Nanny For The Orc Warrior: A Monster Romantic Comedy, page 1
NANNY FOR THE ORC WARRIOR
ZORA BLACK
NANNY FOR THE ORC WARRIOR
By Zora Black
Copyright © 2023 by Zora Black
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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1
HARGOZ
In the backseat of my delivery truck, a young child wails as though she is being tortured. Every word she screeches is punctuated by a sharp kick against the back of my chair. “My feet hurt!” Kick. “And my legs hurt!” Kick. “And my head hurts!” Kick, kick, kick.
Sometimes being a father is harder than being the CEO of a company. At least when I worked in the office, I could fire people. And after it was suggested I handle the farm in person because of my strength – exhibited by a boardroom table going out the window during a difficult negotiation – I’ve found it easier to break a horse than my two kids.
There has to be a parking spot here somewhere, but it seems as though my luck just won’t stop today. Everyone in town has decided to flock to Gabriella’s Cafe. “Your headache is because of your infernal whining,” I say.
A car backs up, and I gratefully do the same, only to slam to a stop. A gorgon glares at me – her arms are crossed and the snakes on her head writhe and hiss. She waves her friend’s car forward. I would challenge her for the parking spot, but as I am short a delivery driver thanks to another gorgon’s antics, I relent and steer towards the last space available along the side of the road.
“And you are an orcess, not a fragile flower. I will not hear—”
“Daaaa-aaad! Glasha hit me!”
“Nar spit on me!” Glasha’s voice has gone shrill – this is never a good sign. “I am an orcess, am I supposed to let—”
“Silence!” I bark.
There is no silence. I know what Glasha was talking about with the headache. It’s like there’s a drum set pounding behind my temples. Nevertheless, I am an orc, not a fragile flower. I grit my teeth, line up my truck, and ignore my miniature tyrants’ escapades as I peer through my rear view mirror. It takes a lot of ignoring – they are surprisingly acrobatic.
There is enough space, but it is between Sergeant Adams’ police car and Mr. Murphy’s beat up truck. I’m not sure which I’m more wary of hitting. Sergeant Adams will write me a ticket for sure, but Mr. Murphy will visit me on my farm just to complain about a small scratch on his bumper full of scratches. How the hell does he even see over the wheel, anyway?
“Daaaaaa-aaaa-aaaa-aaaad!”
I turn the wheel. Someone’s hair is being pulled. “Stop that, this instant!” I back up, slowly, until I reach the curb. Perfection. What do I even need Donny for? All he’s ever done is deliver groceries late, piss off gorgons, and get himself turned into stone. Now all I need to do, if I remember correctly according to my driver’s ed lessons, is to turn the wheel in the opposite direction, and—
My body jolts forward and my foot slips off the brake. Still in reverse, the truck careens backward, directly into Mr. Murphy’s front bumper. For about ten seconds, there’s a fraught silence. “You hit the car!” Glasha pauses her wrestling with her brother to stare at me with wide eyes. “You should leave a note.”
“He’s not going to notice that,” I scoff, trying to sound confident. “Bumpers are for bumping.”
It’s not that I can’t afford it. In fact, there’s little money can’t buy. I could get Mr. Murphy a whole new car if I wanted. But I can’t buy a moment of peace from that grumpy old man – as hard as I’ve tried before – and I can only hope that this isn’t something I’ll spend months paying for, figuratively and literally.
I make the mistake of looking out my window. The gorgon shakes her head at me as her friend pulls into the spot. Great. Two gorgons. She races inside – that wretch is on the hunt for Mr. Murphy. I proceed to pull the truck into the parking spot flawlessly, as I would have done to begin with if I hadn’t been sabotaged by my own spawn.
“Out!” I shout.
“Ice cream! Ice cream!” my small saboteurs shout, racing into the cafe.
How much trouble can they get into in the two minutes it takes to unload the vegetables? I walk to the back of the truck to pull down the ramp… and realize that there isn’t space. Mr. Murphy’s car stands before my ramp, mocking me and my efforts. Later. I’ll get to it later. But first I just rest my head against the back of my truck and breathe.
Farm work isn’t easy in the best of times, and while the children help, their help – such as picking all of the garlic out of the ground because it makes a fun sound when it plops out of the dirt – often means more work on my part. Add that to Donny’s misadventure, and it’s been one hell of a long day.
At least I don’t have to cook.
When I walk into the cafe, my children are scrabbling over who sits by the window in our usual booth. Everyone is staring, but only Mr. Murphy saunters over to help – after undoubtedly getting an earful from the gorgon who’s grinning at me from her table.
“I can’t hear myself think!” he shouts. The top of his nose barely reaches the table, so that, to my children, he looks like a pair of angry blue eyes with white bushy brows and a knit hat. “All this commotion, Hargoz, I swear! Are you raising them with the cows on your farm?”
“I think the cows might be quieter!” the gorgon whispers.
I glare at them both. “You will move your car,” I tell Mr. Murphy. “I have a delivery to make.”
“Oh, my car? The one you slammed into? You’ll be buying me a new one once I talk to my lawyer. He’s a vampire, you know. Very devious. Good with words and such.”
Nar, intrigued, straightens his back. “Does he eat people?”
“You can’t just ask if vampires eat people,” Glasha scolds. “Chris is a vampire, and he doesn’t eat people.”
“How would you know?”
“I asked him.”
“Enough!” I snap. “Sit down nicely and look at the menu, or we’re leaving!”
That tone toward my board of directors silences any argument. Toward my children, not so much.
“And what are we gonna eat?” Nar snaps back.
“People!” Glasha shrieks.
I look at the floor. Will it end my misery and swallow me whole? I read about a sinkhole in the news the other day. Perhaps it was willed into existence by a beleaguered single father.
“Sounds like you’re all ready to order.” Gabriella, the owner, smiles encouragingly at me, and then at the children, as though we are normal patrons who aren’t the current local entertainment. “How about we move to this table over here? Then you can both sit by the window.”
The children bolt over to the table, nearly knocking over Mr. Murphy in the process. His mouth beneath his massive white mustache twitches with dismay. “In my day, children knew how to behave!”
“They did!” Gabriella agrees with him wholeheartedly. “They absolutely did, Mr. Murphy. You know, I’ve been thinking about that. You should really work on writing a series of lessons for children on their behavior. You’re certainly an expert on the subject.”
Mr. Murphy grumbles thoughtfully to himself, making his way back to his table where his wife waves pleasantly at me. The children are slightly less obnoxious than earlier, and I take the opportunity to place our usual orders and apologize to Gabriella with a sizable tip in advance.
“I’m sorry for the disturbance,” I say. “It’s been a week.”
“I heard about Donny.” Her nose wrinkles. “When do you think he’s gonna be back to normal?”
“Days. Weeks. Months. I have no idea.” I make a face. “I moved him into our horse barn, at least, so he’s out of the rain.”
“I’ll bet he’ll appreciate that.” He’ll appreciate it less when he finds out the chickens have taken to perching on him, but for the sake of his dignity and mine, I omit that.
“I’ve got your delivery ready. Once Mr. Murphy moves his car, I’ll have it out for you.”
“There’s no rush,” Gabriella assures me. “But… Hargoz. Why don’t you just hire someone else to do it? I know you’ve got the money.”
I huff. In such a small town, no one understands minding their own business. I try to keep to mine out on the farm, but that didn’t stop the entire town of Curiosity gossipping about me when my farm struck a contract that rocketed my career.
All these years later, with my canning factory and my business office in the city and the ever growing farm, they still talk. I guess that’s what happens when your net worth is in the millions.
“And have them turn to stone, too? Or get into a crash or drop an order?” There’s too much that can go wrong. It’s hard enough to trust Donny to do it, and look where that’s gotten me. No, the only person I can trust to work is myself. Money can buy a lot, but not my trust. “I can handle it fine.”
“Hmm.” Gabriella peers over at Nar and Glasha… who aren’t fighting, yelling, or pinching each other. “Well, would you look at this?”
I press the back of my hands against the heads. No fever. No sign of illness. They’re just… behaving. Sitting quietly. Smiling sweetly, hands on their knees. It’s unnerving. “I don’t know what’s wrong with them.”
Gabriella pats my shoulder. “Nothing’s wrong with them.”
My chest swells up, defensive. She’s not saying it outright, but I know what she and everyone else in this town is thinking. I’m a failure of a father. They behave better for a stranger than they ever will for me.
“The farm is work, but it’s defined. Till this field, milk that cow. The company is harder, but I can hire someone to file taxes and such. Kids?” It’s not that I’d rather farm than raise my children. Even now, my heart melts being near them.
“Loving them’s easy,” I mutter, gruff and low so that only Gabriella can hear. “But raising them is the hardest job I’ve ever had.”
2
LACEY
When my phone rings, I almost ignore it. It’s not that I don’t want to talk to Gabriella – before she ran off to Curiosity to take over her aunt’s cafe, we were nearly inseparable. Inseparable and both single, which is no longer the case.
At least on her end – last week I found out that my boyfriend, Alan, was Sheila's boyfriend, too. Oh, and Lisa’s. Mary’s. Donna’s. Probably just about every name I could find in a phone book, if I still had one of those laying around.
Now I’m single again. Worse, I’m single and unemployed. The family I nanny for has decided to pack everything up and join a commune in Costa Rica, inflation has decided to target my rent in addition to my groceries, and unless I want to move in with my super-critical mom, I’m going to need to find a job ASAP.
Not exactly the best time to hear my best friend coo about some hot monster guy.
The phone stops ringing, and I breathe a sigh of relief. Finally, I can just mope. I’ve got an entire day of it planned – ice cream dinner in my pajamas followed by the world’s saddest bubble bath, made doubly sad by the fact that my legs barely fit into the tub.
Gabriella calls again. When she’s in one of these moods, the ones that sense my bad mood, she’s not going to stop. “Yeah?”
“And good afternoon to you, too,” she chirps into the phone. “Why do you sound like you’ve got a pillow over your head?”
I wrap the comforter tighter around me, put her on speaker, and press the phone close to my face. “Ugh.”
“That kinda day, huh?”
Gabriella doesn’t have to be nice. She doesn’t seem like she would be – she has the same perfect looks of all the girls in high school who taunted me about my height and ‘potato-face.’ I steered clear of her, actually, the first few times we met waitressing at a local cafe. But even though the job didn’t last – I’m a little too clumsy for that line of work – our friendship did.
God, I miss her.
“The Reed family is moving to the jungle and renouncing materialism, which includes paying their nanny a living wage.”
“Oh?” Gabriella tries to sound sympathetic, but there’s something bright about her tone. “That’s terrible.”
“Pretty much.” I stare at my popcorn ceiling. Well, my popcorn ceiling for a couple more days, at least. “I’ll find something soon.” And I will, once I’m done feeling sorry for myself. I have great references, and there are always families in need of help. Now, will I find a job before I need to sign a new lease?
I burrow into my blanket burrito until only the top of my head is exposed to the air. “So how’s the cafe?” That’s usually a good topic – Gabriella can ramble on for hours about the state of the cafe and their unique clientele. She doesn’t disappoint today, although she does seem to be dwelling on one customer in particular.
“He’s a farmer,” she says. “A single dad. The kids are giving him a hell of a time – he showed up an hour late for our delivery, and all of them looked like they’d just finished rolling in mud.”
“Charming.”
“They are actually,” she insists. “I swear. Sure, they were a little rambunctious in the beginning, and yes, I do need to re-upholster the booth. But Hargoz – that’s the farmer – offered to pay for it straight away and left a huge tip. And honestly, the kids were trying to behave. Whenever I walked by, they stopped fighting and sat so still it looked like they might burst. The boy even tried to use a fork instead of his hands – which got a bit messy, but still. I could tell they were really working hard to be good, they just didn’t know how.”
Gabriella sighs, as if the entire scene broke her heart.
“Right.” Why is she telling me all this? Does she want some childcare advice? “I’ve nannied for single dads before. As long as the kids have good structure, which is a challenge for anyone, they usually shape up.”
“Would you say a maternal figure is important?”
“You sound like a textbook right now, but sure. That can be anyone – grandma, teacher, family friend. Just someone to spend a little bit of time with the kids and expose them to a different parenting style.”
“Like a nanny, perhaps?”
“Sure. A nanny could work.” Maybe the guy is looking for help, and Gabriella thought I’d know someone he could hire. “I don’t know any nannies qualified to care for monsters, though.”
“They’d have to be strong, right?” Gabriella is hinting at something, and for the life of me I don’t… wait a minute. “Probably very tall, very experienced—”
“Oh, no.” I might be desperate for a job, but I’m not desperate enough to deal with a single orc father with feral kids. “No, no, no. I’m not nearly qualified enough.”
“Neither is he, believe me!” Gabriella laughs. “And I’m just asking questions. Just being curious in Curiosity. Trust me, Hargoz isn’t hiring help any time soon, he likes to suffer. All I want is for you to come see me, maybe help out a bit in the cafe, like old times? Come on, Miss Lacey Loving. What else are you doing?”
Ouch. She didn’t mean to wound me, but that one stings a bit. “I’m sending resumes out.”
“So come visit me until you hear back from someone,” she says. “Please. I’m being selfish here – I haven’t seen you in forever, and you’re due for a visit. I miss you. Just… even if you don’t want to see the kids, come say ‘hi’ and see the town. It’s… you honestly have to see it to believe it. There are brownies selling newspapers and vampires tending bars, and just…”
“And werewolves being unbearably handsome?”
“Yes,” she says, and I swear I can hear her blush over the phone. “I don’t know how Alan would feel about that, but you know I can’t stand him.”
I know I’ll have to tell her about how things ended with Alan soon, but I just can’t bear it today. Instead, I laugh so hard my stomach hurts. I’m not sure how attractive monsters are going to find me. Not very, if history is any indication.
It’s not that I’m ugly. That might actually be better, I think. People would see me, at least. I’m just… invisible. The tallest invisible person in the world. I know Gabriella wasn’t a fan of Alan, but at least he saw me. Even if he saw almost half the town, too.
“Right,” I say.
“I can’t wait for you to meet Chet, by the way. I talk about you all the time, it’s like he knows you already.”
I’m still not sure how Gabriella fell for a werewolf – the concept of it is strange, and I have so many questions that I’ve been too shy to ask. Does he change into a wolf every full moon? And does he become an actual wolf, or like, some weird, creepy, wolf-human hybrid? Is he allergic to silver, does she have to stick to gold jewelry?
It’s fitting that the town’s name is Curiosity. Ever since Gabriella moved there, I’ve had nothing but questions. Maybe it’s worth it to visit and find a few answers. “Fine. Fine, I’ll come for a visit.”
Gabriella squeals into the phone, and I laugh again. It feels like I haven’t smiled for weeks. Maybe this visit will be good for both of us. “I can’t wait! I’ve got a spare room for you – but, fair warning, I think it might be a little haunted.”
Right. Curiosity, town of ghosts and ghouls and monsters. “Is the ghost single?”
“That’s the spirit!”
Before I can give her pun the groan it deserves, a deep, rumbly voice murmurs on the other line, and Gabriella whispers something back. They sound unbearably tender with one another, and I can’t stop the twist of jealousy searing in my gut.
