“Elodie, my teacher needs your help.”

“What’s up?”

“The person who was supposed to do the face painting bailed. Mrs. Stein bought all these supplies, but she has no one to do the actual painting. I told her my nanny is an artist.”

“Oh...I don’t know. I’ve never painted someone’s face before.”

“Can you try? Please? There’s no one else to do it, and we all want our faces painted like unicorns.”

What the hell? How hard could it be?

I stood up from the grass and brushed the dirt off my pants.

“Who’s gonna babysit Uncle Hollis if I have to do the face painting? We wouldn’t want him to have to make small talk with PTO moms.”

“Just go set up,” she said. “Uncle Hollis is coming with me anyway.”

Hollis stood up. “Oh? What am I doing?”

She pointed to the corner of the field. “Me, you, over there. Potato sack race.”Chapter 11* * *HollisWhat the hell did I get myself into?

We were in pairs—parents and their respective children.

“You have to go fast, okay? I want to win the grand prize,” Hailey said.

“What’s the prize?”

“A gift card from Target.”

I would have happily bought her one myself if it meant getting out of this potato sack.

The announcer yelled, “On your mark…get set…go!”

At the sound of the whistle, with my legs stuck in a gray, canvas sack, I began hopping across the open field. I couldn’t help but laugh at how ridiculous this was. Worse, Hailey was chiding me the whole time because I’d fallen behind the rest of the pack.

“Come on, Uncle Hollsy! You can do better than that!”

I hadn’t been taking it seriously enough. She was right. I could have done better. A lot better. With that realization, I suddenly picked up my speed, hopping as fast as I could with everything I had in me. I managed to pass a few of the pairs and also get quite a bit ahead of Hailey.

I’d finally hit my stride in potato-sack racing when I passed Elodie’s face-painting stand. She was still setting up. A man was standing there talking to her. I wondered if it was the same guy from earlier—the jerk’s father who was trying to get in her pants.

As I hopped along, my eyes became glued to Elodie and that guy. I even turned my head to keep looking after I passed them. That’s when I knocked right into the back of one of the parents.

Oof! We both fell over.

“Shit! I’m sorry. Are you okay?” I asked.

The man was not happy. He didn’t say anything as he picked himself back up and continued the race.

I’d fallen so far behind now that Hailey had pretty much given up on us.

She caught up to me. “Are you okay? How did you fall? Did you trip?”

Yeah. I tripped over my damn dick.

“Yeah. I got distracted.”

“A for effort,” she said, out of breath.

“You sound like Elodie now, grading me.”

She looked over toward the face-painting station. “Looks like Elodie’s all set up. I’m gonna go get in line. Are you gonna be okay without me?”

“Yeah. I’ll manage just fine.”

I went in search of some water and came upon the guy who’d been talking to Elodie when I fell on my ass.

I took a gander at his nametag. “Are you Lawrence’s father, by any chance?”

“Yes. And you are?”

“Hollis LaCroix. Hailey’s uncle. Tell your son to stop disrespecting my niece.”

He sighed. “Look, I just apologized to your nanny. But my son denies doing anything wrong.”

“Well, Hailey’s not a liar. So if she says someone is bullying her, she’s telling the damn truth. Just keep your son in check. And while you’re at it, keep your hands off my nanny.” I walked away before he could respond.

I didn’t need to add that last part. Not really sure why the idea of him trying to pick up Elodie made me crazy. Did I have a thing for her? I knew she was attractive, but I couldn’t understand why this guy talking to her had irked me that badly.

Anyway, it didn’t matter how I felt about Elodie. Now that she’d become the best thing to happen to Hailey in a long time, she was most definitely off limits. I could never fuck her, because then I’d have to not see her again, and that wouldn’t work in this equation.

Hailey came running toward me. “Look! Elodie made me into a unicorn.”

She beamed, proudly displaying her new pink and purple face. A horn was painted in the middle of her forehead. There were sparkles around her eyes.

“Wow. You look...great.”

She grabbed me by the hand and pulled me toward Elodie’s station. “Come on. It’s your turn.”

“Oh no. I don’t want my face painted.”

“Yes, you do. And look, there’s no one else in line right now.”

Elodie smiled wide. “Well, hello, sir. What can I do for you?”

So many potential answers came to mind.