“Hi,” Candace says, and her eyes go to me and then back to Miranda. “I was just trying to save dinner, and then I’ll be on my way,” she says, handing me Ari and then turning around. I stand here, confused by what is going on. What is going on?
“You know I could write it down, and you two can do it together.” She avoids looking at me.
“That would be great,” Miranda says, and I just look over at her. She puts the bags on the counter and then smiles at me.
“What’s going on?” I ask them, not expecting anyone to actually answer me.
“I thought we could have dinner,” Miranda says, looking at me, and I’m just in shock.
“Actually,” Candace says. “I’m going to text you the recipe.” She starts to walk out of the room. “Have a great night,” she says and avoids looking at me as she practically runs out of the kitchen. I stand here, not sure what to do or say. When Miranda comes closer, I see that she’s wearing a shirt you can almost see through and a skirt that is a bit short.
“Hey, pretty girl,” she says, touching Ari’s cheek, and I move her away from the touch.
“Candace.” Walking away from Miranda, I rush out as the sound of the front door slamming fills the silent hallway. “Candace!” I call her name again, and when she turns around, I can see that there was a tear on her face.
“Listen.” She shakes her head. “I shouldn’t have come or thought or did any of this,” she says. “I’ll send you the recipe in twenty minutes as soon as I get home.” The sound of her car doors being unlocked makes my heart speed up faster at the thought of her leaving. Especially after I finally fucking got her here.
“Wait, why are you leaving?” I ask her.
“You are cooking for your date.” She points at the house, and I look at her and then back at the front door again.
“She’s the babysitter,” I say. “That’s the babysitter.”
“Well, the babysitter wants to have sex with you,” she says. I think of the way Miranda was asking me all sorts of questions this week and then staying later than she should have and brushing up against me.
“No,” I say, shocked, and then I close my eyes. “I do not want to have sex with her,” I say to Candace. “Oh my God, I don’t want anything to do with her like that.” I fumble the words, hoping she believes me and doesn’t think I’m just messing around with her.
“I just want her to watch Ari, and now I think I’m going to have to fire her.” I look from Ari to Candace and then back at my house. “Can you take her and go to the backyard while I go in and fire her?” She looks at me, not sure. “Candace, I swear on Ari that I never, ever wanted anything to do with her. She never even crossed my mind.” I speak the truth while leaving out that she’s the only person who has crossed my mind.
She reluctantly takes Ari from my arms and hugs her close to her chest. “Do you think I should go for a drive with her?” she asks, looking at the door. “Like, is she crazy?”
“I don’t know.” I run my hands through my hair. “I didn’t even know she felt this way.”
“Okay, how about I just go and buy some food?” she suggests and then sees my face. “Or I can go buy some new ingredients to make the shrimp.” She smiles for the first time since she walked out. “Don’t take this the wrong way”—she rolls her lips—“but I don’t think those shrimp are going to survive.”
I laugh, the tightness in my chest that had crept in when I saw her walking out is now gone. “What do you say, baby girl? Do you want to go for a drive with me?” She walks to her car and then looks at me. “I don’t have the right car seat.”
I walk to the garage and press the code numbers, the door slowly opening and I pray that Miranda doesn’t come to the door to see. I grab the set of spare keys and walk over to her. “Take my car,” I say. “There is an emergency diaper bag in there, but there is no bottle.”
“I’ll get some if she gets hungry. I should only be gone for thirty minutes.” She walks over to the car and buckles her in with ease, then she climbs in the truck and lowers the window. “Will you text me a code?” I look at her, confused. “To tell me you’re still alive and she didn’t kill a rabbit or something.”
Fuck, she’s stunning and funny, and all I want to do is sit with her and talk. I want to know what she’s done for the past ten days. Did she go out on a date? I mean, not that I have a say in it, but did she? “I’ll call you the minute she leaves.”
“We should have a code word,” she says, and I think she’s joking, but from her face, I know she isn’t. “What color is the brown bear?” She looks at me. “The answer is.”
“Brown,” I answer her.
“No!” she shrieks out. “The color is purple. That will be a trick.”
“Good God,” I mumble.
“I saw it on a Dateline episode.” I have so many questions now. “So when you call, if you don’t say purple, I’m calling in the SWAT team.”
“We are going to have so much to talk about when you come back,” I say, shaking my head. “So much.”
“Whatever.” She rolls her eyes. “You’ll thank me if you are being held against your will.” She closes the window, and I watch her drive away and then brace myself for what I’m walking into.
Stepping inside the door, I smell cooking, and when I walk into the kitchen, I suddenly feel better about having a code word. With music playing, Miranda stands in the middle of the kitchen, cutting a red pepper, and a frying pan behind her on the stove is sizzling. “Oh, good, you’re back. I was making a stir-fry,” she says, looking at me with a huge smile on her face.
“Um, Miranda,” I say to her. “I think we need to talk.” She looks up at me. “I don’t know what is going on.” I stay on my side of the counter. “But if I somehow said something or did something for you to think that . . .” I use my fingers, and she puts down the knife, shock on her face.
“But you told me you like having me around,” she says almost in a whisper.
“Well, I like having you around to take care of Ariella. I’m happy you take good care of her,” I start to say. “I am happy that she doesn’t cry with you, and that she’s okay.”
“But you smile at me all the time,” she says, walking around to my side of the counter. “And you said you’d like to have me around more.”
“I said that I might spend more time training so you can be around more.” I repeat the exact words I told her three days ago. “Only because Ari was coping well, not because—”
“Is it because of her?” she asks, pointing at the hallway where Candace walked out of. “She’s young, and well, she doesn’t look like she’s your type. She looks like one of those puck bunnies that you see all over these hockey players.”
“Okay,” I say, putting up my hand. “I think you need to stop right there. Number one, you don’t know me or what my type is.” My anger starts to get a hold of me, not because of what she said but because of how she just described Candace. “And number two, you’re fired.”
“What?” she asks, shocked. “How can you fire me?”
“Well, considering that you came into my house uninvited and threw yourself at me, I’m going to say that it’s better for us to part ways now,” I say. “Plus, just for clarification, it didn’t matter who else I was interested in. This”—I point at her and then to me—“would never happen. I wanted you to take care of my daughter, and that’s it.”
“I have never ever been fired before.” She glares at me, walking closer to me. “Ever,” she hisses. “And it’s all your fault.” She yanks her bag from the table and then looks back at me angrily. “Don’t even think about calling me and begging me to come back because the answer is going to be no.” Her voice rises now. “It’ll be a fucking NO!” she yells and storms out of the house, the front door slamming after her.
I stand here in shock and then look around. The pot on the stove is starting to sizzle, and the smell of burning food fills the air. Walking over, I see that she was frying stuff, but i
t’s now sizzling and black, so I take it to the sink and turn on the water. The sound of hissing fills the room along with a huge cloud of smoke. I dump the pan in the sink and then go to my phone and dial Candace, who answers right away.
“Hey.” I sit on the couch.
“I just paid for the food, and I’m walking out. What color is the brown bear?” she asks, and I can tell that she is rushing to the car.
I want to laugh, but I know that if it were me, I’d be worried, too. “Purple.”
“I’m not going to lie,” she says, now quietly. “I almost called 911 anyway.”
“Are you on your way?” I ask, my voice serious. I’m not sure that sounded good or not, but I know I want to say things, and I’ve learned that time is something you can’t control. “We need to talk.”
Chapter 19
Candace
The way he says we need to talk, I don’t question him. I’m actually too afraid to question him. The whole thing with Miranda threw me for a loop, especially when she showed up in some skank clothes. And trust me, she was all skank.
“Are you ready, baby girl?” I ask her when I buckle her into her car seat as she smiles at me. Kicking her feet, she’s babbling about I don’t know what. “Is that so?” I kiss her before I close the door and get into the truck to make my way back over to Ralph’s house.
The minute I park the truck, I look around to make sure Miranda isn’t lurking in the trees anywhere or hiding in some bushes. I don’t have to wait long before the garage door opens, and Ralph comes out. He walks toward the truck, opening my door first and then opening the back door and grabbing Ariella.
“Did you have a good time?” he asks Ari, kissing her neck. “You smell like Candace,” he says. She’s babbling, and I try to control the way my heart is beating. This whole thing is uncharted territory, and I don’t know how to navigate.
“Are you okay?” I ask him, getting out of the truck and closing the door. Walking to the back, I take out the bags as he waits for me.
“What did you buy?” he asks, looking at the bags in my hands.
“Well, I bought the stuff for tonight, plus I bought some things for Ariella,” I say, picking up the bag full of stuff for her. “I had to waste time.” I shrug and walk with him inside the house.
He opens the door for me, and I notice the burnt smell right away. “What happened?”
He puts Ariella in the high chair that he must have just got because I didn’t see it before. “When I came in, she was cooking stir-fry.” I stand here with my mouth open in shock, and he chuckles. “I know. She had a knife in her hand.”
“Ralph,” I say his name, and put my hands down on the counter. “I’m going to say this the best way I can.” He looks at me, waiting. “Bitches be crazy.” He throws his head back and laughs, then Ari copies him while putting her hands together. “I’m not kidding, Ralph.”
He walks over to me and puts his hands on my arms, and my eyes drop to where his hands are on me. “I promise you I kept a safe distance.” I look up at him, and I get lost in his eyes. “Needless to say, we got some wires crossed, and I fired her,” he says softly, and I wonder what it would be like to hug him, to put my arms around his waist and lay my head on his chest.
His hands drop from my arms, but the tingling he left from his touch remains.
“Now, what did you buy?” he asks, walking over to the two bags that I brought in. “What the hell is this?”
“It’s a jolly jumper,” I say, walking over to him and grabbing the thing from his hand. “Zoey loved hers.” I put it together in no time, and then he just looks at it. I walk over to Ari and take her out. “Are you ready to bounce?” I ask her. She just looks at me as I put her in it, and then she bounces. Sitting on my knees in front of her, I clap my hands as she bounces and then look over at Ralph as he just stares at us. “Is everything okay?”
He looks at me and then looks at Ari and then back to me. “I’m going to order pizza.”
“I thought you said you wanted shrimp scampi,” I say. Getting up, I look at him and then the other bags. “I can have it done in twenty minutes,” I say. “Go give her a bath, and by the time you come back, I’ll be all done.”
He stands there for a minute more, looking at me and then at Ari, who starts to whine. “Fine,” he says, taking Ari out. “Then we can talk.”
“Sounds good,” I say. He nods and walks out of the room. I start to clean the room after I put the pasta on. By the time he comes back some twenty minutes later, the water is ready for the pasta, and I have just placed everything in the dishwasher. “Holy shit,” he says, looking around. “When I left, this was like an explosion.”
With a laugh, I look at Ari, who is freshly washed and her hair is combed over to the side. She smiles when she sees me as he walks over and gets her bottle ready. “She has to be the best looking baby,” I say when I walk next to her, and she throws herself at me. I take her in my arms, and she lays her head on my shoulder. “She smells so good.”
“It’s lavender,” he says, getting the bottle prepared. “It’s supposed to help her sleep, so I put it in the bath with her, and then I rub it all over her.” I kiss her cheek, and when he finishes the bottle, he holds it up to show her. Ari looks up, and she goes back to her father.
“Good night, baby girl,” I say, rubbing her back. “How long does it take her to fall asleep?”
“I usually read her a book while she has her bottle,” he says, and my heart just bursts open. “Maybe twenty minutes.”
“Okay.” I smile at him. “I’ll keep the water low and then put it on when you come out.”
“I didn’t get to see how you prepare it,” he says, and I laugh.
“I wrote it down for you.” I walk over to the paper that I had started.
“Or you can just come over and cook it for me,” he says with a smirk, turning and walking out of the room.
Was he flirting with me? I look at his retreating back. “Don’t go there,” I say to myself. “Don’t think too much into it.” I grab my phone and make a couple of notes about things to do once I get home, and when I hear him walking into the room, I look up at him. “Is she out?”
“She is,” he says, putting the bottle in the sink. “It smells amazing.”
“I know.” I smirk as I walk to the stove and put the pasta in the boiling water. It’s been boiling for the past four minutes. “How long is she out for?”
“It’s Russian roulette.” He laughs, leaning back on the counter as he watches me stir the pasta. “It could be a ten-minute catnap, or it could be a seven-hour stretch.”
“If she gets up, I can get her,” I say, “so you can eat.”
“I have so much shit to do,” he says, and I look over my shoulder at him.
“Can I help?” The words are out of my mouth before I realize it.
“I mean, unless you know a babysitter.” He rubs his hands over his face.
“I could help out for a bit if you want.” What are you doing? The left side of my brain asks the right side.
“I couldn’t do that to you,” he says, taking a deep breath. “We need to discuss something,” he says. My heart skips a beat, and my hands suddenly start to shake, and I don’t know why. “Jesus,” he says. Putting his hand on the counter, he flexes his arm, and his T-shirt stretches so tight across his chest that I can see the definition of his pecs. “I don’t even know how to start this.”
“Well,” I say softly, looking back at the pasta. “I have been told that you should just say it like you’re ripping off a Band-Aid.”
“Really?” he says, folding his arms over his chest. I can tell he’s nervous about something.
“Really,” I say to him, suddenly afraid of what he is going to say.
“Fine,” he finally says. I hold my breath, waiting for him to say the worst thing I can think of—that he doesn’t want me to come over anymore. “I want to fire you.” My mouth flies open. “But I know I need you.”
“Okay,�
� I say, not sure what to say. “Can I know why you want to fire me?”
“I need you to help me with social media. I need you to help me set up the foundation, and when I read the email you sent me two days ago, I was in awe. You just, you’re amazing,” he says, and the struggle on his face is real.
“So why would you want to fire me?” I ask him, my mouth suddenly dry, and the lump in my throat is forming. Tears sting my eyes, but I blink them away.
“Because,” he says softly, “I want to date you.”
The words hit me straight in the heart, and my mouth opens. “I know it’s stupid,” he says, pushing off the counter. “And you don’t have to say anything.” I try to say something, anything, but the words are all stuck in my throat. “And it’ll probably be super awkward now, so you can ignore what I just said.”
“Why?” I ask him, and he just looks at me.
“Why?” he asks me, confused. “Like why do I want to date you, or why do I want you to ignore it?”
“You said that you can’t date anyone,” I remind him of his words.
“Yeah.” He nods, and the stove beeps, telling me that the pasta is ready. I drain the pasta and then put the pot down because my hands are shaking. I’m so confused right now. “Well, for the past ten days, all I did was think of you,” he says. He then comes over to me and grabs me by my hand to pull me to the couch. I walk with him to the couch, his hand sending lightning bolts up my arm. “Sit.” He points at the couch, and I sit just because I don’t think my legs can hold me up much longer. He sits on the table in front of me, and we are face-to-face now. “I tried to tell myself that I couldn’t do it. I tried to tell myself that I couldn’t do it to you. That you deserved much better than a single father who literally feels like he is failing every single day. But . . .” He laughs now. “But then all I could do was think about kissing you.”
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