I sat up and scooted up until my bare back was against the headboard. “Hi, Grace. I’m Autumn. How long have you been there?”
She crawled into my lap and pulled a strand of my hair through her fingers. “I don’t know. I like your hair. It’s dark like Mommy’s.”
I forced a smile and held my blanket tighter. “How’d you get in here, Grace?”
She scooted even closer to me, her sticky hands coming up to touch my cheeks. “You’re pretty.”
“And you’re super sweet, but can you answer my question, honey?” A genuine smile stretched my mouth when she stuck her tongue out to focus as she gathered my hair in her hands. “How’d you get in?”
“The door was unlocked.”
I frowned then. I’d locked the door after closing myself in the night before.
“The little door. Daddy says I’m not s’posed to use it, but I wanted to see you.” She looked down at my blanket and suddenly laughed. “Are you nakey?”
“Okay, little girl, you’ve made yourself quite familiar with me already. You don’t get to see anything else. How about you go back to bed and I’ll come and get you just as soon as I get up and brush my teeth?”
“And put your clothes on.”
“And put my clothes on.”
There was a knock on the door and Con’s voice rang out. “Autumn? I’m so sorry to bother you, but is Grace in there?”
Grace giggled and jumped off of me. “In here, Daddy!”
“No, Grace, don’t—” It was too late. Grace unlocked and opened the door, letting her father into my room. I cringed and considered pulling the blanket over my head and hiding.
“Grace, baby, you’re not supposed to bother Autumn. And you’re not supposed to use the little doors to sneak in on people. It’s ru—” Con’s voice stopped short, and there was silence for a beat before he cleared his throat. “Sorry, she was just curious to meet you.”
Grace ran back to me and settled on my lap again. “She’s pretty, Daddy.”
I knew my cheeks were flushed, and I was beyond grateful for the first time in my life that I had such crap vision. I couldn’t see details of Con’s face and if he was even looking at me. I could see his figure move dangerously close, though, and then his hand extended my glasses to me from the bedside stand.
My stomach fluttered. He remembered. I didn’t know if I was hoping he wouldn’t recognize me or that he’d had some kind of concussion in his life that made him forget me, but there was a silly part of me that hoped to get out of the summer unscathed from Con. It was harder if he remembered me and wanted to talk details.
I took my glasses, frowning when our fingers touched. Slipping them on, I focused on Grace and went into teacher mode. “Now, I can see you. Wow. This whole time I thought I was talking to the family’s pet cat.”
“I’m not a cat!” Laughing, Grace pulled my glasses down and giggled. “Am I a cat now?”
“Meow?”
She fell backward laughing, leaving me to fix my glasses. My death grip on the blanket covering my naked body from them slipped a bit, but I quickly caught it and readjusted, attempting to cover even more.
“Okay, Grace, it’s time to leave Autumn alone.”
Grace jumped up and ran to the door. “I’m going to go wake up Caroline!”
I watched as she disappeared and bit my lip when I realized it left me alone with Con. I stared down at my lap and prayed he left fast, without saying anything.
“Sorry for both of us barging in on you like this.”
I still didn’t look at him. “No problem.”
“She doesn’t know boundaries yet. Or if she does, she’s decided they don’t apply to her.” He grunted. “She’s so cute, it’s hard to discipline her when she does shit like this.”
“She storms the bedrooms of naked nannies often?” I said it without thinking and then cursed myself for using the word naked. It somehow made my nakedness more real. And a feature of the conversation.
Con cleared his throat. “Um. Naked. No, not that I can recall.”
