Page 117 of The Nanny and the Hothead
He looked up from the group and caught her eye. “Then let’s do this,” he said. There was so much kindness infused into his words, and she felt them settle in her heart.
Let’s do this.
She touched the key. Was Mitch talking to her, or was she again getting ahead of herself?
She’d dreamed of being wanted, truly wanted. Is that what this was? Was it the start of something?
What mattered to her?
What was important?
Everything blurred together.
She smiled back at Mitch as thoughts of London drifted away. She’d sort it out later. Lifting her camera, she captured Mitch’s expression, basking in the glow of his smile. There would be time to talk—time to figure it out. Because right now, the last thing she wanted to do was jeopardize this sweet slice of heaven she’d found with this former hothead and his darling son.
Twenty
Mitch
“You’ll never believe this, Dad!”Oscar exclaimed, wiggling into his pajama pants. “Phoebe stuffed another cookie into her mouth, and everybody at the lunch table was cheering and clapping. I’ve never seen a girl do anything like that. It was awesome!”
Mitch chuckled, then handed his son the pajama top. “You’ve got to be careful with sweets. They’re fine in small amounts. But you don’t want to go overboard. I’m guessing that it wasn’tso awesomewhen Phoebe got sick.”
Oscar paused with the top of his head poking out. “It kind of was awesome. She was on the swing next to me, talking and talking and talking. Because that’s what she does. Then she stopped talking, and puke was everywhere. In the air, on her clothes, on the swing. I was lucky she didn’t throw up my way. She got puke on the sneakers of some older kid on her other side named Grover. He’d pushed a little kid off the swing so he could take it. He kind of deserved to get puked on,” the boy finished, lowering his voice.
“Sounds like good old Grover had it coming.”
“I hope Phoebe feels better. I don’t know how she got so many cookies crammed into her lunchbox,” Oscar mused.
Mitch bit back a grin, imagining the ways he could give Rowen shit over the guy’s shoddy parenting. But the joke was really on him. Who would have thought that he’d ever feel like he had even the slightest iota of a handle on being a dad? But for the first time in a long time, the endless angry loop playing in his head had quieted.
“Did anything else exciting happen at school? Anything that didn’t involve vomit or mean kids named Grover?” he asked as Oscar climbed into the bottom bunk and settled himself under the covers.
The boy beamed. “Yeah! You showed up with Louise! Will you come to my school every day and make snacks?”
He stared at the kid—his son—and met eyes as blue as his. “Probably not every day. But we’ll be at the Whitmore Carnival in a few weeks.”
Oscar looked away and stared up at the top bunk. He could almost see the gears turning in the kid’s head. The boy had something on his mind.
“What about the kids in your class? I got to meet most of them today. They seem all right to me. What do you think?” he asked. Maybe if he kept the boy talking, the kid would share what he was thinking.
Oscar shrugged. “They’re pretty nice. I mostly stuck with Phoebe. We talked with our feet during math, and Mrs. Bergen didn’t even notice.” Oscar paused, then pinned him with his gaze. “Is this what my life is going to be like now?”
Jesus! That was one hell of a pivot.
“What do you mean?” he asked, fumbling.
“The three of us,” the boy answered.
There was that word again.
Us.
“Us?” he repeated. That word used to claw at his heart and sour his mood. But not anymore.
“Yeah, you, me, and Charlotte,” Oscar continued.
Charlotte.
