Page 143 of The Nanny and the Hothead
“Yes!” he called in unison with Charlotte and Penny.
“So,” Charlotte began, tucking a notebook into Oscar’s duffel. “Why did you fly down?”
God bless this woman for her ability to change the subject.
“It was a last-minute thing,” Penny answered.
Rowen nodded. “We need to fly to California for a meeting at Gale Tech as soon as we get Phoebe settled. It was easier to have the plane here and ready to go. I have to meet with my team about an issue with a blob.”
“Blob?” Charlotte parroted back.
“Yes, a blob—a binary large object. It’s a data term.”
Mitch glanced at Charlotte, who smiled and nodded. He did the same. He didn’t know what the hell Rowen was talking about. This happened a decent amount, and Penny had shared the nod and smile trick with them. It worked like a charm.
“We’ll be back tomorrow. But we wanted to run something by the two of you,” Penny added.
“What’s up?” Charlotte asked.
“Just to be safe,” Rowen’s fiancée began, “I added you guys as emergency contacts for Phoebe. Our house manager is on vacation. Otherwise, we would have listed Mrs. Sullivan. I hope you don’t mind.”
“We don’t mind at all. We’re happy to help,” he answered, feeling a lightness that was quite intoxicating. He was awe—awewith Charlotte.
“And we won’t be far away,” Charlotte added. “Mitch and I are staying the night at his cabin in Telluride before going back to Denver tomorrow.” She glanced at him as warmth radiated in her gaze.
Yep, they were going to the cabin!
Initially, he’d balked when she’d suggested the idea. While they had the time—their next food truck stop wasn’t for a couple of days—the idea had scared the hell out of him. But she had a good reason to suggest the pit stop. The cabin was filled with pictures of Louise from the old days. She’d seen a few of them when they’d gone to pick up Oscar, and she wanted to go through them for the book. He understood her motivation but knew she hadn’t suggested the overnight for purely professional reasons. She hadn’t said it explicitly, but he had an inkling that this short overnight was a chance for him to make peace with his past—or at least start the process.
“Yeah, we’ll be in Telluride overnight—to work,” he added when Phoebe and Oscar returned.
“Is it almost time for camp to start?” Phoebe asked.
“The email said they’d ring a bell when it was time to begin,” Rowen answered as Phoebe groaned one hell of a yawn.
“Wow, Phoebe, you’re a champion yawner!” Oscar exclaimed.
The little girl nodded. “I didn’t sleep much last night because I was so excited for camp. And when I ran into Penny and Uncle Row’s room to tell them that it was time to get up, I caught Uncle Row running into the bathroom because Sundays are the day he fixes the sink,” Phoebe continued, causing Penny and Rowen toagainturn beet-red.
Was this parenting? A string of mortifications stretched out until the kids turn eighteen?
“I didn’t sleep either,” Oscar added.
Holy hell!
“And when I ran into my dad’s room to wake him up,” Oscar exclaimed in a tumble of words. “The covers on his bed were messy like he’d been wrestling.” The boy flailed his arms and kicked wildly. “And then I went to Charlotte’s room to see if she was awake. She was lying on top of her bed like she didn’t even sleep under the covers.”
Busted! Again!
Red-faced, the adults stared at each other, begging the universenotto allow the children to connect the dots.
“Kids, why don’t you go tap some naughty words in the grass over there,” Penny suggested, pointing to a spot next to a rock a good thirty feet away from the cars.
He turned to Rowen and lowered his voice. “You guys are engaged. Why are you still tiptoeing around your sleeping arrangement?”
“Phoebe thinks that Penny is my roommate,” he answered in his nerd-tastic robotic tone as Penny’s blush deepened.
“Roommates?” Mitch echoed.
