Protecting His Beautiful Lover - Leslie North Page 0,4
he exchanged a look with Noah. Clint bit back a derisive snarl before it escaped. Barely.
“Time off.” Noah stood and assumed a relaxed yet ready stance, like he was ready to confront an angry mob, which probably wasn’t far from the truth, considering Clint’s likely reaction to those two words. “I know you don’t want to hear it, bud, but you need to get yourself some work-life balance.”
Clint started to say that what he really needed was for people to stay the fuck out of his business, but instead he just grunted and pretended to read the report in front of him, hoping the guys would let it go. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that would happen. Trying to deflect the topic of conversation away from himself, he said, “Sounds like you two have been listening to too many of Levon’s wife’s self-help videos for her students.”
Olive taught eleventh graders at one of the local high schools and had just recently won some award from her students for her caring attitude. Clint found the whole thing hard to imagine. Back when he’d been in school, you were grateful not to get an eraser upside the head from an angry nun.
“Hey, don’t knock it,” Levon said, shaking his head. “I never went in for all that new-age crap either, but it really works.”
Things had changed a lot for his buddies in the past few years. Both guys had steady relationships now and they both had kids. Clint had his daughter, sure, but the circumstances were way different. He had no ongoing relationship with his baby’s mother at all. He’d had to figure out parenting all on his own—and he still wasn’t sure he was getting it right. It was another area of his life where he never felt like enough.
Sometimes, he wondered if he’d ever be enough, for anyone or anything.
Noah loped over and propped his hip on the edge of Clint’s desk, jarring him out of his shame spiral. “He’s right, dude. You look like shit.”
“Great. Thanks so much.” Clint gave his friend an annoyed stare and tossed the damned report down again, giving up any semblance of working as his inner turmoil boiled over. “You guys think you know it all, now that you’re settled down. But you don’t know shit. Not about me.”
“Ohhhhh!” Ashley called from the hall. “You said a bad word, Daddy!”
He winced. Yep. He had. He swallowed the long line of expletives battling to get out and instead clenched his jaw, a muscle ticking in his cheek. “Daddy’s sorry.”
Levon snorted and Clint shot visual daggers at him. The guy straightened in his seat and cleared his throat and now Clint felt like even more of a loser asshole than he already had. Perfect.
Dammit. Getting upset wasn’t helping this situation. His emotions were what had gotten him into trouble here in the first place. He took a deep breath to tamp down his frustrations and lowered his head. He knew he’d screwed up, but he’d just have to convince the guys that taking a step back wasn’t what he needed. He could handle this—the assignment, and Ashley, and everything else that life threw at him. He just needed to buckle down and work harder until things got back under control. It was his method for overcoming every obstacle, and it hadn’t failed him yet.
Hoping to ease some of the tension curdling the air now because of his behavior, he tried to joke. “What I need is to win the nanny lottery.”
The guys exchanged a look, then Noah said, “Actually, dude, I think this all started even before that nanny left.”
Oh God. The nanny. The last thing he wanted to think about was interviewing people again.
“He’s right.” Levon stood and walked over, arms crossed and tone lowered so Ashley wouldn’t overhear him. “I know you don’t want to hear it, but you got too much stress, man. That shit will give you a heart attack and put you in an early grave. We’re just concerned. That’s all.”
“This job ain’t easy,” Noah said. “Believe me, I know. We’re not trying to pry, but we can see you’re struggling, and we want to help.”
To help calm his inner turmoil and distract himself, he took out his gun from the drawer and began disassembling it for cleaning. For some weird reason, he liked cleaning guns. It relaxed him. Almost as much as his daily yoga practice. But since he couldn’t really go full downward dog in here,