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I almost dropped my coffee. “Poppy! You can’t call them that.”
“Why not?” She tucked her sandy blond hair behind her ear and looked very unconcerned. “That’s what Lena said they are.”
“She said they’re rich bitches,” Willow clarified, as if somehow that made it better.
Lena was leaning against the far kitchen counter, scrolling through her phone. She was twenty-four and wasn’t exactly the loving Mary Poppins I had envisioned. But she had come recommended and was willing to be in residence.
“Lena,” I said, feeling a headache starting behind my eyes that wasn’t from the alcohol or the lack of sleep. It was stress, plain and simple. “Why would you say that?”
She glanced up and shrugged. “It’s true. Nasty, mean, little rich bitches.”
Whether it was true or not, the jury was still out. Willow and Poppy had only been at their private school for six weeks. But I couldn’t let Lena talk shit about kids, bitchy or not. “That’s not an appropriate thing to say.”
“Do we have any iron shavings?” Poppy asked, looking up from her iPad, clearly no longer interested in bitchy girls.
“What?” I asked, totally distracted by the randomness of the question. “Iron shavings? Between the Italian seasoning and the lemon pepper.”
She made a move to get up. I touched her arm to stop her. “Poppy, I was being sarcastic.”
“Being sarcastic with children is counterproductive,” she informed me.
I sighed. “You’re right. But why would I have iron shavings and what are you planning to do with them?”
“Nothing
. Never mind.” Her lips were pursed and she blinked like an owl.
It was so much easier to keep professional football players in line. I preferred screaming at some grown-ass men to stop being defeatist and get their shit together than trying to get inside the head of an eight-year-old girl. Football players, with a drive to win and lots of testosterone, I understood. I had been one.
This? I was fucking clueless. I had one daughter who desperately wanted to please everyone, fit in, and be popular, and another who was either the next Marie Curie or a budding serial killer. The jury was still out. I understood wanting to fit in, because everyone wanted that, but I hated to see Willow’s confidence in herself eroded. Poppy had plenty of confidence, just maybe not enough of an ability to ask herself if something was a good idea or not.
“Are you working today?” Willow asked, shoving her plate of tortured pancake across the quartz countertop.
“No. Do you want to go to a museum or something?” I glanced at my phone for the seventieth time, hoping Dakota had texted me. She hadn’t.
“Can we go shopping?”
That sounded like hell on earth. But I smiled and said, “Sure.” I just wanted to spend time with my daughters. And maybe remove them from Lena’s influence for a few hours. Lena clearly had no clue she was on thin ice with me at the moment.
She was still glued to her phone screen, but she said, “So why didn’t you come home last night, Mr. M?”
I froze at the unexpected question, feeling guilty as fuck. I hadn’t gone home because I’d been balls deep in a dancer. Then I remembered I was the adult, the parent, the employer. I knew moving to Manhattan was a big change for my daughters and they didn’t need to freak out over me being gone all night. I gave Lena a hard look.
“I went to the charity event, like I told all of you. Then I got home around two,” I straight-up lied. But I wasn’t backing down on this one.
“Hmm,” she said.
Was I being judged by a twenty-four-year-old? I reached down and grabbed the plate holding Willow’s abandoned pancake. I stabbed it with a fork and shoved half a pancake into my mouth. I didn’t want to say something I would regret.
This was why dating was impossible.
At least I’d had last night. I glanced at my phone again.
Nothing.
I slept late. Really late. But Brandon had kept me up until after three.
Reaching for my phone, which I usually kept on the windowsill behind my bed, I didn’t find it in its usual spot. It also occurred to me that I hadn’t gotten his number and he hadn’t asked for mine. I had a vague memory of him saying he’d left his number, so I stumbled out of bed.
