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Jade’s frown deepened. “You’re firing me?”
“You just said you’re not a nanny. I’m telling you not to pick Ben up later. I’ll do that, and then we’ll see each other and talk about this. I just can’t deal with this right now. Sabrina is in there, waiting for me.”
“She hasn’t been around for ten years,” Jade said. “You want to prioritize her over Ben, over me?”
“She’s Ben’s mother,” I said.
Jade’s face changed, going from shocked to closed off.
“I can’t deal with this right now. If you can’t be Ben’s nanny, then fine, don’t be his nanny. I just need to get back in there.”
“Are we still okay?” Jade asked. Her face was worried now. “You and me, outside the nanny thing…”
I shook my head. “I have to deal with this right now, okay? Everything is different now that she’s back. I can’t do this.” I needed her to understand. I needed her to hang back. I couldn’t deal with a new relationship on top of the complication of Sabrina and her lawyer there and I didn’t have the time to explain it to her.
Jade’s face changed again.
“You can’t do this,” she echoed. “What happened to you wanting to do this long-term, to askingmenot to be the one to leave?”
I shook my head. This was too much for me to deal with. My life was a perfectly stacked house of cards that I’d balanced carefully for years. Now that Sabrina was back, it all came crashing down.
“Will you call me?” Jade asked.
“I have to deal with Sabrina, I can’t right now,” I said.
“You can’t, or you won’t?” Jade asked. I was starting to panic about being out here with her this long if they were in there, talking about how they could take Ben away from me.
“It’s just complicated right now. We’re back in the real world right now, and you clearly have your life to deal with. I have my life to figure out, too. With Sabrina showing up, I can’t do it all. Maybe we should just leave it at the week in Aspen and be done with it.”
Jade gasped. “I thought you were serious when you said you wanted more.” Her voice became higher pitched. “You told me this wasn’t just a fling. Iaskedyou, Aaron. I asked you what about your track record, and you told me this was different…you told me this was serious.” Her eyes welled with tears, and a pang shot through my chest. Damn it. I had to choose which one I was willing to lose. Jade and Ben were both slipping through my fingers right now.
“I was serious,” I said.
“You just changed your mind.” Her eyes became dull, her tone accusing.
“I have to get back in there,” I said. Jade was angry with me, and it all came across as wrong, but I would lose Ben if I didn’t do something. I couldn’t do that––not after everything we’d been through together. He was my everything. He was all I had. I was about to lose Jade because she didn’t understand, but it was a no-brainer if I had to choose between losing Ben or Jade.
“I’ll call you later, and we can talk about this,” I said.
“Don’t bother,” Jade snapped, her eyes spewing fire at me now. “I get it.”
She turned around and marched away. I wanted to call after her, but I had to get back in there. My life with Ben was at stake. Everything I’d done as a father hung in the balance right now, and if I wasn’t careful, it would all spin out of control.
I couldn’t afford to lose it all. I’d felt for a long, long time that I was trapped as a father, unable to live my life the way I would have wanted to because of it, but if I had to choose between Ben and a life of freedom, I would choose Ben every day.
I couldn’t let Sabrina take that choice away from me.
17
JADE
Ilaidonmycouch, my cheeks stained with tears. Olivia stood in my open-plan kitchen, baking up a storm. She’d come over after I hadn’t taken any of her calls or replied to her texts.
“You should have told me,” she said. “I started getting worried when you didn’t come on Wednesday like you usually do.”
She took a baking sheet of sugar cookies out of the oven and put it on the stove to cool before putting the cake batter in round tins into the oven.
“I didn’t know what to say,” I said in a creaky voice.
