Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 137077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 685(@200wpm)___ 548(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 685(@200wpm)___ 548(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
“That reminds me, Ms. Flanders wanted to make sure you’re chaperoning the Fall Ball again this year.” I give Cameron a doe-eyed look of pure innocence, like I have no idea why my words would make his cheek twitch.
“Oh, yeah!” Grace shouts. “You’re gonna come, right?”
If looks could kill, I’d be a dead woman. The Clue cards would read: Murder by glare, in the kitchen, by Cameron Harrington.
But I’m grinning as I scoop another spoonful of mac and cheese onto Grace’s plate.
Turnabout is fair play, after all.
“Yeah, you absolutely have to go. Ms. Flanders said to save her a dance. You do dance, right?” I haven’t forgotten that Grace reminded Ms. Flanders that he always attends but never steps onto the dance floor. In fact, that’s probably why I’m twisting this particular screw.
“Of course he does,” Grace informs me, countering her previous declaration and speaking for her father who is now glowering at me.
I wouldn’t have thought there could be this many degrees of fire in one man’s look, but Cameron’s got an entire scale that goes from frown to scowl to glare to glower. I wonder what comes after that? It might become my new mission to find out.
CAMERON
How was I living without a nanny? More specifically, without Riley? Not well, I remind myself as I step into the kitchen.
It was only last week that I showed Riley how I make my morning shake, and yet here it sits, waiting for me. Grace’s pancakes, with whipped cream from a can and a sprinkle of both cinnamon-sugar and pumpkin pie spice, are waiting at one of the island stools. And Riley is humming as she flits around the room. She’s constantly moving, never stopping and always accompanied by a jangling of her bracelets, like she’s music in motion. Her movements look totally random until I realize she’s packing Grace’s lunch, getting a container from the cabinet, something from the pantry, and then digging in the fridge for something else.
Oh, nope. The fridge pitstop was for a cheese stick, apparently, because she reappears with it already half in her mouth. It’s a snack habit she’s picked up from Grace, apparently. She swallows a bite—without even chewing, I think—and then says, “Vitamins. Shake. Briefcase.” She points at each item as if I might’ve forgotten where they are each morning, then calls up the stairs, “Ten-minute warning.”
“Coming!” I hear Grace shout back.
Riley has quickly become integral to keeping our household on track and I can only now see how much we were floundering before. Not only when I was doing it, but with the last several nannies, who were nowhere near as efficient, skilled, and personable as Riley is.
I don’t like to admit when I’m wrong, and considering it happens so rarely, I don’t have much experience with it, but there’s a fair chance I made a mistake thinking Riley wouldn’t be suited for Grace and me. She’s jumped in seamlessly, and I’m already feeling a vast sense of relief at having her here.
“What are you up to today?” I ask her. I’d like to say it’s out of politeness, but the truth is, I find her lack of a schedule and planning completely foreign and am intrigued by the way she floats from one thing to the next unsystematically, yet always arriving exactly where and when she’s supposed to be somewhere and with everything she’s supposed to have done completed. It makes no logical sense.
Yesterday, she actually told me that she was going to walk around downtown and see where her mood took her. I tried to give her some suggestions for restaurants and stores she might be interested in, but she’d stopped me by literally holding up her palm toward my face, saying she wanted to explore without a destination in mind.
What type of insanity is that? It legitimately made my brain hurt and a tiny part of me had worried all afternoon that she’d been kidnapped from some back alley she strolled into to look at graffiti. And that’s not speculation. She actually said that she likes to appreciate the art of the city. I’d suggested she visit a museum and even offered to call Luna, my sister-in-law who is an actual art genius in her own right and also manages a huge collection for a wealthy collector. Riley said she appreciated the offer but that she’d wanted to simply wander.
And somehow, she did find stuff she liked, with pictures to prove it, yet she still picked up Grace from school on time. Last night at dinner, Grace had been utterly captivated by Riley’s photos of storefront window displays, the changing colors of the trees, and yes, a few spray-painted murals—some official and some… not.
Truthfully, I’d been equally captivated, but mostly by Riley’s approach to a day in the city. It was definitely an experience I’ve never had, though I’ve spent considerable time downtown. The difference is that I was on my way to meetings or client lunches, whereas Riley was wandering aimlessly.