#rozowrites

It had been as rude then as it was in your memory of it. But at the time, 16-year-old you had just felt a bit hollow about it. You had known then, with some instinct that your mother had given you (thank Christ), that he was incorrect. You were a good student, passing classes. You just didn’t do much else, no extracurriculars, no sports. The closest you got was attending the monthly book club at the local library, but that didn’t go on your school record.

Perhaps this was what the counselor, with his blocky glasses and starched collar, was seeing: the kind of man that thought students just walked off the cosmic production line and you were a dud model.

Admittedly, you could see the connection.

But he was still both rude and wrong. You had skills. Homework while cleaning the house. Prepping breakfast for four younger siblings. Getting the ferals out the door on time while your mum staggered in from night shift and promised for the umpteenth time that this would get easier soon.

You resented it a little, but that was just life. You were used to being underestimated and relied upon.

You still are.

So you sat in that cold, damp room at the back of the administration building of Adderly Secondary School and frowned at the counselor. Because you weren’t about to correct an adult who had already made up his mind about you.

You have carried this approach with you your entire life.

Yours is a silent and unapologetic judgment. Dished out with what you hope is a discerning eye. Ignored by most - a slow-acting consequence. Felt only when someone inevitably needs something from you. It is Austen-esque in it’s poetry - a good opinion once lost and all that.

It’s served you well - most of the time. Maybe not so much today, considering who you’re meeting. You check your watch. Mr Price is already on notice for being late. The Old Market is a far cry from the cold, damp room at Adderly Primary, but the same feeling hums under your ribs.

You temper your judgment, but only because of the money. It wouldn't do to fully write off the man offering you above your upper salary limit. Not when the timing is perfect for a new live-in job.

You check your phone for an apology text instead, but the screen is black save for the smiling faces of your younger siblings.

You hum.

Judgment is your chief flaw - you know this. But like the conservation of energy, you do not have an infinite well from which to service uncertainty either. That ruined you once before too.

You sit back in the wide-backed cafe chair at the centre of the Old Market. The day has been blessed by a rare clear sky. The sun shines, catching on the uneven windows of the old buildings. Wisps of cloud brush the edges of the horizon. The scent of coffee and warm bread wafts over from the Coffee Corner. Not your first choice of café but serviceable enough.

You try to guess what he’ll look like. He sounded like a smoker (an odd choice you think for someone that’s probably meant to be athletic). He has a kid - which means practically nothing. The best clue you have was from the late night Google on military ranks and that probably put him in his 30s.

You keep half an eye on every military-adjacent looking man who walks past. Any of them could be him - or none of them. You’re not sure what you expected a “Captain Price” to look like. When a shadow falls across your table, you’re still not entirely sure if it’s him until he says your name.

You look up.

He’s tall, still in what looks like his work clothes - muddy green fatigues and a dark sweatshirt, both a little dusty. He wears an expression that’s somewhere between exhausted and pained.

The facial hair situation is…a choice. It’s also somehow working for him, which feels unfair.

It helps that he’s hot. Like absurdly hot. Like broad shoulders, thick thighs, machined in a lab for physical power kind of hot.

He says your name again - a question.

You stand up quickly, your chair scraping against the cobblestone.

“Yes. Yes, sorry,” you say, holding out a hand. “And you must be Mr Price.”

Mr Price takes it, his palm warm and calloused. Grip firm.

“John’s fine,” he grunts, and nods over to the coffee counter. “You ordered?”

You shake your head.

“Five more minutes and I was about to leave.”

“Sorry ‘bout that,” he says, sounding not really sorry at all and not offering any reason. “What do you want?”

You rattle off your regular order. You let him pay, since hes offering and since he’s 15 minutes late.

When he returns he sits down and peers at you. Assessing. You let him. Even sitting, he’s…a lot. He settles like someone who’s always had to make himself fit into small spaces - big shoulders slightly hunched against the chair. His eyes are fixed on you, electric blue.

“So how does this work?” he asks finally, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms. “You said not to bring Ada, this is more of a scoping thing?”

“Yes.” You say, reaching into your satchel. “You suss me out, I suss you out. I find better to do that first before I meet the child.”

He hums, not amused, curious.

“You gotta suss me out?”

You can’t help the small, incredulous laugh that escapes your throat.

“Would you agree to be responsible for a stranger’s child without sussing them out?”

He inclines his head.

“Fair point.”

You nod and place your binder onto the table, flipping it open. “You read the base contract I forwarded?”

He nods, his eyes cataloging the contents of your binder. “Lotta pages.”

“Lotta things to think about.” You click your pen. “Anything that concerns you?”

John leans forward. He whips out a folded up copy of the contract from his back pocket. It’s rumpled and torn but you can see hes made extensive scraggly little notes like hes prepping for a bloody tribunal.

“One or two points,” he says mildly, flipping to the second page. “Lets start on the schedule.”

You learn quickly that John Price is a liar - one or two points turns into an amendment every second sentence:

“I’d like to add housekeeping to the duties section, cleaning and the like, assuming the fee’s acceptable.”

“Can I stipulate how often she gets junk food?”

“What happens if you’re hospitalised?”

At some point the coffees come. John ordered a long black, steaming and dark. He dumps about 6 tablespoons of sugar into it. His large fingers grip the tiny teaspoon with odd precision as he stirs.

You’re not really sure what to think.

For a man that wasn’t on time, John Price is remarkably fastidious. You both get stuck on schedule. You’ve always insisted on 20 days off a year - a week around Christmas. He counters with his frequently changing deployment timelines.

“I can’t guarantee I’ll even be in the country.” He says with a shrug. “I guess she could stay with my parents but I’d prefer the stability.

Rich, you think, given the father, but you settle for double time in the case of Christmas emergency. Privately you think it’s a little cruel to leave your daughter with a stranger on Christmas, but you suppose you won’t be a stranger by then. Besides, John might be the oddest client you’ve had but so far he’s far from the worst or most neglectful. From what you can tell, he seems to have accidentally got someone pregnant and now is trying to manage to consequences while leading what appears to be a life entirely revolving around his work.

You’ve almost finished your cafe latte by the time you get to the last page.

“Termination all looks good,” he says, “But we need to add in a sudden death clause.”

You blink at him.

“What?”

“For if I die.”

“Right,” you say, making a note, “We’ll, I’m fairly sure that’ll be easy to add in. You have a will right?”

“Obviously.”

You’ve never had a death clause before, but it does make sense given his line of work. You’ve never really thought about it, but that must be the reality of the job. You glance up at him. Across the table you can see the faint creases around his eyes - not just from age you think, not laugh lines exactly either, more the kind that might come from squinting into weather you’d never want to be caught in.

You wonder exactly what kind of weather John’s been caught in, where he’s been, what he does.

Your eyes catch on a thin line of scar tissue running along the outside of his right forearm.

No, you decide. You probably don’t want to know what he does.

You don’t even know how he even found you in the first place. “Out of interest,” you ask, before he slips another amendment under your nose, “where did you hear of me?”

John takes a sip of his coffee.

“Google,” he says, clearing his throat as the coffee goes down. “You were the most local.”

You nod slowly. You feel like theres probably more to it, but you decline to press.

“Huh, usually it’s word of mouth,” you say, almost to yourself, “people usually feel more comfortable about that. Feel free to run a background check, I’d recommend it even.”

He fixes you with a distinct look - one that screams: ”I already did”.

You swallow down thickly, suddenly acutely aware of his attention. Suddenly aware of you heart pounding in your chest.

“Right.”

You settle into a small silence. It’s not awkward exactly, but you’re not sure what to say. Conversation for you can be hard to come by sometimes. It might be why you like looking after kids so much - they don’t judge, not really, not seriously, not like you do. And if they do, just come out with whatever wacky thing crosses their mind. They don’t watch you like John is doing now, gaze enigmatic and unknowable.

You shift in your chair.

You wonder if this is how other feel about you when you look at them. But you doubt your effect is anywhere near as unsettling as John’s blue eyes. The kind of blue that you’d call artificial if you saw it on TV.

You look down at what’s left of your latte.

“Oh, and - she can’t have peanuts.”

You glance up. “What?”

“Pretty sure she’s allergic,” he says, like it’s nothing. Like that isn’t exactly the sort of thing that should be more than pretty sure.

You raise an eyebrow, and flip to the special conditions section of the contract. You scribble down ‘peanut allergy’.

“Pretty sure?” You say, “Rash sure or anaphylaxis sure.”

He hesitates.

“She has an Epipen,” he says, hesitates, “I think.”

You watch him. He seems for the first time nervous, agitated, as if the cracks are showing. He wears it badly, and even though you’ve known him for all of half an hour, it seems wrong.

Still.

“You think?”

“I’m sure.” He says, his tone a little shorter now.

You can tell he's not used to people questioning him, which amuses you given he seems to know next to nothing about his own kid.

He taps a finger on the table. “You have a Masters in primary education?”

You pause, unsure why he’s bringing this up. It not particularly unusual in your line of work.

“Yes.”

He tilts his head, voice deceptively mild. “Why are you a nanny then?”

You stare at him.

The question is rude in both its bluntness and its character. You resist the urge to scowl at him and instead frown. 

"The government pays their educators less than they do military captains." You say, your voice cold. "Plenty of ways I could comment on that but I wouldn't want to disrespect your career choices Mr Price."

You hope that your point is clear.

He stares back at you for a long time- contemplating. His electric blue eyes bore a hole through your retinas and into the long term memory centres of your brain. God, why are the hot one always arseholes?

Finally he opens his mouth. 

"I apologize." He says, holding your gaze, and this time you think he actually means it. He leaves it at that.

"Just as long as we're on the same page," you say slowly. "You are potentially paying me a lot of money to effectively raise your child. I expect that my expertise will be respected."

Then he smiles, a small, dry thing that does stupid things to your stomach.

"We’ll lets see about you meeting Ada then."

You nod.

He really needs to get it together. Being affected by Kelli so much is one thing, but messing up Black and Emma’s wedding because hes being affected by Kelli is a whole other thing. It’s just so fucking hard when Kelli has apparently found herself another Mullen. Christ, the prick reminds John so much of that fucker, it’s uncanny. Where does she find these assholes?

He signals to the bartender.

“Beer thanks.”

He can tell Johnny wants to ask him more and decides to preempt the questioning. “We just worked together okay. We had a falling out.”

Johnny nods slowly. “Right.”

John glances to his other side as Black wheels up next to him. “You planning on acting like a prick all night? Or am I gonna have to cut you off early.”

John looks away.

“Didn’t start it.”

“Yeah, well. You didn’t stop anything either.”

John turns to look down at Black.

“You heard that prick.” He says. “I was trying to defend her.”

“Oh is that what you think you did?” Black says with raised brows,” because it really just seems like you pushed things just to get your word in.”

John opens his mouth to retort.

Black holds up a hand.

“No. I knew this would happen. You had eight years to deal with whatevers going on up in that munted head of yours and you didn’t. So you can keep it together just for tonight. Kelli’s a big girl, she can fuck whatever asshole she wants. What I want is for this wedding to end happy.”

There’s no anger on Black’s face, just that same calm exasperation he’s always had when John’s about to say something very stupid in a high-stakes situation. John feels that sudden urge to tell Black that it’s because he wants Kelli to fuck him, he is an asshole after all - it would be very on brand. But the realisation that that is something that he still wants, sits heavy in his stomach. So instead he says, “Wasn’t planning to say anything at all.”

Black looks at him for a long moment.

“You never do.” He says finally, “That’s the problem. Honestly for someone so competent at your job, you really are remarkably incompetent at being like, a human being.”

John flexes his jaw.

“You know that's why I’m so good at the job.”

"I know."

John stiffens when his phone starts buzzing.

Black looks down at his pocket. He sighs quietly and raises an eyebrow.

“You gonna get that?

The way he says it makes it sound like a test. Unfair, John thinks, because there is no way to pass - he has to answer, he can’t not answer. “You know I am.”

Black sighs. “Like I said before: tell Halford to fuck off. You’re on leave.”

John looks sideways at him.

“You planning on finding a girl any time soon?”

Johnny grins. He nods over at one of Emma’s bridesmaids, trying, and failing, to be subtle. “Reckon Eve’s been giving me looks all night,” he says, “Once the music starts, it’ll be a done deal. No one can resist these moves.” John goes to look. “No, don’t fuckin’-”

At that, John rotates his entire body to look over at her. Eve is the last of Emma’s three bridesmaids, a slight thing with black hair, ambiguous south Asian features and a thick Liverpudlian accent.

“Isn’t she the lesbian?”

“No, Alice is the lesbian,” Johnny says, “Eve’s bi.” He frowns, the bravado suddenly cracking. “I think? Maybe. Hm.”

Eve looks up and smiles at them both. Gives a small wave. John nods. She seems friendly. Cute, a little crazy based on what John observed during the wedding photos - Johnny’s type.

He points at Johnny, raises an eyebrow, then gives a double thumbs up.

He can feel Johnny slink back into his seat. “Jesus Christ.”