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Why isn’t Cassie taking me to school?”
“I had time this morning.” I meet Sophie’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “I thought we didn’t like Cassie?”
Sophie purses her lips, face turning toward the window as she shrugs. “She’s okay.”
“Just okay?”
“She’s kind of weird.”
“Oh, really? How so?”
“She’s always trying to hang out with me,” Sophie huffs. “Doesn’t she have any grown-up friends?”
“Maybe she likes you,” I suggest.
Sophie tries to look casual, but I don’t miss the way her eyes dart to the side to meet mine again in the mirror. “Do you think she does?”
“I doubt she’d keep trying to hang out with you if she didn’t,” I assure her. “Maybe you should be nicer to her.”
“I’m nice to her,” Sophie mutters.
“Uh-huh.”
“She’s not as lame as the last nanny,” Sophie says after we pass another block.
“I’m glad you think so,” I tell her.
I mean it too. After going through four nannies in the last year, I was damn near desperate by the time Cassie’s résumé had reached my inbox.
Bringing Sophie to the restaurant is fine as an intermediary solution, but doing it too regularly had started to wear on us both. So it had felt like an actual miracle when Cassie applied. I had been prepared to offer whatever it took for her to take the job, convinced by her résumé alone that she was the answer we’d been looking for.
But then I met her.
I don’t even know what I expected; I only gave a thought to her credentials in the short period between answering her email and seeing her for the first time, but I can definitively say that Cassietook me by surprise. Even with the slight disaster of our first meeting, it had been hard to pretend that I wasn’t distracted by her.
It’s not appropriate in the slightest for me to have noticed how silky her auburn hair looks, or how pouty her mouth appears. It’sdefinitelynot acceptable that my eyes had drunk in the way her black dress hugged dangerous curves before I forcefully packed those thoughts away—and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since.
I have to remind myself once a day of all the things I shouldn’t be noticing about Cassie. Like how pretty her smile is, or how bright her blue eyes seem to appear when she laughs, for example. Ultimately, I’m one hundred percent sure now that sheisthe best person for the job, and finding her attractive in any capacity only serves to potentially fuck up the good thing we’ve started to find. Sophie is more important than a few wayward thoughts I can never give voice to.
Even if they are sometimes louder than I’d like them to be.
“What happened at work?”
Sophie’s voice pulls me out of my own head, reminding me of the scallop fiasco. “Someone not paying attention,” I grumble. “We’re going to be out of a popular dish tonight. People are going to complain.”
“What are you out of?”
“Scallops.”
Her nose wrinkles. “Ew. What is that?”
“Kind of like little clams.”
“Gross.”
“Well, I’m glad that you aren’t put out by this,” I laugh.
