AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I snort at the ridiculous idea but stay silent and listen as my friend rambles on and on about how amazing things are going to be once I start this new job. How I’ll have more money so we can go back to Saturday Sundaes at our favorite ice cream shop, Scoops. Or how much I’ll prefer sleeping in a room that has walls and privacy from her and Leo going at it like rabbits.
The more she talks, the more nervous I become.
This meet and greet is more than just a formality. I’m going to have to be on my best behavior, do my most self-selling—which I’ve never been good at—because there aren’t any other options but this job.
And then something else occurs to me.
I won’t have the luxury of turning it down if it doesn’t feel like the right fit with this family. Even if the mom is way too shrill or the dad is a total creep or the kids are monsters…this is it. This is the job, the only way for the plan I’ve been working on since I was 15 to come to fruition.
My nose pinches at that thought, a small sliver of fear pulsing slowly but steadily into my veins.
I do my best to push it aside.
Besides, how bad could it really be?
chapter three
colton
“You did what!?”
Shouting at my parents isn’t something I’m known to do, so the startled look on my mother’s face is not altogether unsurprising.
“Now, Cap,” my dad says, lifting his hands to try to placate me.
But his voice cuts off when he sees the look I give him, the one that is ready to burn him to the ground where he stands. The one that says his Now, Cap routine isn’t going to work on me this time.
“Let me get this straight,” I say, my volume lowering but my intensity staying right there at the top. “When Mel died, you asked me about this, specifically, and I said no. I think my exact words were ‘I’m not hiring a fucking nanny.’”
I turn to look at where my mother is standing on the other side of the room, arms crossed, not a hair out of place.
“Then, I agreed to consider the idea, to talk about it together, the next time you came to town. Isn’t that right?”
I look from my mother back to my father, but both of them are silent.
“Well? Wasn’t that the agreement?”
“Colton, there’s nothing wrong with meeting the woman, introducing Teddy to her and seeing if they can—”
“Absolutely not!”
My voice is like thunder, the rage I feel boiling under my skin bubbling up in words I throw around the room like bullets.
“Lower your voice,” my mother says, her eyes narrowing. “The last thing Teddy needs is to be woken up by this ridiculous arguing.”
I grit my teeth.
“The last thing Teddy needs is a nanny,” I throw back. “The last thing Teddy needs is some woman coming over and…and confusing him when he still doesn’t fully understand that his mother is gone.”
I feel like breaking something. Like yanking the mirror off the wall and chucking it across the room so it shatters into a million pieces. The only thing that keeps me from doing it is the fact that Teddy’s little hands and feet will be crawling and walking around on that floor, and I can’t risk an injury to my kid.
So instead, I brace my hands against the mantel on the fireplace, glaring down at the old wood and bits of ash left over from the last time we started a fire, back in January when the cooler winter temperatures and damp ocean breeze made it sound like a good idea.
I mentioned it to Melody—“How about I make a fire tonight when you get home?”—and she smiled as she walked out the front door, telling me it sounded like a great idea.
Of course, she worked late that night and I spent my evening in front of that fire, alone. Even then, when the flashes of warning, the small voice asking if I thought she was really at work started popping up, I would bat it away. I was so sure, so certain things were improving.
But I was wrong.
