Page 53 of Never Bargain with the Boss
“There you are! I won!”
Her eyes drop to our clasped hands, and though I’d swear her smile grows a bit wider, I instinctively release Cameron. I feel the loss, my hand instantly feeling colder without being wrapped in his warmth, but I don’t want Grace to be confused about my role here. I’m her nanny, that’s it.
A tiny, regretful prick stabs my heart again. I wish I could be more… for her, for Cameron, for this sweet little family of two.
But that’s not what I’m meant to be.
I’m here to remind them that life can be fun, and amazing, and full of joy, even after a bad thing happens, and that it’s okay to live after loss.Especiallyafter a loss, when it might be more important than ever.
Playing that up, I rush for her, grabbing her in my arms and spinning her around, her legs dangling ungracefully. “I thought I’d never see you again!” I declare. “It’s a good thing your dad was there to save me.” I play-bat my lashes at him. “My hero!”
Grace laughs and so do I. But Cameron? His hand, the one I released, is tightened into a fist and he looks irritated again.
Probably at me.
“Didyou see the way that goat tried to bite me?” Grace gushes on the way home, sounding much more offended than she should be.
“In his defense, you had the food pellets,” I remind her. “If someone were holding your favorite Frappuccino hostage, I bet you’d do a whole lot more than nibble them.” I mime taking a big chunk out of someone, growling as I clack my teeth together T-Rex style.
“Yeah, but he’d already had two handfuls and the cutie patootie mini cow hadn’t had any,” Grace counters. “He was probably starving. The goat should’ve shared.”
I hide my snicker, because none of the animals at the petting zoo were missing any meals. In fact, today was probably like their trick-or-treating gorge, only on animal-safe pellets rather than Hershey’s bars.
“I’m not sure goats have manners the way people do.”
“Well, they should.” She crosses her arms, looking out the window, but she’s smiling happily.
For something she decreed ‘for little kids’, we all had fun. The maze was a laugh riot. The hayride was jarring and bouncy but the farmer driving the tractor told both funny and spooky stories, and somehow, we ended up with Cameron sitting in the middle of Grace and me, which meant that every other rut sent us careening into each other. We spent nearly thirty minutes wandering the rows of pumpkins, each of us determined to find the ‘perfect one’ but all with different definitions of what that entailed. Cameron’s is the stereotypical round, orange globe. Grace chose a chalky white, flat one because ‘aesthetics’, she said. And of course, I picked the bumpy, multicolored one because different is always good in my book and the pile of ‘ugly’ and ‘unwanted’ pumpkins had made me sad. I’d very nearly bought them all just so the inanimate gourds wouldn’t feel bad, but Cameron reminded me that I probably didn’t have room in my trunk forthatmany and I’d reluctantly agreed. Despite Grace’s thoughts on the one greedy goat, the petting zoo was hilarious, mostly because of Cameron’s horrified reaction to the way the dusty, dirty animals felt when he finally took the plunge to pet them, like he was petting diseased steel wool. I’d laughed even harder when he used three heavy squirts of the provided sanitizer to decontaminate his hands after. He acted disgusted, sticking his tongue out and making a gagging noise, but I saw his little smirk. He did it to make us laugh.
He went along with it all. For Grace.
And for you.
All day, the little voice in my head has been trying to make today have more importance than it should. But it’d felt so nice to simply play and have fun together. I’d felt included, and that’d been nice. It sure hadn’t felt like work.
It’d felt like family.
That sense of family continues when we crowd into the kitchen to carve Cameron’s huge orange pumpkin, scoopingseeds and guts out and threatening to smear the ooey gooeyness onto each other, which quickly turns into a three-way chase around the island. When Cameron’s long arms reach across the counter’s expanse and he gets a bit of pumpkin on Grace’s nose, I save her by teaming up with her against Cameron. I play dirty, though, and with a whisper, remind her that she doesn’t have to go around the island… she can go over it, and with our shortcut plan in place, I help her jump up and get a handful of orange goo on Cameron’s cheek before he can react to Grace suddenly going from two feet away to looming over him. None of us come out of the battle unscathed by pumpkin guts, but it all washes off in the sink, and the completed jack-o-lantern looks adorable with its crooked gap-toothed grin.
After dinner, Grace disappears upstairs, saying she wants to talk to Bella and Trinity again before school. She hasn’t revealed too much of their conversation and I’m trying to give her the time and space she needs, hoping tomorrow goes well for her.
It could go wrong. Or evenreallywrong depending on how far Hannah wants to take things.
But Grace seems prepared, or at least she isn’t asking for advice on how to fistfight Hannah, which I’m taking as a win. I can teach her a lot, but how to throw a punch isn’t one of them. The last time I tried, I sprained my wrist and had to wrap my hand for two weeks.
“Tea?” I offer, holding two empty mugs.
“Yes, please.”
Cameron starts the dishwasher as I microwave the water, and with teabags slowly sinking into our mugs, we step onto the back patio. The full strength of fall is in the air tonight, making it chillier than it has been, and even though I’m still in jeans and a sweatshirt, a shiver runs through me.
“Brrr! I’m gonna get a blanket.” I turn back into the house, grab one of the soft, fluffy throws from a basket in the livingroom, and reappear back outside in mere seconds. In that time, Cameron has flipped the switch for the fireplace and taken his usual spot on the far end of the couch. He’s playing absently with the teabag in his mug as he stares out over the dark back yard, looking like something is weighing heavily on him.
He was fine all day and at dinner, which leaves one thing likely on his mind. This morning.
I make an impulsive decision and sit down right beside him so we can share the blanket. But as I unfold and spread it over the two of us, he balks. “Riley.” He drags out my name like it’s a warning in and of itself, which is sometimes the case. Luckily for him, I’m not trying to cause drama. This time.
“Don’t make it weird. It’s chilly, and we can share like adults.” He makes a sound of disagreement, but I don’t give him the chance to argue. “It’s not like I’m giving you a hand job under the covers or you’re rubbing me off…” I lean his way to deadpan, “Again.” My laughter runs through every word.