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“Are you sure? If you guys are”—her fingers move in the air and it’s cute—“in the middle of something, Theo and I can head up to his room and play a game.”
“No, I think it’s going to be thumb war challenges for a while.” I glance at my son and smile.
She doesn’t. “Okay, then I think I might go work out before I get started on dinner.”
I nod, feeling all the guys’ eyes on us again. I can just hear their dirty jokes in my head. “Feel free to use the workout room downstairs if you want.”
“That’s okay. There’s a yoga place not far from here that runs classes all day. I’ve been wanting to check it out, but thanks.” She gives me a tight smile.
“Hot yoga?” Chase asks, and I scowl.
“No.” Her voice is stern. “It was nice to meet you all.”
“You too,” they all say in unison.
Then she leaves the room without another word.
“I get the feeling someone is on her shit list,” Lee says to me under his breath.
“What’s a shit list?” Theo asks and moves his whole body horizontally to get his thumb in a better position.
Lee gives me an apologetic look and mouths, “Sorry.”
“Nothing for you to worry about, bud,” I say.
“Theo, you wanna show me what Lego set you’re working on?” Chase nods toward the corner of the large room where Theo works on his Lego sets.
I’m thankful for the distraction. It gives me a second to try to figure out what I’m going to say to Violet later.
Ten
Violet
I’m getting out of the car in Brady’s driveway when my mom calls. With the mood I’m in, I should ignore the call, but I know she’ll only call back until she hears from me.
“Hi, Umma,” I say.
“Annyeong haseyo,” she greets me in Korean.
We’re chatting, just basic small talk, as I walk through the door and set down my yoga mat. I need to go have a quick shower before getting dinner started. Holding the phone to my ear, I walk down the long hallway toward the stairwell near the back of the house.
Theo must hear me because he comes barreling out of the family room and wraps himself around my waist. “You’re back!”
My chest warms at his reaction. I know he really misses his mom, and he’s probably projecting some of those feelings onto me, but I’ll take it.
“Who is that?” my mom asks in Korean.
I respond in English so that Theo understands me. “That’s Theo, the little boy I’m nannying for.” I ruffle his hair, then cover the phone and say to him in a low voice, “I’m going to take a shower, then I’ll come down and see you, okay?”
He nods and runs back to the family room.
“I don’t know why you’re still doing that job,” my mom huffs in English now that I’ve made the switch.
I blow out a breath. “Don’t start, Umma. We’ve been over this a million times.”
“Maybe. But I still don’t understand. You should be a lawyer.”
I hurry up the stairs, anxious for an excuse to get off this call. “You don’t need to understand. It’s my life.”
