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“More than,” I said, grateful for the distraction. “Should we tell her the news?” I asked Juniper, who answered with a babble.
“What?” Quincy said, looking from Juniper to me.
“Juniper crawled.”
“What?” Quincy’s mouth fell open as she reached out for the baby. “You crawled? And I missed it?” She took Juniper into her arms and peppered her with kisses, making my daughter laugh some more. “That’s a big deal, sweet pea. We’re in trouble now. You’ll be into everything.”
“She will, won’t she?” I’d thought we might have a couple more months to prepare, but obviously my precocious daughter thought differently. “What time is your tour?”
Quincy pulled out her phone to look at the time. “Eleven. We need to go now, or we’ll be late.”
“It’s close by, right?” We’d located it on a map earlier, and it was no more than two blocks away.
“It is, but I want to get there early.”
“Of course.”
Quincy’s penchant for being fifteen to twenty minutes early for everything was a surprising quirk, seeing as how she wasn’t particularly organized in any other way, but she was militant about it, and I respected that. We had more than twenty minutes to make a three-minute walk now, but I quickly packed up June’s toys and blanket and readied her carrier.
“I can’t believe I missed her first time,” Quincy said, hugging my daughter to her.
“I’m sorry you missed it, Quince.” I hooked the diaper bag over my shoulder, took Juniper back, settled her in the carrier, and picked it up. “I didn’t think to try to get it on video. It happened so fast.” I recounted the play-by-play.
“Cutie patootie, next time wait for me,” Quincy told June. “I guess I’ll miss a lot once I come here full-time.”
“You can visit her when you’re home for breaks,” I said, not letting myself think too hard about what it would be like once she was gone.
I was keeping my ears open for leads on a possible nanny, but the truth was I wasn’t sure I wanted a full-time, live-in nanny again. Not unless it was Quincy. I was working on balancing my time better, and Juniper was sleeping longer at night. It was a luxury to have Quincy’s help when she did wake up, but I was considering looking for more of a daytime sitter just for when I was working. I had time to figure it out. Time for the right person for the job to show up in our lives.
We hurried down the main boulevard to the dorm Quincy had been assigned to.
“Wow,” I said as we walked up to it. “Back in my day, living in the dorms meant roughing it. This doesn’t look too shabby.”
“It just opened last year,” Quincy said. “I think I only got into it because I requested a single room in a suite. It’s harder if you have people you request to live with. I’m a leftover they could stick anywhere, which is awesome for me.”
The door opened as we neared, and a tall, college-age guy wearing his ball cap backward came out. When he saw Quincy, he held the door open, his eyes locked on her in obvious interest.
“Heyyy,” he said to her, stopping to give her his full attention. “You live here?”
Quincy smiled and shook her head. “Not until January.”
The kid glanced at me and Juniper, then turned his attention back to Quincy as if we weren’t standing there. “I’ll definitely see you in January.”
He didn’t look at me again as I took the door, my heart pounding with annoyance, adrenaline spiking in a protective rush, as if Quincy needed me to fend off this dude.
Two steps into the building and I realized she didn’t, of course. Come January, if she wanted to talk to backward-cap guy, she could. If she wanted to flirt with him, she could. If she wanted to date him, fall in love with him…
Fuck.
She could, and I’d have to be okay with it.
I was going to need time to come to terms with that.
As Quincy walked to the desk, I waited out of the way, closer to the door than the desk, not wanting to interfere. Trying to get my head in check—or was it my heart?
I shook my head, as that was the dumbest thought yet today, then made faces at a wide-eyed Juniper until she laughed.
A few minutes later, Quincy and a smiley, petite girl who couldn’t be more than eighteen came over to us.
