by Nikky Kaye
“Emma!” I spun around to face her. I couldn’t stand the idea of watching her walk away from our home. It took everything inside me to blurt out, “I need you.”
“For what, Zach?” Her voice rose with frustration as she turned back again. “An easy lay? A good cook and babysitter?”
“No!” She wasn’t any of those things. No, wait, she was a good cook and babysitter, but damned if I would let her put words in my mouth that I didn’t say. I strode ahead to where she stood on the front walk, but she held up a palm to stop me.
“Then what am I to you?” she demanded again. “If I fall, are you willing to catch me? Are you willing to make this be more than just stolen moments when Payton’s asleep? Are you willing to make it real between us, for all of us? Because—call me a fool—I am. I want it to be real. I want you, Zachary Pennington, more than I ever wanted anyone my whole life.”
“Then why won’t you stay?”
“Because I know what it feels like when the other person doesn’t want you. I’ve felt that way for a majority of my life, Zach, transferring from foster home to foster home. No matter how hard I tried to make them like me so I could stay, no one did.”
“But I’m different. Payton and I, we could be home to you. You would be safe, happy, not have to work too hard—”
Something flashed in Emma’s eyes. “I’m not a puppy, Zach.” She sighed, tucking in a stray strand of hair. “Tell me why I should stay. Just give me one good reason and I would.”
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t say a damn thing. I wanted to tell her I love her and that it was all the reason she needed, but for some reason I just stood there like an idiot.
“Maybe you’ve taken too many hits to the head,” Emma muttered, closing her eyes briefly and frowning.
“What?”
Then she inhaled deeply, placed a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it lightly. “I hope you continue being the father that you’re being to Payton, Zach. She needs it. So do you,” she added softly. Her fingertips landed on my lips so briefly I wondered if maybe I’d imagined it.
She’d made it to the Uber that I hadn’t noticed waiting for her when I managed to call out her name again. Without responding, she loaded her bags in the trunk.
“Emma!”
She had the back door open and was about to get in. She was really going to leave. I couldn’t believe it.
“Give me a chance,” I pleaded.
She raised her head to look me in the eye. “I just gave you…” She threw up her hands. “God, I don’t know how many chances!”
“But—”
“You know what, Zach? I deserve someone who can tell me why they want me and make it sound like more than a damn job description.”
And with those words, she swept into the car and slammed the door behind her.
Emma
I winced at the squeak of the door when I swung it open. It was like a little ‘welcome back’ to the dingy apartment I lived in before I was hired to be Payton’s nanny. It was lucky for me that the agency got Zach slash Anderson to agree to pay to retain it for the first six months.
Lucky… right. Maybe if I looked at it from a more optimistic perspective, it wouldn’t be so bad.
It wasn’t cramped, it was homey.
It wasn’t dingy and worn out, it had a funky, vintage vibe.
The hot water, heat and electricity weren’t unreliable, they were ideal for disconnecting and getting back to nature.
I had my doubts as to how I could spin the tree roots in the pipes as “sustainable plumbing,” though.
At least I had a new job already. The agency had told me about a few nanny positions, but I told them that I was burnt out of caregiving at the moment. Could they find me something… simpler?
So, now I was working at a drugstore, which was mind-numbingly boring and full of assholes every day, but at least it didn’t make me cry. It paid enough for me to afford the rent, my bills, and more or less three meals a day.
And like I said, it didn’t make me cry.
Anderson called me a few times. Even though he knew my quaint apartment had been retained, he still asked if I wanted to come live with him. I was sure he offered because we were friends, but I still felt like he felt bad for me.
That was what I hated most—pity. I hated it when people felt sorry for me. I was a survivor, not a charity case.
But calls with Anderson were a chance to ask about Payton and how she was doing. I was horrified to find out they had to shave part of her head to give her stitches. I could only imagine how she cried when she saw herself in the mirror, and my arms ached to hold her. She wasn’t fond of scars. She hated the gashes she had on her arms from the accident, told me that it reminded her too much of what she had lost.
I hoped that the scars on her forehead wouldn’t remind her of losing me now, too. That thought was like a knife twisting in my chest, not just because how I felt at losing her, but that she would feel any more heartbreak at my hands.
Sometimes I wondered: if only I was courageous enough, I would’ve stayed. I thought about it at night when I couldn’t sleep, but by the light of dawn I realized that Zach was the one who was the coward.
The more it percolated in my mind, the more convinced I was that I was right.
All I’d wanted was the assurance and the confirmation that he felt something for me, too. I deserved that, and then some. I deserved a man who could tell me that he loved me, got down on his knees to worship me, list a hundred reasons why he needed me.
Okay, I’d settle for a dozen.
I was a coward in my own way, though. I couldn’t face Zach. He called me more often than Anderson had, but I let his calls go straight to voicemail and then afterwards listened to him struggle to leave me a message.
As I sank down onto the worn-out sofa that came with the apartment, I felt the springs poke my backside. A self-pitying sigh escaped me. I was back to the life that I was so sure I was ready to leave behind. When Zach hired me, I thought that maybe I could afford a new apartment, better furniture… and last longer than I had as Payton’s nanny.
Hell, I had teenage acne that lasted longer than my job as Payton’s nanny. And the scars from that weren’t nearly as bad.
But I just had to cross that line, didn’t I?
My phone vibrated in my back pocket and I dug it out. It was the assistant manager of the drugstore, asking if I could come in. Not having anything better to do, or feeling like I had much of a choice, I said I’d be there in forty minutes. I just had to hop in the shower and change into my last clean uniform.
The bus dropped me off at the drugstore thirty minutes later and I saw that the assistant manager was manning the cash register and that the handful of other employees were busy doing their jobs. I pasted on a smile and took over the check-out. Honestly, I was happy to take over and allow my mind to be preoccupied with scanning items and giving change.
Until a lull came.
When the last customer left and the store became silent, I began to restock the shelves. Open the box, empty the box. I was so lost in my robotic task that I jumped when I heard the door chime. I looked up to see a little girl walk in.
I must’ve been so tired that I was hallucinating but the little girl looked so much like Payton that I wanted to cry. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and swallowed the lump in my throat, and when I looked up again she’d disappeared around the corner, near the front counter.
My body aching, I straightened and walked back to the cash register, where she was looking up at the display screen. I tapped her shoulder gently and was ready to ask what it was that she needed or if she was lost.
When she turned around, I just about burst into tears.
“Mommy!”
It was really Payton. My eyes widened as she jumped into my arms. I caught her, picked her up and hugged her like she was my Mr. Doodley. She squealed with delight as her small arms wrapped around my neck.
I couldn’t believe it, but it was he
r. She was real and warm and in my arms. After only a week, I’d already missed her enough for a lifetime.
“Oh god, I’ve missed you, Pay.” I showered her with kisses as she giggled, holding onto me tightly.
Her bright eyes shone at me, the fluorescent light overhead blurring around her hair like a halo. “I missed you too. You shouldn’t have gone away,” she scolded me.
I wasn’t sure how to explain to her that “Daddy was an emotional scaredy-cat.”
“How have you been?” I asked her. I set her down and knelt before her. My arms steadied her as she leaned into me.
“I don’t like the stitches.”
I nodded, figuring as much.
“But I didn’t like you leaving even more.”
I smoothed her hair down and held her face gently with my hands. “I’m so sorry, Payton. I never wanted to leave you.” That was the honest truth.
“Why did you leave? You promised me you wouldn’t,” Payton said, her brown eyes holding the confusion and innocence that only a child could.
Please, twist the knife a little more, kid! “I don’t know. I was scared.” I stood, ashamed to admit that to her.
“Can you be not scared now?”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“Then make it,” she ordered me and then began to tug me toward the door. I stayed firmly where I stood.
“Sweetheart, I can’t just leave. I have work.”
“No, you don’t,” she said. “We’ve talked to them.”
I laughed. She sounded like a miniature mobster. Then I realized that I’d been so caught up in Payton that I hadn’t considered the fact that she couldn’t have come alone.
At the pharmacist’s counter, the rest of my co-workers were all back from their breaks and grinning at me. What was going on? Were they all a part of this?
Payton continued to tug at my arm and I finally relented, allowing her to drag me outside of the drugstore and to the parking lot. It was when we reached the parking lot that I saw Zach.
He stood in the middle of the lot, a bouquet in his hands. He looked like hell. He had bags under his eyes, and I thought I saw new lines carved into his tired face. It should have satisfied me on some level that he was in just as much pain as I was, but instead it just made everything hurt more.
“Hi,” he said softly as we neared him. He handed Payton the bouquet he was holding and stepped closer to me.
Instinctively I turned to Payton. She only moved six feet away from us, but I was suddenly scared that a car would come.
“Don’t worry,” Zach said. “Anderson’s here, too. He’s looking out for her to make sure she’s safe while we talk. I’d tell her to stay with Andy the whole time, but I know that she won’t.”
“What are you doing here, Zach?” I asked him.
He ran a hand through his hair, messing it up more than it already was. “I came here to talk, Emma. Beg, if I must.”
“For what?”
“For you to come back to us,” he answered quietly. “I meant what I said that Payton and I can be the home that you want, that you need.”
I closed my eyes. His words were sweeter than any honey and candy the world could offer but sometimes even the sweetest things in the world could turn bitter and rancid when expired. “What about Camille?”
“Camille’s gone. You’ve got it all wrong, Emma. We broke up. She’s the only one caught in a bubble that we’re still together. She thought if she came back, I’ll just take her back like we never ended it.”
“Didn’t you always?” I countered, remembering all of the articles I read online in an unfortunate fit of masochism.
Understanding flashed in Zach’s eyes and he took another step closer to me. “Camille never meant anything to me. She was an easy lay.”
“Wasn’t I, too?” I asked, the truth of my words like a sword to my own heart.
“Never.”
“I lived with you. I allowed myself to sleep with you and crossed the line. If you wanted to fuck me, I was willing to spread my legs for you because I was so stupid thinking that it could turn into something more. I was already stupid enough to have sex with you, I was even dumber to allow myself to fall in love with you. What was I thinking?”
Zach’s eyebrows furrowed and he reached out to gently touch my face, then he said, “Do you think you’re stupid to have fallen in love with your boss?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Then I guess we’re in the same boat. I’m stupid for falling in love with my niece’s nanny, but we can’t stop our hearts from what they want, can we?”
I took a step back and stared at him, his words ricocheting in my brain and to my heart. “What?”
Zach smiled sheepishly. “See, I’ve never fallen in love, Emma. I never allowed myself to. I was content with being a bachelor, because it was easier than getting hurt. When I lost my parents, Dean and Maggie—and Payton—became my only family. Then I just had Payton. I convinced myself that if I allowed myself to fall in love with you, chances were that I’d end up losing you, too.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but Zach shushed me with a finger on my lips. He gave me a crooked smile, the same one that made my heart melt in a puddle. Damn him for being my weakness. He was worse than chocolate.
“But no matter how we shield our hearts,” he continued, “it still wants what it wants, and we can’t fight that, can we?”
“Are you…?”
He chuckled and pressed his lips against my forehead gently. His brown eyes were bright with delight and I could no longer see how tired he was. “I was a mess when you left. I had to nurse a broken heart and I had to nurse an even more broken little girl. And you know, I’m no cardiologist.”
I guess that explained why he looked so exhausted. “Zach, what are you trying to say?”
“What I’m trying to say is that I love you, Emma.”
“Oh.”
“You wanted me to give you a reason. After you left, it was all I could think about. I must have written down about a hundred reasons.”
I lifted an eyebrow.
“Okay, maybe about twenty. Payton helped me brainstorm,” he added.
“But there’s only one that really counts, and that’s why I think you should stay. Or, come back.” he told me, his voice soothing and quiet to my ears.
His voice was quiet, soothing to my ears, and I leaned into him without thinking. His mouth pressed against my temple.
“I’m not good with words, Emma. I’m better with actions.”
“You could use practice with both, I’d say,” I muttered.
He chuckled. “I never told anyone I loved them before, so I didn’t know what I was supposed to say.”
I reared back to stare at him. My heart was racing, beating a mile per minute and I wanted to replay his words over and over in my head. “Huh?” Now I was the one who was speechless.
Zach laughed. “You know what? You’re absolutely right. I need more practice.”
He placed both of his hands on my face and then crashed his mouth against me. His lips were soft and tender against mine, cautious and waiting for my response. But I could feel it, I could feel the words that he didn’t know how to say. His lips might not form the words that I needed to hear but they did perfectly well on letting me feel what he meant.
I kissed him back once everything finally sank in.
I was sure that the two of us stood there, kissing each other in the middle of the parking lot as the sun sank down, kissing the world goodbye for a few hours… just like how Zach and I were kissing each other but not goodbye. No, this was a beginning, another new chapter that the both of us had never thought we could open.
We pulled apart and he leaned forward to rest his forehead against mine, as though he couldn’t truly part from me. I looked into Zach’s eyes, swirls of brown bright with delight and happiness and love.
So much love.
More love than I’ve ever felt in my entire life. I could feel
myself melting at the weight of it all.
“I love you,” Zach said, his voice firm and he said it with such finality.
I wanted to say it back, to answer him with the same intensity. But there was one more thing that I needed to know. “What if you get tired of me?”
Zach smiled and tilted his head to look at me. “See, that’s another thing about Penningtons that maybe I didn’t tell you. My dad and brother, they only fell in love once and they married the girl.”
His eyebrows waggled and I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. I pushed him away playfully.
Of course, I’d dreamed of marrying the love of my life one day. Today, I felt as though that dream could become reality. And what I felt for Zach… it was one of the most real and honest things I’d felt in my entire life.
“I love you,” I finally said, sinking into his body and soul. I touched his face. “I am so very in love with you, Zach Pennington.”
He kissed me gently on the forehead. “That’s good because you’re stuck with me for a very long time, Miss Emma Smith.”
If someone told me last year that I would fall in love with my boss, I would have laughed in their face and told him that it would never happen. Real life didn’t turn out that way.
But I did. It did happen and I guess that’s the thing about life. Just because you don’t have a beautiful backstory, doesn’t mean you can’t have a happy ending. In fact, you might get something even better.
“Mommy!” I heard Payton scream and Zach and I pulled apart to watch her race toward us.
“No running in the parking lot!” we both yelled.
She almost fell over her own feet as she rocked to a halt. Her face fell, and I knew that she had been waiting for the moment she was close enough to jump into our arms.
“C’mere, Pay.”
She walked to us slowly and cautiously. Zach snorted and I elbowed him in the stomach. “Don’t laugh at her.”
When she reached us, we had a big group hug. “You know, I think it’s better taking it slow,” she said.