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I tapped on the glass, which got her to turn her head. She’d looked like she was about to start army crawling out into the street at any moment, traffic be damned.
She looked up at me, then waved sheepishly.
I held my palms up in a “what the hell?” kind of way.
Nola got to her feet, brushed off, and came around to the front door.
I met her there, distantly conscious of Ally’s presence looming in the corner of the restaurant, watching us like a hawk. Or maybe a vulture was more appropriate. A vulture who spent way too much time on her hair and makeup.
“Do I even want to ask?”
Nola’s cheeks were bright red, but there was some other emotion battling within her beyond just embarrassment. Her nostrils were flared, and she was breathing heavy. Was she… mad?
“I heard a woman in the background. On the phone. I know it was stupid and childish of me, but I just… had a bad feeling.”
“A bad feeling that what?” I asked.
“That you were seeing someone else.”
The silence that followed felt thick and pregnant with meaning. “As in, someone in addition to you?”
Some of the anger drained from Nola and all that was left was uncomfortable embarrassment. “Well, yeah. I don’t know how it works for fancy MLB pitchers, but I usually start to think of someone as being in a relationship with me after they put their dick in me.”
The family of four who had just walked in with their two little girls hastily clapped their hands over the girls’ ears and turned around, rushing back out onto the street.
Nola looked, then her already large eyes went even wider. She mouthed oops.
I let out a breath, trying to think of the right way to put my thoughts. “The truth is that I don’t know what we should do going forward. I don’t know what we should call this. Ben is the most important thing to me, and I’ve got to make sure nothing comes between us.”
Nola pointed to her chest. “I would never come between you and—” She cut herself off as some thought seemed to occur to her. Instead of finishing her sentence, she just lowered her eyes and nodded. “I understand. So, are you and Ally… together? Were you together last night, too?” Some of the anger was returning to her.
“No,” I said, chuckling at the absurdity of it. “No,” I repeated. “Ally said she’s ready to be in Ben’s life again. I’ve practically been interviewing her for the last two hours. I want to make sure she means it.”
Nola looked suspiciously over my shoulder. I looked back and saw Ally twinkling her fingers in our direction, but thankfully staying where she was.
“Well,” Nola said. “Is there any chance you can forget I just made an absolute idiot out of myself and crawled on the sidewalk outside?”
“I’d rather not forget that. No.”
Nola frowned, but wore the hint of a smile beneath it. “I’m just gonna… Okay. Can I just ask one thing? If Ally is back in Ben’s life, what does that mean for Griff and I? Would I still be his nanny?”
“Of course,” I said quickly. “Probably,” I added after second thought.
Nola’s expression fell, but she nodded. “Okay. I’ll see you later I guess.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say to fix what it felt like I’d just broken. All I could do was watch her go and feel like we’d taken one step forward and then two steps back.
With a sigh, I went back to the booth to finish my conversation with Ally.28NolaIt had been two days since I’d done the sidewalk shuffle and mortified myself in front of Jack. It had been approximately two days since I called Lindsey and reamed her out for manipulating my emotions and making me look like a psychopath.
That night, Jack and I had only shared a brief, uncomfortable few words before I headed back home after picking up Griff. The following day had been worse because he’d been out of town for a game. When he got home, Ben was already asleep, and I found myself rushing out the door with Griff asleep in my arms before he could even say a word to me.
The truth was I’d been haunted by something he said. About how he couldn’t let anything come between him and Ben.
As in, he couldn’t afford to get entangled with his nanny who might… oh, I don’t know, run off to Florida to chase her dead parent’s dreams and leave his son heartbroken in the process. And now with Ally shouldering her way back into their lives, I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to even compete.
She was actually his mom. It didn’t matter that Ben and I had slowly—very slowly—formed a kind of bond. I was just the stand-in for the woman who had been glaring at me in the cafe. So what if she came off as a little bitchy to me? I thought I knew Jack well enough to know he wouldn’t even consider letting her back in their lives if he didn’t trust her. And apparently he did, because starting next week, my nanny duties had been slashed to Monday, Wednesday, and Friday because Ally was going to have Ben until the evenings on Tuesday, Thursday, and the weekend. Jack promised he’d pay me the same, but I could feel the foundation threatening to crumble beneath me already.
