Page 163 of The Overtime Kiss

My brow furrows. “Are you joining us?”

She shakes her head. “I need to…” She stops, like she’s collecting her thoughts briefly, then says, “tend to some things downstairs.”

Okay.“But you usually do…join us,” I point out, and really, I hope she will every night. I hope these dinners become our norm—us doing all this together.

“Right, but I don’t want to intrude,” she says, brightly, as if she’s doing us a favor. “You should have your family time.”

Her words are a gut punch. But…have I been assuming too much?

Is this too much for her? Too presumptuous of me? I look around at my kids. They’re the loves of my life, but that doesn’t mean she wants to have dinner with them every night. Or take them to school every morning. Or help them with homework. Or have their schedule be her schedule.

It’s one thing to do it as the paid nanny. It’s entirely another for me to ask her to take on…being the girlfriend of a busy single dad with a complicated schedule.

Just because we’re into each other doesn’t necessarily mean she’ll want to have every meal together.

Hang out with us in the kitchen, the living room, the car.

Do things together whenever I’m home and not playing hockey.

My pulse spikes annoyingly. I got far out on my skis, didn’t I?

Just because she’s great with my kids as the nanny doesn’t mean she’ll want to become an instant family.

Shit. My chest tightens.

They’re my kids, not hers, and it’s not fair to think she’d want to jump from taking care of them for a season while she’s paid to being saddled with…us.As what—the twenty-six-year-old girlfriend to a single dad who travels half the year?

Fuck. I need to think this through. See my brother, sister, and my mom. Figure out my life.

But manners are manners, so I roll my shoulders and shove those thoughts away. I gesture to the dishes. “You made plenty of food though. But you can take a plate downstairs if you’d prefer,” I say.

Sabrina’s expression falters. Hurt flashes briefly in her blue eyes. And…that was probably the wrong thing to say.

I shake my head. “I didn’t?—”

“Don’t leave yet, Sabrina,” Luna jumps in. “We want to do the presentation first.”

“Yeah, we worked on it together,” Parker says. “Can you stay for it?”

Parker sounds so desperate, and it must work on Sabrina, since she says, “Of course I can.”

She takes off her apron, wipes her hands, but still doesn’t sit. “Let’s hear it,” she says, and I guess it’s time for a PowerPoint now.

Sabrina stands on the other side of the island, across from the kids and me.

Parker swipes the tablet, opening a PowerPoint that saysOur Big Plan. He clicks to a picture of…us doing face masks. “Let’s start with Exhibit A.”

“Yes, Parker, excellent idea,” Luna says, adopting an adulting tone. “We call this…the beginning. See how much fun we had?”

They wait for a response, so I nod and say, “Yes.”

Sabrina doesn’t say a word.

“And here is Exhibit B,” Parker says, clicking to the next slide.

A photo of the four of us from last night. I’d fallen asleep and Luna looks to be taking a selfie of her, Parker, and Sabrina with me and my carrot nose. I couldn’t be dadding any harder.

“And this was the best,” Luna says, “wasn’t it? But then there was…this.” She clicks to the next one.

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