“I’m not a nanny,” I said.
But something made me go to the kitchen, grab a glass, and pour myself some wine. To lubricate the thinking machine, so to speak.
“You know Zoë, his daughter, you know him. He trusts you,” Simone said, shooting me a quick glance to see if I was paying attention.
I was.
“I mean, what are you going to do after you finish studying? Go waitressing?”
We both knew I was a terrible waitress. I was always messing up orders, talking to customers and getting crapped on by management. I had no idea what I would do. We needed to be out of the apartment within days and I couldn’t stay at my parents’ place. It was already crowded with my brothers, both of whom were back home again. Kevin was getting divorced and had the couch and he owned that sofa day and night, wailing about how awful life was to anyone who would listen. Sean was in the spare bedroom after dropping out of college two years ago. He was trying to save enough money for his own place but rent in New York was insane and despite my mom’s bitching about the laundry and the extra cooking, I suspected she liked having the boys home. Home was loud, untidy, and going back there was not an option.
“Shit, what am I going to do?”
“If you take the nanny job, you know you get a room at his place,” Simone says. “You should see his place, it’s amazing. Views all round, glass walls,” she whistled and shook her head, “Bro has money, as you know.”
It made sense.
I needed a job and a place to stay.
I knew Will too and I couldn’t imagine Zoë being that difficult to handle
“How old is she now?”
“Six, going to school.”
So, making breakfast, taking her to school, fetching her in the afternoons, how hard could it be?
But.
I’d been seeing myself in the canyon in Colorado, in tiny little shorts, getting a magnificent tan as Colorado Chuck came riding along on a stallion. He’d come up to me, tip his cowboy hat and smile a hero’s toothpaste grin and say something cheesy like, “Don’t you look fresher than a spring daisy in the desert.”
Of course, Colorado Chuck was really called Chuck Keenan, and he was the manager of Rustic Rockies. We’d met the previous summer when I spent a week working at the reception desk, learning about their systems, booking software, and mastering the invoicing. It had been indoors mostly, with air-conditioning and plenty of flattery, the kind that was far more invigorating than the actual cool air coming out of the vents.
Colorado Chuck was tall and tan, with a sweep of blonde hair that looked like he washed it with pure sand. I’d spent many a night over the past year imagining how I would get him out of those impossibly tight jeans of his and what he wore underneath them. If he wore anything at all.
I sighed.
This was not the time to be fantasizing about Colorado Chuck. I had to think about my future. It would have to be the single dad with the daughter for now.
“Do you have Will’s number?” I asked Simone, resigned to my fate.
“Sure thing,” she said and sent me the number right away.
I sent off a text to Will before I could change my mind and poured the rest of the bottle into my glass to drown my sorrows.
Chapter 2
Will
I am good with numbers.
Even better with computer code.
When it comes to stocks, assets and figuring out most financial instruments, I can work it out, no problem.
But when it comes to people, girls in particular, I am entirely clueless.
At work once, after a meeting with a group of financial advisers, the graphic designer had afterwards given me a nudge and winked at me.