Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 99017 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 495(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99017 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 495(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
Ava shakes her head. “No, it wouldn’t. And no, I’m not. I’ll have storybook time with my headphones, instead. I’m not tired.”
Dean nods. “Okay. When you two are done with lunch, we’ll do nap and storybook time.” He glances my way as he adds, “And then we can have afternoon coffee and a talk?”
I nod, ignoring the nervous cramp in my stomach. “Sounds good.”
It does sound good.
It sounds like maybe I was wrong about getting fired. Why would he be showing me the ropes if he’s planning to let me go? My heart lifts even as my stomach balls into a tighter knot, one half of me excited at the possibility of sticking around, while the other insists this is a bad idea.
The kind of bad idea that ends with falling in keeper-level love with people who aren’t mine to “keep.”
Ten
DEAN
Getting Bella down takes five minutes. Maybe less.
She goes from upright to out-cold in record time for my nap-resistant kiddo. She’s not as bad as Ava, but she’s close, and I have a feeling naptime will soon be a thing of the past, no matter how much the pediatrician insists a nap is still necessary to meet her sleep needs.
Though, I could be wrong about that, I guess. Maybe big play mornings with Clover are all it will take to have Bella back on her nap schedule like clockwork.
She’s certainly dead to the world right now…
Still, I linger outside her door after I close it, pretending I’m listening to make sure she’s staying down. But I know she is. The kid’s out like someone pulled her plug.
I’m not listening, I’m stalling.
I’m stalling so hard that I consider heading down the hall to make sure Ava’s set up for storybook time, but that would be ridiculous. If Ava’s pink bunny headphones weren’t already delivering “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” directly into her ears while she lounges in her pillow-filled canvas teepee, I would know about it.
Ava isn’t shy about making sure her rest time needs are known and met. And she usually remembers to plug the headphones in to charge herself when she’s done using them. Four years old, and she’s already more organized than I was in college.
I don’t know whether to be proud or…depressed.
She shouldn’t have to remember to plug in her own headphones. But after I forgot for the fifth time, she stopped complaining about my failure and took matters into her own hands. When I’m being “gentle with myself,” the way the girls’ therapist encourages, I understand that I had a lot on my plate those first few weeks after their mother died. When I’m frustrated with my own learning curve, I wonder how a man with such poor multitasking skills ever managed to become one of the top players in the NHL.
But as far as skill sets go, I guess hockey and homemaking don’t have a ton of crossover.
I do know how to be part of a team, though. I know the value of teamwork and the foolishness of thinking you can get the win on your own. That’s why I decided to hire a nanny.
I need help. Good help. Special help, and I honestly couldn’t have asked for a more perfect caregiver than a bright, bighearted woman who knows what’s it’s like to lose a parent at a young age. If only that bighearted woman wasn’t also the woman I stripped half-naked in my truck.
The woman I swore I would steer clear of from here on out…
There are so many reasons to steer clear. Clover is my captain and good friend’s surrogate little sister. She’s young—too young for a man staring down thirty-six. And now, she’s my nanny.
Fuck.
I can’t let her keep being my nanny. Can I?
It’s too weird, too uncomfortable. It feels wrong in ways I can easily lay out and other, more subtle ways that I can’t. Becoming the employer of someone you recently had a romantic relationship with is sketchy, even if that “romantic” relationship lasted all of three hours.
I know that. Clover likely knows that, too. That’s why she sent that preemptive text. If I don’t fire her, some part of her will likely assume I’m a creep.
But if do fire her, she’ll also assume I’m a creep. She clearly needs this job. And, if her text is to be believed, she also wants this job. She feels called to be here for my girls, like some divine hand intervened to ensure she was the one here instead of someone else.
But I don’t believe in Fate.
If Fate were real, my ex-wife would still be alive. Frederica didn’t deserve to die, and my girls certainly don’t deserve to learn about this kind of pain so young. Or to live the rest of their lives without their mother.
Though, to be fair, I don’t think anyone ever said Fate was kind. Or just. I seem to remember Carl Sagan saying something about Fate—and the universe—being completely indifferent to human desires, in fact.