I punch the Stop button as the counter ticks over two miles. Fuck the cool-down. Silas’s comment has a surge of heat blasting through me. A mixture of anger and something else. Nothing will cool me down now but a dip in an ice bath.
“Don’t you have anything better to do?” I snarl at Silas.
“Not my business,” Lee says, holding his palms out in a placating gesture. “I just wanted to extend an invitation. A new country bar opened up last month in Hawk Ridge, and my wife and her girls have roped us guys into accompanying them.”
“You don’t sound unhappy about that.”
“Because I’m not going to pass up an opportunity to watch my wife twirl around in a pair of Daisy Dukes and cowboy boots.”
Guilt surges through me. There’s a strong chance that if I accept that invite, my nanny will be paying the price. Nearly everyone else I’d ask to watch my daughter will be hanging out at that bar.
What Spencer said about her being lonely fills my head. Followed by anger. This is not my place or my problem to be concerned about her social calendar. She’s my nanny, for fuck’s sake. Not my friend.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
The clock on the gym wall tells me this is a problem I need to sort out later.
“Talk to your nanny. I’ll text you the date and address if you want to come.”
“Sounds good.”
I bid my brothers goodbye and head to the locker room to shower.
Once clean, I have a few moments to spare. I’m waiting on Silas before we head over to the station together. I sit on the bench and pull out my phone. Logic tells me not to do it, but my gut wins over, and I open up the home security app.
Nellie and Ms. Thompson are easy to locate. They sit at the kitchen table. I squint at the screen, trying to make out what they’re getting into. It almost looks like some sort of craft project. I tap the interface to turn on closed captioning as I keep the volume low.
“What does this do?” Nellie asks, her body half on, half off the kitchen table.
“This measures my blood sugar.” Ms. Thompson holds out her finger, pushes what looks like a large marker against the tip, then touches her finger to the strip inserted into the glucometer.
“You have sugar in your blood?” Nellie’s voice is half surprised, half disbelief. A small smile touches my lips.
“You do too, kiddo. It gives us energy. But my body doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to, and sometimes I get too much sugar in my blood. Other times, I don’t have enough. See? Right now, I have this much. That’s a good amount. But if it goes too high, I have to give myself some medicine so I don’t get sick.”
“Like a yucky drink?”
Ms. Thompson pulls her shirt up, showing Nellie the device stuck to her stomach. “From here. There’s a little straw that sits under my skin and gives me the medicine when I need it.”
“What’s this one?” Nellie touches the small device on the back of Ms. Thompson’s arm.
I find myself engrossed, learning along with my daughter.
“That one monitors my blood sugar all the time. It’s called a continuous glucose monitor.”
“Does that one also have a straw?”
“It does!”
“Does it hurt?”
Ms. Thompson begins packing away her supplies. “It does a little, but I’m really tough.”
“What if your blood is out of sugar?”
“Then I get to eat candy.”
“Whoa. Really?”
