Nanny To My Highschool Nemesis

chapter 4

Brooklyn POV

"Wakey wakey, eggs and bakery!"

I tipped the bucket.

The water hit Emerson like a cold wave — sheets, pillow, hair, everything. He shot upright with a gasp that turned immediately into something much less polite.

"What the — Brooklyn, what the actual — "

"Language." I set the empty bucket down on his floor. "You really don't want your first punishment before eight in the morning, do you?"

He stared at me, soaking wet, chest heaving, hair plastered flat against his forehead. Then he reached for the hem of his soaked shirt and pulled it over his head in one move.

I looked away. Fast.

My heart did something completely unnecessary and I told it to stop immediately.

I held his towel out toward him without looking directly at him. He took it. I heard him stand up from the bed, and then his hand wrapped around my wrist.

"You know," he said, voice low and unbothered, "if you wanted to get me wet, there are better ways to go about it."

I pulled my hand back. "Dry off. You have homework to finish before school."

"I'm going to the beach."

"You are not."

He threw the towel back at me. I caught it.

"Emerson." I stepped in front of the door before he could reach it. He walked right up to me and stopped, close enough that we were practically eye to eye. I refused to step back even though every nerve in my body was telling me to.

"Move," he said.

"Homework first. Beach after. That's the deal."

We stared at each other for a long, uncomfortable moment. His jaw was tight. Mine was tighter.

Then he exhaled through his nose and turned back toward his desk.

I counted that as a win.

---

Twenty minutes later we were in the living room. Daisy sat beside me at the coffee table, her workbook open, pencil moving carefully across the page. I checked her answers while Emerson slouched in the armchair across from us, scribbling through his own assignment like it had personally offended him.

"Daisy." I tapped one of her answers. "This one and this one — check them again. The rest are perfect."

She looked at the two questions, erased quietly, and tried again. I smiled at her.

"Finished." Emerson dropped his notebook onto the table in front of me. It landed with a slap.

I picked it up and started reading through it. Then I picked up my red pen.

"What are you doing?" he said.

I kept marking. Corrections in the margin, circled errors, notes beside the questions he'd clearly rushed.

"I am marking it." I turned the page. "Same as any teacher would."

He leaned forward. "You're marking it up more than any teacher would."

"Because your dad expects your grades to go up while I'm here." I finished the last page and held it out to him. "No half-done work. Not in this house."

He snatched the notebook out of my hand, looked at the corrections, and then threw it across the room.

"Emerson — "

"I don't take notes from a — " he used a word I was not going to repeat — "who sleeps her way into jobs."

The room went quiet.

I stood up slowly. Walked over to where the notebook had landed. Picked it up. Walked back to him and held it out.

He didn't take it.

"Pick a word like that again," I said calmly, "and your father will hear about it before dinner."

"Ooh." He leaned back in his chair, arms folded, smirking up at me. "Does the little nanny need to punish me?"

"Emerson."

"What are you going to do, Brooklyn?" His eyes were bright with amusement. "Ground me? Spank me?" He tilted his head. "I'd really like to see you try."

I looked at him for a moment. Then I smiled.

"I already have something in mind."