Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76381 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76381 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
“He cooks?” Daph asked Sabrina. “You cook?” she asked, following me into the kitchen to sit at the counter, eating her cereal as she watched me.
“Some basic shit. Anyone can make eggs and…” I said, looking through their fridge and freezer. “Sausage.”
“There’s English muffins too,” Daph said. “Breakfast sandwiches.”
“Sounds like a plan. Do you like cheese on yours?”
“And ketchup,” she said, taking her bowl to the sink. “I’m getting the shower first.”
“Please leave some hot water for us,” Sabrina called after her as she rushed to the bathroom. “She won’t. I hope you can tolerate lukewarm showers,” she said, making her way to the coffee pot to get it going.
“That’s fine by me. How’d you sleep?”
“Well, actually,” she admitted, shooting me a saucy smile. “You?”
“Not bad,” I said, surprised.
“Even with your leg hanging off the couch?”
“Eh, curled up on my side, fit just fine. You guys like eggs fried well or runny?” I asked, watching Sabrina do a full-body shiver. “What?”
“Fried. All the way. Daphne and I both have a little trauma from the time we went out for breakfast and she got eggs over easy. The eggs must have been funky or something. She was feeling crappy. But we got stuck in traffic. She ended up throwing up all over both of us and the car. I, ah, I respond to throw up by… throwing up myself. It was… incredibly traumatizing for the both of us. We still haven’t fully recovered.”
“Fried all the way it is,” I said. “So, when Daph gets a stomach bug…”
“I get sympathy stomach bug. It’s a whole thing. Imagine how her first year went,” she said. At my blank look, she sucked in a steadying breath. “Babies… spit up. But spit up is really just, you know, baby throw up. And it happens constantly.”
“Geez.”
“I had to do a self-hypnosis video I found online to get through it. So what’s your thing?”
“My thing?” I asked.
“You know, the thing that really grosses you out. I mean, I could handle diapers all day and night, no problem. But the spit up was my thing. What’s your thing?”
“I lived with a shitton of men practically my whole life. My tolerance for gross is pretty top-tier. But I can’t fucking stand the taste of nutmeg. I can taste it in any baked good. Always ruins it for me.”
“That is good to know since I still owe you cookies.”
With that, she made us coffee as I got breakfast together and Daphne spent twenty minutes in the shower, even though she couldn’t even wash her hair, then another fifteen putting some makeup on and getting dressed.
She ate like a starving man, plowing through two breakfast sandwiches even after her cereal.
Eventually, Sabrina took her turn in the shower.
And I had a total of ten minutes to take mine and get dressed before we had to head out, leaving a sink full of dishes I felt guilty about.
It had been a long time since I’d been working on anyone’s schedule but mine. I was going to have to learn to adjust to the girls’ one. And be okay with leaving the place a mess on the way out.
The twins were already at the school when we arrived. But Sabrina and I sat and watched to make sure Daphne got inside with no issues before we headed off to the hotel for her workday.
“Alright. You know the drill,” I said as we parked.
“I try to stay around other people at all times. And somewhere that you can see me as much as possible.”
With that, we made our way into the building.
Sabrina had a morning staff meeting with the maids, so I went ahead with my plan.
Going to the desk.
And actually getting myself a room.
I waited it out, watching Sabrina go through the process of her job. It was a different Sabrina than the one I knew, than she was to her daughter. It was interesting to see her wearing her professional persona the way she wore her professional clothes. Something she wore with confidence, then easily stripped out of as soon as she was off the clock.
Then, when it looked like her overbearing boss was going to make her work through lunch, I went ahead up to my room, calling down to the desk to ask to speak to the maid who worked on my room’s manager.
Then waited just inside the door until Sabrina knocked.
Then whipped open the door and pulled her inside.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Sabrina
It was just like a happy little family that morning.
I’d never had the pleasure of seeing a man first thing in the morning. Let alone one in my kitchen making breakfast for me and my daughter.
Maybe it wasn’t smart to be playing house like that, giving Daphne hopes of a future that might not be in the cards for us.
But, I reminded myself, she was mostly grown now. She would roll with the punches if things didn’t work out with me and Callow.