprint to get to her.
Like the rest of his employees, he’d put in long hours and had barely slept this week. Most of his people would leave around one or two in the morning and head home to catch a few hours of shut-eye, then return before the sun came up. And in those wee hours when silence descended upon the office, hours when he should have let his mind rest, he simply couldn’t. But it wasn’t the audio or the coding problems that kept him up. It was Penelope and that kiss.
A kiss that wrecked him—that tore him down to the studs. A kiss that could knock even someone as disciplined as Rowen Gale off course.
He lived an ordered life—he had to. His sensory processing condition demanded it. Even in the chaos of the AI-77 release, each technical issue had a solution. Every error had a corresponding process to untangle the problem. Granted, the time it took to get the answer was the variable. But he’d get there. His team would get there. Yes, they’d lost a few guys to Bones Gaming. The blow of the news had hit hard—until he recalibrated. Employee turnover was another variable he had to take into account. He had processes in place to function.
But for the life of him, he couldn’t decipher a Penelope process.
He couldn’t fit Penelope into one of his sensory boxes. The usual exercises he’d relied on to dim the emotional overload didn’t work with her. That’s why he’d gotten his ass out of that house as quick as he could. He couldn’t handle what she’d made him feel. It was easier to turn it off—to employ an out of sight, out of mind strategy. But even that had failed.
He turned into his private drive, paused in front of the closed gate, then did something he’d never done. Before entering the code, he stared into the camera lens. This was where he’d seen Phoebe and Penelope—this moment in time, this tiny slice of their routine that he’d caught every day this week. It only lasted seconds. Phoebe would be talking or singing. He honestly had no idea how much six-year-old little girls had to say. He’d figure she’d lose her voice at some point, but that hadn’t happened yet. And then there was Penelope. She’d enter the code, then smile as if she knew he was watching—like she wanted him to know that everything was okay, that Phoebe was okay. Of course, that couldn’t be true. She probably didn’t even realize the gate had a surveillance camera. The lens was purposely obscured. But catching a glimpse of that brief moment had brought him an odd comfort during a hellacious week.
The creak of the iron gate opening pulled him from his thoughts. He shook his head, working to clear the peculiar haze of sappiness from his brain, then continued on toward the house. This would not do! He couldn’t fall prey to lapses of googly-eyed fascination when it came to the nanny. He needed a plan. He needed a way to keep himself focused on AI-77. He could limit their time together. All interactions that didn’t have to do with the care of his niece would be limited strictly to work-related endeavors regarding AI-77.
That’s it: Phoebe and the video game.
Other than those two areas, he’d wall himself off. He had to. He couldn’t pretend he could be something he wasn’t. She was Phoebe’s nanny—an employee. And more than that, he wasn’t boyfriend or partner material—that wasn’t his path. He wasn’t wired that way. Or maybe he started out okay, but between being born and ending up with the Gales, he’d lost that part that makes a person whole.
