10. Riley

RILEY

“ H ow was your day?”

It’s mid-week, after dinner, so I’m supposed to be officially off the clock, but this new routine isn’t about a paycheck. It’s… normal. Cameron comes home, where I’ve got dinner waiting, and the three of us sit down to eat together. After that, Grace will disappear upstairs to talk to friends and shower while Cameron and I clean up and then move to the living room to talk about our day. Usually, we end up like we are now, sitting at opposite ends of the couch, our eyes ping-ponging over each other while we talk.

It's comfortable and easy, two things I secretly enjoy because they give me a sense of peaceful calm I rarely experience. And yes, I’m hoarding every single one of these moments like little precious gemstones so I can carry them with me when I go. Whenever I’ve moved on to whatever’s next, I’ll close my eyes and live in these moments again, remembering Cameron and Grace fondly.

“Good. We went to the barn for Grace’s lesson, and you’ll be happy to know that Miller and Shana are hooking up—I mean ‘going out’—Friday.” I throw up air quotes so he knows that I truly meant the former, not the latter correction.

He replies with a roll of his eyes and quips sarcastically, “May the lovebirds live happily ever after.”

“Or at least until Saturday morning’s walk of shame,” I reply, tilting my head with a pointed look. It’s not that I think Miller and Shana can’t be a long-term thing, but having met both of them now, I don’t think either of them is actually looking for that. “We also went to Starbucks for Frappuccinos.” I sigh dramatically, and Cameron goes tense. “That girl,” I say, soothing his worry with a grin, even as I whine.

“What’d she do now?” he asks, a smile teasing at his lips. He can’t wait to hear what antics his beloved daughter has gotten up to now.

“She went full debate mode with me, arguing whether today was visit number one or two,” I inform him. “We finally came to the agreement that the week officially begins on Monday, so she gets two frappes between Monday and Sunday, and visits don’t roll over if she doesn’t use one, nor can she borrow from the next week.”

Cameron presses his lips together, but this time, rather than being a sign of anger, it seems like he’s trying to hold back a laugh at my high-stakes negotiations with Grace. “Sounds like a fair resolution,” he says evenly. But his eyes are sparkling.

“Are you actually laughing at me?” I demand. “You have no idea how hard I had to work to hammer that out with her.” I push my hair behind my ear, feigning exasperation, but too quickly, I give in and smile. “And so we’re on the same page… Visit number one of the week is ticked off the permissible activities list. Otherwise, you know that girl will play us against each other.”

“That, she will,” he agrees. “What about you? What did you do today?”

“I went to a farmer’s market and learned all about honey. I even tried six different kinds. My favorite was the wildflower one, but I bought the buckwheat one. I want to put a spoonful in your shakes because it’s supposed to be full of antioxidants. And I thought it’d stand up to your greens powder better.”

The market was so fun. I walked around for nearly two hours, shopping and chatting with people who’d made all their own products. The beekeeper had been deeply passionate about his hobby and eager to educate a willing student, so I was happy to buy a big jar of the fruits of his bees’ labor.

“You bought me honey?” He sounds incredulous. Or horrified. I’m not sure which, but there’s a hollowness to the question.

I nod. “Yeah, is that okay? You don’t have to try it if you don’t want to.”

Before he can answer, Grace races into the room. “Will you braid my hair now?”

Tension that I don’t understand shoots through Cameron and he says, “Braids?”

Confused by his suddenly sharp tone, I explain, “Grace asked if I could braid her hair. That okay?”

He clears his throat and I can sense a ‘no’ in the air, but then he nods stiffly. “Yes, of course.”

Peering at him curiously, I tell Grace, “Can you get a comb, a spray bottle of water, and two ponytailers?” I count out the three items on my fingers, noticing that I need to redo my nails. The bubblegum pink that matches my hair is chipped on a couple, and I could go for a bit of smoothing out, too.

“Got it!” Grace shouts, bolting upstairs.

“What’s wrong?” I whisper as soon as I think Grace is far enough away to not overhear us.

“Oh, nothing,” Cameron says, sounding like something is very wrong.

With no time for beating around the bush, I demandingly hiss, “What’s. Wrong?”

After a quick check that Grace hasn’t magically returned, he whispers back, “Her friend said something about her hair. I’m hoping this isn’t related.”

He barely has a chance to get the words out before Grace comes bounding back into the room, proclaiming, “Here you go!”

She thrusts the gathered supplies into my waiting hands, and after confirming the items, I set it all down on the coffee table. Grace sits on the floor in front of me, crisscrossing her legs, and I start to comb through her hair, parting it down the middle into two sections, my mind racing at the small amount of information Cameron had time to give me.

“Do you get your hair braided a lot?” I ask, keeping my tone light as I pry into what the hell’s going on.

“No. Dad can’t do it very well, so I usually just wash, brush, and go. If it’s wild in the morning, I’ll spray it all down and comb it back into curls.” As she speaks, she’s twisting the ends of the section I’m not working with around her finger and staring at it critically.

“Sounds like a good routine. Your curls are gorgeous.”

“Hannah doesn’t think so,” she mutters, telling her hair more so than me. Grace has gone still and quiet, two things the vibrant, energetic girl never is, which tells me how affected she is by whatever happened with her friend.

I lift my gaze to Cameron in alarm. His jaw is hard-set and his eyes meet mine, saying ‘see?’

“That’s the friend you said listens to Stray Kids like you, right?” I ask, my fingers deftly working from Grace’s crown to just behind her ear, leaving a neat, precise plait in their wake.

She’s talked about her friends in passing, mostly during run-on sentences in answer to the question ‘How was your day?’ but I don’t feel like I have a good picture of who this girl is and what she means to Grace.

“Yeah, she likes Felix, one of the band guys.”

Grace doesn’t say more, so after a second, Cameron does it for her. “Hannah is Grace’s best friend. They’ve been nearly conjoined at the hip for the last year, doing sleepovers, going to the trampoline park, having playdates, talking on the phone, filming silly videos, and more. Best friends ,” he emphasizes, “but last week, she suggested that Grace straighten her hair.”

Grace’s shoulders climb up by her ears, but she nods. “She said I should straighten it so it’s not frizzy.”

I gasp. “She did not!”

Grace nods, adding, “But it’s not. I spray it in the morning and make sure it looks good.” Her voice goes higher and louder, showing how much the one comment from a friend affected her.

As I finish the first braid and secure the end, she turns around, her eyes pleading with me to understand that she’s doing the best she can.

“It’s always looked great when you go to school and still looks good when you get in the car after school too,” I assure her. She visibly relaxes, her shoulders dropping a bit. “The horse-riding helmet’s not doing you any favors, but I don’t think helmet hair looks good on anyone.” I throw her a wink, trying to be sure she hears the full honesty and understands that the compliment is equally as genuine.

“Did you talk to her like we discussed?” Cameron asks her.

“Yeah.”

It’s the right answer, but not the relief you’d expect her to have after a heart-to-heart with a bestie. Her reluctance to tell Cameron more is written all over face, and he bends down, getting closer to her, and softens his voice. “What happened?”

Grace nibbles on her lip but finally says, “She laughed and told me to quit being so sensitive .” She throws her voice with the last bit, so I think that’s exactly how Hannah said it to her… disrespectful and snide.

“That bitch!” I spit out before I can stop it. I slap my hand over my mouth, just as surprised by my outburst as they are. I meant it to be an internal thought, not an out loud statement, but now that it’s out there, I stand by it. So despite Grace’s dinner-plate sized eyes and Cameron’s frown, I shrug and dig my grave deeper. “Well, it’s true.”

Cameron sighs heavily, rolling his eyes like he’s searching for patience and calm, and I’m not sure if it’s to deal with me or this Hannah character. Chances are, it’s me. To his daughter, he says, “You are not being sensitive. Hannah hurt your feelings, and feelings can’t be wrong, only actions can be, and what she said was rude.”

He sounds like a self-help book, or one of those psychobabble internet memes, but in a sweet way. He cares about Grace’s feelings, and judging by the rigid set of his spine, he’s working hard to maintain his poise amid his anger.

“I guess,” Grace mutters, not sounding like she believes that any more than Cameron does.

I have extensive experience with adolescent girls and their savagery is downright terrifying sometimes. I don’t want that to be the case for Grace, who is sweet despite her occasionally absent filter. But friendships are nuanced in ways that are difficult to explain, and even more difficult to navigate, especially at Grace’s formative age. How these complicated relationships are dealt with can make or break a girl’s confidence, so I need to step carefully and guide delicately. However, that doesn’t mean avoiding the obvious. Sometimes, facing it head-on is the best course of action.

“The first comment was rude. The second one was bitchy. Are you sure she’s not a mean girl?” I ask bluntly.

Grace’s head falls forward, and though I can’t see her face, she seems to be laser-focused on picking her cuticles. “She’s my friend,” she virtually whispers.

I give Cameron a look, because my heart is breaking into pieces for his little girl. His eyes reflect the same pain. I lift a brow, silently questioning whether he’s okay with me addressing this. I’ve already overstepped once, and this is something he’s already handled, but it’s not done. Not with Grace still hurting.

He looks at me for a long moment, the uncertainty plain as day, but with a slight warning, he dips his chin, giving his permission. I think it’s mostly because he’s so desperate to help Grace that he’d do anything, even let me and my big mouth loose in the desperate hope that it’ll be for the greater good.

“Both can be true. Hannah can be mean and be your friend, if that’s what you want,” I say gently. “But the company you keep tends to rub off on you, so you should choose wisely.”

Cameron inhales sharply at my harsh statement even though I tried to deliver it as kindly as possible, his piercingly blue eyes virtually yelling at me. Grace sniffles, so I lean in, hugging her shoulders.

“It’s okay. Friendships are hard sometimes, but you’ll figure things out. Just be true to you.” It’s not the best pep talk I’ve ever given, but sometimes the truth doesn’t come with rah-rahs and pom-poms. It comes with hard lessons that hurt, then scab over before leaving a scar of the lesson learned. “I’ll braid your hair anytime you want me to, though,” I vow, knowing it’s a small consolation. “In fact, I’ll even teach your dad how to do it so he can help you too in case I’m not here on a day you want it done.” I catch Cameron’s eye, daring him to disagree.

“That’s not necessary?—”

“Sit over here so you can see.” I pointedly glance at the couch beside me, telling him exactly where I want him.

His reaction to being not only interrupted, but told what to do, is obvious and only adds to his already tense state. The tic in his cheek returns, his eyes go cold, and his lips are nearly white with how hard he’s pressing them together.

He’s not a man who follows orders. He’s the type who gives them, knowing they’ll be obeyed. That he’ll be obeyed—by Grace, by people at work, and usually, by his employees at home. Like me. And I will obey him in most things. But this is for Grace. She needs this distraction while what I’ve said ruminates in her mind, tossing and turning.

Like I told Cameron when he was dangerously close to commenting on that skirt, words have power. And the ones I just said are no different. But they’re not bombs that blow up immediately. They’re more like a slow leak, hopefully changing the topography of Grace’s thoughts as they sink in.

“Please,” I mouth silently, begging not for me or him, but for Grace.

He rises and stalks toward me, eyes flashing like warning lights. When he lowers himself to the couch beside me, I swear he measures the distance between our thighs with a glance like he can’t bear to be near me. But this is not about whatever tension was building between us over the weekend. This? It’s all about the little girl in front of us who’s going through her first hard lesson of hurting.

“Watch and learn,” I tell Cameron, purposefully lightening my tone to ease the pall hanging over the room.

I spray the other section of Grace’s hair with the spray bottle and make quick work of French braiding from her temple, over her head, to the nape of her neck, my bracelets jingling in the otherwise silent room. “Don’t worry about that part. Just start with two low ponies here and then braid regularly.” I point at Grace’s neck, where the braid switches from a French to a regular one. “You have three sections—left, center, and right. See?”

He nods jerkily, staring vacantly at Grace’s hair. Actually, I’m pretty sure he’s mostly staring at my bracelets. I think he hates them. He’s always frowning at them, especially in the morning. I’ve taken to switching up my bracelet stacks to see if there’s one in particular that bugs him or just their existence in general. It seems to be the latter.

I demonstrate for him, crossing an outer section over the middle and alternating sides, and he watches. Or I think he does. “Keep it tight each crossover and take your time. You want to try?” I freeze, holding my hands in place so that I can replace my fingers with his to give him an opportunity to practice, but he jerks back.

“That’s okay. I can see what you’re doing. Thank you.” If you looked up curt in the dictionary, there’d be a picture of Cameron Harrington frowning at you from the book’s thin pages. He even gets up, putting several feet of space between us as he goes over to pick up his phone from the table. Except it didn’t make a noise and the screen’s been dark. It’s an excuse to get away.

But from me or the braiding? Does he have some sort of braid phobia or something? Maybe a previous pony attack that made braids revolting?

“Oooh-kay,” I drawl. I finish the braid, tie it off, and then tap Grace’s shoulder. When she looks back at me, I tell her earnestly, “All done. Your hair is beautiful—curled, in braids, or in any other style you want to wear it. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, even if they’re a friend, okay?”

Her teeth dent into her bottom lip where she’s chewing uncertainly, but she hears me. I just hope she hears me.

When she nods, I smile encouragingly and say, “Go check them out.”

Petting her braids, she runs out of the room, escaping the lecture I’m sure she feels like she got from both Cameron and me, but she calls back over her shoulder, “Thanks, Riley!”

We stare at the door where she disappeared, but like we’re on the same schedule— ha! Me, on a schedule —our eyes simultaneously find each other.

Quiet as a mouse, I whisper, “I’ve got a few things I’d like to say to Hannah. All super nice, I swear it. Sweet as can be.” To make sure he knows I’m being sarcastic as hell, I feign a few shadow boxing moves and snarl my lip in a very Elvis-like way.

He huffs, not exactly laughing at my ‘joke’ but not telling me I’m overreacting, either. “Me too. I don’t know where that’s coming from. They’ve been such good friends, so hopefully, it’s just a slip of the tongue.”

“Yeah, hope so,” I say, not agreeing but not wanting to push it.

It’s not that I’m assuming the worst of a child I’ve never met. But experience tells me that her comment was a calculated attack on one of Grace’s best features. It reeks of jealousy, but I’ll hold that opinion for now until I get a bit more information, which I’ll definitely be pumping Grace for during our after-school chats from now on.

“Thank you for trying to teach me how to braid, but I will never be able to do whatever you just did. I’ve tried, even watched YouTube videos, but I get tangled in knots every time.” He moves his fingers around a little, bumping them into one another to demonstrate how awful he is at braiding, and I can’t help but laugh. He lowers his voice like he’s confessing a crime. “One time, I got it so twisted at the bottom that we had to cut the knot out. I think it traumatized me more than Grace, but I don’t want to do that again. Ever.”

I’m not surprised he can’t braid, but I am surprised he admitted there’s something he’s not good at. As a rule, men like Cameron don’t go around highlighting their weaknesses. But he’s exposing one to me without hesitation.

“Alright, I’ll make it a mission to teach Grace, then, so she can do it on her own after I’m gone.”

It slips out, the reminder that this is a temporary gig, and it sits heavily in the air between us.

“I’m not interviewing other nannies,” Cameron blurts out, and I get the sense he didn’t mean to tell me that. Like he’s got words flying off his tongue too, which is an interesting development for the ‘think first, speak later, or maybe never’ man.

“Well, I’m not looking for other jobs. Or possible vacations,” I reply, because a share deserves a share.

A smile slowly steals across Cameron’s lips, and it’s downright dazzling. I think the one on my face matches it.

“Want some tea? Ooh, with the new honey?” I ask, stepping past him to go to the kitchen. And when I glance back for his answer, I find him openly staring at my ass.

Before he catches me catching him, I whip my head around. The grin on my face now is entirely different. And much more daring.

Because I just realized that Cameron Harrington isn’t immune to my charms. Not the literal ones on my bracelets—still pretty sure he hates those—nor my physical ones. And maybe not my personality ones either since he’s not looking to throw me out the front door for getting overly involved with Grace.

At the cabinet, I stretch up on my tippy toes to grab my favorite mugs from the second shelf and unexpectedly feel him come up behind me. “Here, let me,” he says, his long arm reaching over my shoulder.

I drop to my feet, my back grazing against the hard planes of his chest and my ass skimming over the bulge in his slacks. He’s not erect, but there’s no denying that he’s large, even in a soft state.

A familiar wave of heat rushes through me as my core clenches, reminding me that it’s been a long time. A very long time.

He sets the mugs on the counter, and then his hands find the edge of the white stone, gripping it tightly as I’m surrounded by the cage of his arms. My breath catches as I freeze in place, and I swear I hear him inhale deeply. Like he’s sniffing me.

Slowly, I turn in the circle he’s created around me to find that his pupils are dilated, but his expression is hard and unreadable as he scowls at me.

He looks… angry.

No, that’s not it. The intensity is the same, but the heat in his eyes is different and the scowl doesn’t seem directed at me, even though his gaze drifts from my eyes over my cheeks to my mouth before returning to my eyes.

Is he going to pin me to the counter and take my mouth? Or pick me up and fuck me against the counter, right here in the kitchen?

Do I want him to do either of those things? Both?

Not wanting to examine the answers to my own questions, I stammer, “Thanks. For the mugs.”

The moment stretches, neither of us moving. We’re so close that a kiss seems inevitable, except he’s a few inches taller than me, so one of us will have to adjust for that. The only problem is… it won’t be him. He’s got an ironfisted grip on his restraint and won’t release it for anything, not even his own desires. And it won’t be me. He’s everything I secretly desire—stable and reliable—but I won’t cross that line with my boss, not even for him. In a twisted Schrodinger’s cat way, if he did respond to my advances, it’d ruin the very thing I do like about him—his predictability.

“I think I’ll do whiskey tonight instead of tea,” he says, stepping away sharply. “You want one?”

I feel floaty, like his gravitational pull was the only thing holding me in place, and now that he’s gone, I could simply drift away into the ether.

But as his words process, I laugh internally. Could he be hoping for a bit of whiskey dick? With what I just felt against my ass, I don’t think he’s gonna be that lucky.

But given the look in his eyes, neither am I. “Sure.”