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Quickly I run inside, let Drew know I’m bouncing for the day with Callan and Katy, and grab my stuff. Once I’m back outside, we cross the street in front of the hospital and walk our way up Charles Street and then bang a left to head to the Common. The Frog Pond is filled with murky water that kids are splashing in, both in their clothes and bathing suits, and the playground isthesocial place to be if you’re a parent or even a nanny.
Callan and I manage to find a place to sit, and Katy goes running off like her ass is on fire, her hands waving wildly in the air as she runs.
“It’s one of the few places she forgets and acts like a kid for a while. Same with camp. Usually. That little fucker is lucky I didn’t hear him, or he’d find himself down a set of nuts.”
“Alpha Uncle Callan. She’s a lucky girl.”
He throws me a sideways smirk and then both of us go back to watching the playground.
“Everyone in here is staring at you,” I observe. “I can’t tell if it’s because you’re a hot dude or if it’s because you’re a famous hot dude.”
He coughs out a laugh. “That’s hotdoctorto you and they’re not all staring at me.”
I snort. “You’re a horrendous liar. Everyone is one hundred percent staring at you. I bet if you got up and walked around, you’d have at least five women hit on you, married or not.”
“Is that a bet?”
I gleam at him. “Absolutely.”
“Layla!” Katy yells out from the top of the playscape. “Come play with me.”
“That’s my cue.”
“Wait.” He stops me. “What do I get when you lose?”
“I won’t lose, so how about whatever you want.” I give him a cheeky wink and then stand.
“I’m holding you to that.”
I wave in acknowledgment over my shoulder and then climb up to play with Katy. She and I chase each other and go down the slides all the while I keep a surreptitious eye on Callan, who does, in fact, get hit on by woman after woman. Only after he rejects the third woman—can’t say I’m upset about that—it stops.
He catches me watching him from above and steps beneath me, like Romeo beneath Juliet on the balcony, and throws his arms out wide to me. “How do you like that? I was right.”
I laugh, shaking my head at him. “Did you cheat?”
“I simply told them I’m a one-woman man and am already spoken for and to pass it on. Technically, it’s not a lie, so it’s not cheating.”
My heart pinches in my chest. Even though I know he’s not talking about me. He’s clearly talking about Katy, but still, it’s a powerful statement. Especially after what I went through with Patrick.
“Fine,” I relent, making a show of rolling my eyes in feigned derision. “You win.”
He fist pumps. “I’m holding you to that,” he repeats. “Whatever I want? That’s a powerful weapon.”
Especially when there isn’t a whole lot this man could ask me for that I’d say no to. And he’s about to test that.
13
Just when I think things are starting to get easier, when I finally feel like Katy and I are getting into a groove, everything falls apart. Katy pulled one hell of a stunt yesterday at camp. She eloped, which is a fancy term for ran away. My six-year-old niece ran away from camp. They called to inform me of this and then they called the police.
I raced over there, and I just so happened—miracle of miracles—to pass the hospital when I saw her little body walking down the goddam sidewalk in the middle of Boston headed that way.
A six-year-old. Walking alone. On a busy sidewalk. In Boston.
I nearly got in an accident pulling over as quickly as I did and after freaking out on her, I brought her back to the camp, so I could rip them a new asshole.
How does a little girl escape a camp that has a gate in front of the building as well as security cameras? She’s impossibly smart and crafty and I love her for it, but it’s also giving me premature gray hairs.
When I asked her what she was doing escaping like that, she clammed up on me. At first, she said she was on her way to see me there, but I could see the lie in her eyes. The police spoke with her too, and then Katy finally broke down and admitted to them that she was leaving camp so she could go and visit Layla.
