Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 117574 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 588(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117574 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 588(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
3
CHARLOTTE
“I’m gonna get you!”
I’m playing cars with my beloved godson, Zach, five years old, on his bedroom floor, while Tessa bathes Zach’s little sister, Claire, down the hall. The family’s husky, Rudy, is here, too. I think his tail is a gas pump in our game, but I’m not sure. It might give our little metal cars magical powers. The only thing I know for sure is that my red car is supposed to chase Zach’s yellow one. Over and over again.
I’m spending the night at Tessa’s gorgeous, sprawling house tonight and feeling the most relaxed I’ve been in weeks. Even though I love Ryan like a brother and thoroughly enjoy his company, it’s been lovely to hang out with Tessa and the kids while he’s away on business. In fact, tonight’s been a perfect balm for my exhausted, paranoid soul.
“You’ll never catch me!” Zachary shouts. He’s trying to sound like a badass, I think, but there’s nothing that adorable kid can do to his tiny, squeaky voice to make it sound anything but darling.
“Darn you!” I shout, after Zachary’s eluded me, yet again.
“I play cars!” a high-pitched voice shouts. It’s two-year-old Claire, careening into her big brother’s bedroom in her jammies, as her mommy strides behind on a FaceTime call.
Claire plops herself into my lap, like it’s the most natural thing in the world to do, and repeats her command. Only this time, she adds the words I live to hear: “I play cars, too, Auntie Char Char!” Oh, my heart.
“That’s great news, babe,” Tessa says on her call. She takes a seat on Zach’s twin bed, as Ryan on their call says, “The space is a homerun.” As he proceeds to elaborate, I lean down and smell Claire’s towel-dried hair like a junkie getting a fix. I freaking love the smell of freshly shampooed toddler hair. It’s crack to me.
I didn’t always want kids. For a long time, I was pretty sure kids weren’t in my future. But then Zach came along and made my heart ache and yearn in a whole new way. And if that wasn’t enough to make my biological clock start ticking for good, Claire came along almost three years later to perform that service. For a while, I thought Carlo might be the father of my future babies. But man, when I found out what he truly does for a living, that plan was immediately scrapped, along with the relationship itself.
“You can hold a car while Auntie Char Char chases me,” Zach says, his tone brimming with the authority of an older sibling. I should know: I’ve got two older brothers who always used to boss me around, just like that.
Not surprisingly , Claire protests, and I have to jump in and play referee, at which point, Zach begrudgingly hands his little sister the blue car she wants.
“Okay, keep me posted,” Tessa says on her call with Ryan.
“Are the kids still awake?”
“They’re right here, playing cars with Auntie Charlotte and Rudy.” Tessa holds up her phone to our happy group on the floor, and both kids call out their happy hellos to their doting daddy, while I shoot Ryan a wave and a smile.
As Ryan chats with his enthusiastic kiddos, Tessa gets up and hands me the phone to make it easier for everyone to converse—and, suddenly, I’m the meat in an adorable kid-sandwich, as the kids smash themselves against me to fit their faces onto the screen.
“All that sounds amazing, guys,” Ryan says to his kids, after they’ve told him about their day. “Can I get a goodnight kiss? It’s your bedtime, I think.” When the kids lean into the camera, Ryan does the same on his end; and when all goodnights and I love you’s have been administered, and Tessa has started herding her kiddos off to bed, Ryan says to me, “Hang on, Crazy Girl. I have some good news for you.”
“I’m Nut Job. I’ll go into the other room.” The kids are talking so loudly with Tessa, I don’t need to explain my change of venue. I bound into the living room with Rudy at my heels and plop onto the couch. “Much better. What’s up?”
Ryan grins. “I made some calls on my way to the airport, and you’ve got a job interview tomorrow morning.”
“Oh my gosh. Thank you!”
Ryan explains that his old boss at the brokerage firm where he used to work is looking for a part-time, remote personal assistant. He tells me the hourly wage, and I whoop with glee. “Fair warning, though,” he says, “the reason he pays so well is he keeps churning through assistants. They keep quitting on him.”
“Why?”
“He’s super demanding and meticulous. He’s not a creep at all, or I wouldn’t set you up with him. But he’s got some peculiar tendencies, for sure.”