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“And worse.”
“Well, I hope you charge their parents double.”
She laughs. “I wish.”
I see her to the door. “Goodnight, Hannah.”
“Goodnight.” She waves from her car, and after I watch to make sure it starts, I close the door.
Hannah Benson is the best sitter I could ask for. She lives close, charges a fair rate, and is a great influence on my kids. Anytime I’ve checked the nanny cams, the three of them are always doing what they’re supposed to. She even helps them with their homework and cleans up after the kids. She had been their sitter before Stacy died, and she stuck with us through all of that. The most reliable sixteen-year-old I have ever known.
With the kids in bed, everything is too quiet and too dark. It always is when I get home these days. Clicking on the TV for noise and light, I flip through the channels until I’m numb to them. The comforting illusion of company.
But tonight, the illusion feels like a big, fat lie.
I turn it off and go to my room. I change into sweatpants and a tank for bed and get cozy beneath my covers. It’s been a long day, and I just want to sleep. As soon as my head hits the pillow, my phone flashes a text notification.Has to be work.I ignore it.
But it could be Autumn.
That thought alone is enough to make me pick up my phone and check. I smile when I see her name, and that smile becomes a grin when I read her message.
“An axe murderer would have been a better date.”
I call her up. “Should I set you up with my friend, the axe murderer?”
She giggles. “Please do.”
“What happened?” I lie back and get comfortable.
As Autumn regales me with the horror of her date, I am reminded of my brothers’ bad influence and them telling me to ask her out. There’s no way it could work—I’m the guy she calls after a bad date. Not the guy she dates.
She winds it down, “…Can you imagine having to wait on his table, while knowing he’s that creepy?”
“I try not to judge—to each their own, and all that—but I always wonder about guys who purposefully date very young women. It’s one thing to get to know someone on a job or something, and you hit it off, and theyhappento be younger than you. But to hunt them down the way it sounds like he does, that’s just unseemly. Good for you, warning other women like that.”
“I guess. I’m going to talk shit about him on the app, too, and I’ll probably get booted off for it, but guys like him should come with a warning label.”
“Huh,” I say with a frown, “I didn’t know you could do that. Been a while since I’ve used a dating app.”
“Not since before Stacy, I’d imagine.”
“Actually,” I’m not sure I should admit to this, “I used one to hook-up six months after she passed. Does that make me a shitty person?”
“Why would it?”
I shrug, “Doesn’t feel long enough, you know? That’s why I didn’t tell anyone about her.”
“You think I’m going to judge you for a random hook-up? You should know me better than that, Rowan.”
“I don’t know. MaybeI’mjudging me for it.”
“Well, what happened?”
I laugh. “I’m not telling you the details, Autumn. That would be weird.”
“Oh, come on. It sounds like your first date after a long time went way better than mine. I need to hear about a good date, or I might decide to die alone. Besides, I can tell you if you should judge yourself for the naughty things you did. Spill it.”
I settle into my mattress and sigh. “Alright. I signed up for the app, filled out the profile thing, and then I got busy with work, so I forgot about it. I didn’t realize my notification blocker would affect the app, because, well, I was busy with work and hadn’t considered it. But Sawyer asked if I actually filled out my profile or just told him I did—the guys had been trying to get me to attempt dating again. The whole thing was their idea—
