Page 114 of Give & Take

Mac sighs, scrubbing his face with his hands. He looks down at a photo he’s got on his desk, of him and Shelby and Cal, at the grand reopening of the Rusty Dinghy last summer, after Shelby revamped the whole place. It’s a good photo. I know because I took it.

“You know,” he says, “I used to look at people who had their shit together—like, romantically—and think they were bullshitting. Isn’t that nuts?”

Now I frown. So it isn’t work.

“Truly, I thought people just met someone and felt okay about them and all that”—he waves his hands around—“fluffy shit was just something Hollywood made up. Or it was only in those books you and Chris read.”

Chris and I are both romance lovers, though Chris tends to read very different kinds than I do.

“I’m struggling to find your point,” I say. That would be mean with someone else, but not with Mac. Plus, my pulse is surging. Does he somehow know about me and Raph? We’ve kept things quiet. The last thing I need isrumors flying in Redbeard Cove that poor lonely single mom Lana Bloor is hooking up with her hot nanny.

“I’m getting to it,” he says. He slumps down in his chair and indicates I should do the same with another wave of his arm.

“Lana, we’ve always been honest with each other, right?”

My pulse ratchets higher. “I think so.” Does that mean he’s going to ask me about Raph? As my boss, it’s none of his business. As my friend…it’s also technically none of his business. But suddenly I wonder if he’s going to pull the big brother card. If he knows, and he’s going to scold me for what I’m doing.

The feeling of shame starts to crawl over me, one Raph and I have talked about late at night over the phone as we lay only a few feet from each other in our respective rooms. I’ve told him I can’t shake the feeling of being ashamed for hooking up with my much younger nanny, and he’s told me that’s just societal expectations being laid on me. “We’re both adults, remember?” he keeps reminding me. “And you haven’t taken advantage of me. If anything, I came on to you. Hard.”

He’s right, about all of it, and I’ve just started believing him.

But seeing Mac scrubbing his forehead with his hands, I’m having a hard time holding steady.

“Just spit it out, Mac!” I say.

He lowers his hands. “Okay, fine. Listen, your personal life is none of my business,” he begins.

Oh no.

“But I need to tell you that in all the years I’ve knownyou…” he sighs. “I’ve always known you were too good for this place. Everyone knows it. We’re just surprised you lasted this long.”

“Mac, I told you I’m not leaving?—”

“Stop. You are. You just don’t know it yet.”

I gape, slightly irritated. Slightly shell-shocked. “Mac, I don’t have any plans.”

“Shelby told me she saw your nanny checking out that storefront over on Second Street. Not just a casual look, either. He was with Ida Clark.”

For a moment, these words don’t assemble themselves properly in my mind. “Wait, say that again?”

Mac frowns. “You didn’t know?”

“No I didn’t know! What the fuck, Mac?”

“Is Raphael staying in town?”

“No!” I practically squawk. It was way too loud. I can tell by the way Mac’s mouth has drawn into a line. He studies me for a moment.

“He’s going back to California at the end of the summer,” I say when he doesn’t say anything. “He’s got a PhD to finish. An apartment, a job. He’s…he’s not staying.”

My insides seem to warp at those words. It’s the first time I’ve said them to someone besides myself and Raph, and that was before any of this started happening. But they’re the truth. Raph and I have just avoided talking about the elephant in the room, because when we have, he says insane things like ‘none of that matters,’ and ‘I’ll quit,’ like dropping an advanced degree is just a normal, fine thingto do.

“Listen, Lana. If you’re worried I’m going to judge you about whatever’s going on between you two I?—”

“What makes you think anything’s going on?”

Mac sighs heavily. “You know you sound like my son right now. Denying he has a girlfriend when I hear him giggling in his room over the phone at night. Giggling! It’s all over his face, too.”

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