Page 51 of The Nanny and the Beefcake
“I don’t eat cookies and hot dogs when I’m training,” Raz replied, sounding like a man who wasn’t sure if he was asleep or awake when Rowen found his voice.
“Is there a safe place for children to play in this house without any access to social media or televisions?”
Mitch shifted his stance as he took in the sixteen vibrators. “A place without—”
“Mechanical hot dog torpedoes,” Oscar supplied.
“Yeah, those,” Mitch agreed, his eyes still about to pop out of his skull.
“There’s a room with vintage arcade games and pinball machines down the hall,” Raz answered, gesturing to the right.
Libby took a second to survey the gilded foyer that could rival any high-end hotel. The entry boasted not one but two chandeliers and an enormous staircase. It was like she’d walked into an updated version of Downton Abbey.
“Are you sure you don’t have any hot dog torpedoes in the game room? We could have mini sword fights with them, too,” Oscar exclaimed.
“No, lad, there aren’t any mechanical hot dog torpedoes in the house,” Raz answered, and the words sounded even more ridiculous in a rolling British accent.
“Why don’t you two find the pinball machines. We’ll come to get you when we’re ready to leave,” Charlotte said, patting the kids on their backs.
“Are you sure you don’t have any cookies in this place, Raz, like under your bed, or behind the aquarium, or in the garage in a box markednot cookies?” Phoebe asked, eyeing the man.
“Phoebe? Do you have cookies hidden in those places at our house?” Penny asked.
The little girl grabbed Oscar’s hand. “Let’s play pinball,” she cried, grinning from ear to ear as the pair sprinted from the foyer and disappeared down one of the sprawling hallways.
“I was wondering what was in that box,” Rowen murmured, shaking his head.
With the children out of earshot, Libby looked from Penny to Charlotte. “What are you doing here?”
Charlotte crossed her arms. One didn’t need to be a psychic to see that her girls were about to break into mother hen mode.
“Oscar already answered that,” Char replied.
Libby frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Beefcake,” Penny tossed out, then raised an eyebrow.
Libby braced herself. Here it comes.
“Why didn’t you tell us that Raz was the beefcake you’ve been going on and on about?” Charlotte pressed.
“You’ve been going on and on about me?” Raz asked, curiosity lacing the question.
The mortification meter kept on ticking.
Libby cringed. Out of every word that had gotten jumbled in the recording of her confronting Raz, it was just her luck thatbeefcakewould ring out with acoustic precision.
She ignored Raz’s question. “So, you’ve seen the entire viral video?” she asked, surveying the couples.
Rowen laughed. “Oh, Libby, of course, we have. The sports shows and websites picked up on it first. But now it’s made it to the nerds and the hackers. There are already tens of millions of views.” Rowen slipped his phone from his pocket. “Wow, almost one hundred million now. Pretty soon, nearly the entire planet will have watched it. And I almost forgot. Even people off-planet know about it.”
“Off-planet?” Raz repeated with a crinkle to his brow.
Libby swallowed back a wave of nausea. It was one thing to have a decent percentage of the population of the planet revel in her embarrassing moment. Who in the world off-planet could have seen the video?
Rowen held out his phone. “They showed it to the astronauts on the International Space Station.”
“They’re floating and laughing,” Libby lamented.
