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“What makes you think I want you moving in with me?”
I grin at him. “Whywouldn’tyou want me to move in with you?”
“I don’t think we have enough time for me to list all the reasons.”
“Oh, c’mon. We’ll make up for lost time. It’ll be fun. I can help out with Josie and Jacqueline. Nina’ll be thrilled. She’s always saying there aren’t enough hours in the day. I’ll be like a live-in nanny. Consider me your personal Mary Poppins.”
He narrows his eyes. “Always thought Mary Poppins was fecking annoying. Singing all over the place. Dumping sugar down kids’ throats.”
“Think of the children. They love Uncle Jack.”
Ollie pinches the bridge of his nose. “You realize you’re bending over backward to make this work, right? Please tell me you know this makes absolutely no sense.”
“If I say I agree with you, will you do it? Try it, at least?”
He looks as if he’s praying for patience again. To hell with serenity, I think.God, grant me the ability to actually change shite.
“You’re not bringing that fecking cat with you,” he finally says. “It’s bad enough him coming into the pub. You know I’m allergic.”
I leap from the chair and give Ollie a slap on the shoulder.
“But don’t get too attached to the idea of her working here. I want to reassess in a month, and if things aren’t working out—”
“Done,” I say, and goad him into a reluctant handshake.
“I’m not convinced this is really about the job,” he says when I take my seat behind the desk again.
“It’s about the job.”
“If you say so.”
When Ollie turns to go, I say, “There is just... one more thing.”
He looks at me with a wary expression.
I try to keep my voice light, as if this is a totally reasonable request. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, could we perhaps, keep the sharp items... elsewhere...” At the look on his face I add, “Just temporarily!”
Ollie doesn’t say anything at first. “You’re asking me, a chef, to take all the knives out of my house, so you can move in with me for absolutely no reason?”
Just the thought of those knives has my heart beating faster. “Only the very sharp ones.”
“Jackie...”
“How about this? You can keep the sharp things in the house but hide them. Don’t tell me where they are. If I don’t know where they are, I can’t worry about them.”Or waste my entire morning checking and double-checking they’re where they ought to be.
Ollie just looks at me. I hate that I’m like this. There was a time not too long ago when I could walk through the kitchen to this office without holding my breath or pausing to check the knives. I could even hold a knife in my hands. I could sit at a table with my nieces and use a pair of scissors. The thoughts were still there, but I could let them float through without giving in to my compulsions.
“Please,”I say.
Ollie sighs. “Fine.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know how you talk me into this shite.”
“It’s because you love me.”
“A lot of good it does me.”
Once he’s gone, I sit at my desk and try to look over invoices. I’mtoo wired to sleep, but too exhausted to actually work, so I end up doodling on Post-its. Sebastian on a stool. A girl with wavy hair and hiking boots and a smile that must have some sort of gravitational pull. And... fuck, I need to stop thinking about this girl. I toss the notes into the wastebasket, then check that the knives are where they ought to be before I lock up the pub and trudge upstairs. I settle onto the couch to read a book with Sebastian curled up in my lap.
It’s after one in the morning when my phone pings. I glance at the screen, and the sight of Raine’s name has me wide awake again.
