Page 94 of The Nanny and the Nerd
“You’ll see,” he answered, looking more and more pleased with himself by the second when Phoebe returned and handed her a drawing.
“It’s you and me and Uncle Row and Jerome and David. David is Jerome’s husband,” Phoebe explained without explaining anything.
Penny stared at the picture. “Yes, I see that. And we’re on a boat,” she answered as Rowen and Phoebe watched her.
Penny’s gaze ping-ponged between Phoebe’s attire and the image of the people holding hands surrounded by the big blue ocean. “Is this your reward trip, Phoebe?” she asked, amazed they’d kept it from her. It couldn’t be anything else.
Grinning ear to ear, Phoebe pointed to her foot and tapped it twice.
Butthole?
Penny’s jaw dropped. At least the kid didn’t say the word out loud.
“Phoebe, that’s not a nice thing to call Penelope,” Rowen chided.
“No, Uncle Row! The two syllables I tapped out are for the wordsur-prise! I wanted to surprise you, Penny,” Phoebe continued, jumping up and down. “We get to ride all over the ocean in Uncle Row’s super-humongous boat! There’s a pool, and jet skis, and a whole bunch of people who bring us food and are nice and smiley! Are you surprised, Penny?”
Rowen tapped Phoebe’s shoulder. “We, Phoebe. You and I wanted to surprise Penelope with the trip, remember? The two of us,” he corrected, and Penny’s happily-ever-after-loving, sappy writer’s heart skipped a beat.
Her real-life AI-77, part-robot, part-sex machine, and his adorable niece planned this surprise—for her. With all the beats her heart was skipping, she’d be lucky to remain upright for much longer.
“Yes!” Phoebe exclaimed, bubbling with excitement. “Uncle Row wanted to surprise you a lot, a lot, a lot! So, are you, Penny? Are you surprised?”
Penny blinked back tears, then pressed her hand to her chest. This might be the craziest thing anyone had ever done for her. Sure, she and her girls were great at celebrating their achievements and birthdays and five-dollar pitchers of margaritas. What’s not to celebrate when the booze is cheap? But this—Rowen including her in Phoebe’s celebration made her feel like a part of them. Like a, dare she even think it, a family?
“I am,” she answered, holding back the flood of emotions. This was everything. This life they’d created, this beautiful, strange new normal, couldn’t only last for sixty days.
Or could it?
“What about AI-77 and everything going on with Gale Gaming and Gale Tech?”
She couldn’t help herself. The man always had a lot on his plate—anyone could see that was true by the crushing wave of emails, calls, and texts he received daily. And at least a couple of times a week, as she drifted off to sleep after the two of them had made love, his grip around her body would loosen. He’d prop a pillow behind his head before reaching for his laptop to get in a few more hours of work. Those nights, she’d succumb to sleep, listening to the gentle click of his fingers on the keyboard, hammering out reply after reply.
He glanced away, breaking their connection, and despite her initial elation, now, she could barely breathe. “They can survive without us for a handful of days,” he answered.
Did he mean it? She searched his neutral expression and caught a flash of worry in his pale green eyes.
“Rowen?” she pressed.
“The Gale Gaming and Gale Techteammatesknow what to do,” he answered smoothly as the ghost of a grin pulled at the corners of his mouth. He was trying—he was really trying.
“This is actually happening!” she said, half question, half exclamation. She’d never pegged Rowen as the type to plan a surprise for her. He was an analytical, cut-and-dry type of guy. Then again, that wasn’t completely true. Hadn’t he already surprised her? From moving her out of her old place to making peace with the multiple papers tacked to the refrigerator to pizza and cookie Fridays to the ease in which he allowed her to edit and alter AI-77, Rowen Gale had gone from a robotic stoneman to the man who’d captured her heart.
“Thank you, I—” she began, ready to tell him he had her heart when the doorbell rang. “What’s that?”
“That’s the next surprise,” Phoebe called, running for the front door.
Her jaw dropped. What else did he have up his sleeve?
And not only that! She needed to figure out what the heck she was supposed to wear on a super humongous boat. Her trendy Denver style of boots, jean skirts, billowy tops, and farm-friendly pajamas didn’t exactly scream nautical vacation. She opened her closet, stared inside, and cringed. Her clothes were Denver budget fabulous, not opulent tropical getaway! But all could not be lost! She could text her friends. Between the four of them, they had to have a few pieces that would work.
“What are you looking for?” Rowen asked with a sly grin.
“Boating clothes,” she answered, running her hand down the sleeve of a puffy coat. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m excited about this trip, but I don’t have anything to wear. I don’t even know what you’d wear on a yacht.”
“I took care of that,” he said with a subtle wave of his hand.
Her jaw dropped for what seemed like the millionth time this morning. “You went clothes shopping for me?” The man was good at many things, but a decent percentage of his wardrobe was literally hoodies. And while he wore the hell out of them, it didn’t exude the kind of confidence that would make her think he knew the first thing about women’s apparel.
