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Joe smacked my hand away. “Don’t use my shit to flirt with her.”
“I wasn’t flirting with her.” Maybe I was. The same way Joe was still feeling her kiss, so was I. I wanted more. “You want to hear something that makes me look like an asshole?”
We both watched as Ada flipped off the camera and disappeared into her room. Joe shook his head and finally gave me his full attention. “Of course. Maybe it’ll make me feel better.”
“She asked me to go to the lake with them and I accused her of trying to date me.” I nodded when Joe winced. “Yeah. She laughed. Not just a little, either. Then she told me I wasn’t her type.”
He howled with laughter and we both nearly missed the buzz of Ada’s intercom. He caught it at the last second and opened the connection. “Yes, Ada?”
“How long were you watching me search for my ring and did you see it roll into my room?”
Joe bit back a smile. “Goodnight, Ada.”
He cut the connection and we both watched as she opened her bedroom door and glared up at the camera.
I tapped my knuckles on his desk and hesitated a second. “She called you a shitty father and you still want her.”
Joe nodded towards his office door. “Out.”
“You didn’t fire her.”
He narrowed his eyes even further and pointed. “Get out of my office, Collin. I don’t want to see you right now. Or anyone else, for that matter. I’m going to sit here and think about the fact that my kid hates me.”
“Come on, Joe. She doesn’t hate you.” I stood up and moved towards the door anyway, knowing he needed to lick his wounds in private. “Ada, on the other hand, I think she might hate us all. She’s all sunshine and butterflies but I feel like there’s a demon hiding under that sweet top layer.”
I left him to stew in his own misery and climbed the stairs to head to my room. I’d missed an entire day of work but I needed a shower before I could head back down to get anything done. Kendall opened her door as I was passing by and frowned when she saw it was me. I wanted to demand a smile from the kid I’d helped raise but I knew that wasn’t how it worked.
“Have you seen Ada?” She peered around me like I was hiding the nanny. “I want to ask her to take us to camp tomorrow.”
I froze. “Your dad always takes you and the twins.”
“Yeah, well, things change.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I want Ada to take us.”
“No. Your dad is downstairs beating himself up because you made him feel like a bad father today. He loves you and you know it. You can’t take away tomorrow, too.” I shook my head at her, frustrated that she was so taken with the nanny and so quick to dump on Joe. “Seriously, Kendall, what’s gotten into you?”
Her eyes flooded with tears and she glared at me, the same glare I’d gotten from Joe minutes earlier. “You don’t get it. You’re the same as him. All of you are. You’d rather work than take care of your kids. You probably can’t even tell the twins apart.”
I didn’t even get past the initial pain from her words before she’d slammed the door in my face. The anger didn’t hit until I was in the shower, roughly scrubbing my body. I knew my kids. I was the only parent willing to be a parent to them. Their mother had taken off to California after the divorce to be an actress and she barely saw them. I took care of them. I made sure they could do to the expensive summer camps and schools and I made sure they had everything they could ever want.
The depression had struck by the time I was going back downstairs to work. Alex and Avery’s faces had been a clear indicator that they didn’t know how to act around me. When we’d gotten locked in, they’d just stared at me and then at each other. They’d seemed nervous. It was gut wrenching to think that my kids were nervous to spend time with me.
I took a detour and went by their room, the one they insisted on sharing, despite the plethora of rooms available in the home. I listened outside for the sound of games or talking but it was silent. Opening the door as silently as I could, I peered inside and saw they were asleep in their beds with a nightlight on between them. It cast the constellations around the room and I watched as a shooting star danced across Alex’s face.
I left feeling like a piece of shit.
23
***Ada***
IbalancedMiloonmy hip and thanked the woman who’d stopped to hold the coffee shop door open for me. The inside of the expensive cafe Jules had picked for our coffee date was quiet and so minimalist that I wanted to take Milo and the bag of toys I’d brought for him and run. Before I could, though, I spotted Jules at a small table near the back.
She lifted her hand in a wave and smiled when I reached her. “You brought work!”
I laughed and settled Milo on a chair next to me before pulling out a few toys he was in love with that day. There was a truck, a doll with pink hair that must’ve been one of Kendall’s old toys, and a rock he called Harry. “I did. The older kids started summer camp and it’s just me and Milo during the day. Are your kids at camp?”
She nodded. “Of course. These rich lake people wouldn’t be rich lake people if they didn’t send their kids to all these specialized day camps all summer long. One of my kids is at a day camp being run by an actual astronaut. Can you believe that?”
I smiled and shook my head. “It’s a lot different from how I was raised. I didn’t even know it was happening until I woke up on Monday and the kids were dressed and ready to go. Let me tell you, being a nanny has shown me that I’m going to need a giant calendar when I’m a mom. I forget so much and there’s so much I just don’t know. It’s painful.”
