Page 84 of The Nanny and the Nerd
She nodded. “And my room is the perfect place to do it.”
“Why is your room the perfect place?” he asked as it came together.
She glanced at the area of the room he’d been trying to block out from the moment they set foot in the bedroom suite. “Because I go to the Land of Mist every morning and sometimes even at night.”
He swallowed hard. Sweet Christ, he was screwed!
Seventeen
Rowen
This was a test.The universe wanted to see how much he could take.
“I have an idea,” Penelope said, turning to her laptop. She twisted her hair into a golden, messy bun, then started typing, like a hacker in a spy movie. He’d barely had a second to blink before an electrical hum cut through the clickity-clack, and he stared at the printer as it came to life.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“That’s a printer! It’s printing,” she replied without an ounce of sarcasm.
He may only have two functioning brain cells left by this point, but he knew what a damn printer was!
“What are you printing?” he pressed as she moved in a flutter of activity.
“The scene,” she replied, retrieving the sheets of paper from the tray, then crossed the room, striding barefoot toward the bathroom. “You were right about the steam shower. And it’s just what we need!”
He’d thought about that shower quite a few times this past week. And by quite a few times, he meant north of three million four hundred and fifty-six thousand times—and that was a conservative estimate.
She waved him over. “It’ll feel like the Land of Mist. I can play Princess Amelia, and you can be AI-77,” she said, activating the shower’s steam function. It was a state-of-the-art unit, and within seconds, billowy clouds of puffy hot air built up within the glass enclosure.
Was this really happening?
He surveyed the bedroom suite’s ample seating area. “I could read AI-77’s part from here.”
“You could, but then we wouldn’t know if the scene flowed. Come on! I make Charlotte do this with me from time to time,” she coaxed.
“You’ve brought your friend into the steam shower with you?” he shot back, and oh, sweet Jesus! There’s a picture he’d never get out of his head! Could balls actually explode? He was pretty sure he was about to find out.
“No, silly, I ask her to read the dialogue with me. We usually do it at a coffee shop or one of our places.”
“Right, you wouldn’t shower with your friends,” he replied, praying his balls would get the memo.
“No!” she laughed.
He’d nearly breathed a sigh of relief when Penelope’s expression grew pensive.
“Except for when Charlotte, Harper, Libby, and I were camp counselors back when we were eighteen after we graduated from high school. There was a crazy time crunch in the morning, and we often showered together that summer. Boy, I remember it being crazy hot,” she added, and sweet exploding testicles he might be done for.
His lips parted, but nothing came out. It had finally happened. The last bit of oxygenated blood had hightailed it out of his damn brain, leaving the gray matter able to contemplate on only one thing: a naked Penelope surrounded by toned, wet women soaping up, washing every nook and—STOP! He jumped to his feet and bolted into the bathroom. He had to get this over with! If she divulged more sexy nerd fantasy scenarios, his pounding heart might beat itself out of his chest.
“How does this read-aloud thing work?” he asked. He had to focus on the task at hand.
“We could sit on the bench inside the steam shower enclosure and go through the scene, line by line,” Penelope offered.
Sit on the bench. Read the words. He could do that, right? Maybe? He caught Penelope’s eye as the woman’s breezy demeanor disappeared into the steam. Was it him? At this point, he didn’t have a clue what his face was doing. He could be frowning or smiling or sticking out his tongue in ana-na-na-na-boo-booexpression. But whatever it was, it had Penelope on guard, and that couldn’t be good.
“Is this weird? This might be weird,” she said, her words tumbling out in a nervous jumble.
His heart sank. She’d done so much work on the AI-77 narrative. He didn’t want to seem as if he didn’t appreciate it. But he also wanted to make it through this reading with his balls intact.
