20. Zane

20

ZANE

Owen and I aren't even through the front door when Mira appears.

I called and texted with her most of the morning, but this is the first time I've actually seen her since we got back from breakfast yesterday. Whatever performance she was putting on then is clearly over now. Her fists are on her hips and her mouth is pulled down into a vicious frown.

Mira takes one look at Owen and snaps her gaze back to me. "Did you bring me another babysitter? One wasn't enough?"

I see sending Daniel to watch them went over about as well as I thought it would.

"Where is he?" I ask instead of taking the bait on that question.

Daniel pops up from behind the counter, voice low. "I told her I wasn't a babysitter, Z. I said I was just here to play with the kid."

"And I told you I didn't believe you and that you should leave," Mira hisses over her shoulder.

"Why are you both whispering?"

Before they can answer, Aiden comes whipping down the stairs. He stops halfway down and jabs a finger at the counter Daniel just disappeared behind. He's silent, but there's a wide smile spread across his face.

I had nothing to worry about.

"Aiden found you, Daniel." My best friend lumbers out of his hiding spot and Mira looks back to me, with the venom in her eyes remaining exactly as deadly as it has been. "They've been playing hide-and-seek for two hours. Aiden refused to take a nap while Daniel was here. Your kid is overtired and you paid me to do nothing this afternoon, all because you didn't trust me."

"Why the fook should he trust you?" Owen grumbles next to me.

Mira flicks her dark hair over her shoulder, and there she is . The woman I met that day in the coffee shop.

"I'm his girlfriend ." I ignore the way those words sink into my chest like bullets. It's our cover story, that's all. It's a total fiction. And yet… "I don't know who you think you are talking to me like?—"

I interrupt what I'm sure would be a thoroughly entertaining takedown. Maybe the first Owen has ever really faced. "This is Owen Payne. He's my sober sponsor."

Owen lifts his chin. "It's my job to look out for Zane. Make sure he has the right kind of people in his life. Honest folk."

Mira's cheeks turn pink. But she doesn't back down. I don't know why I'm surprised. Owen is a beefy, grizzled guy, but no one intimidates my Wednesday.

She isn't "your" anything, dumbass.

"He knows you aren't really my girlfriend," I add, popping that bubble of tension before it can expand and suffocate us all. "Daniel and Owen are the only people I'm going to tell."

"I'm sure I'll see plenty of you for however long you're around, Mia."

"It's Mira."

Owen laughs. "Apologies. Zane is always bringing home some bonnie lass. It's hard to keep you all straight in my head."

I don't miss the way Mira's lips press together. The way she holds herself just a little bit taller.

I wondered how much of her little "performance" yesterday was out of jealousy. Then I quickly un-wondered. The answer would only muddle shit up.

"Well, I'm not one of Zane's ‘ bonnie lasses ,'" Mira spits, refusing to look at me. "I'm here to do a job."

"I guess if this whole mess ends up in the news, we'll know someone outbid you," Owen muses. "That's the trouble with women who can be bought."

I know what Owen is doing. He's been looking after me for years and he's suspicious of new people in my life. He has to be. I have to be. With a big, fat NHL paycheck comes people desperate to latch onto my success. Parasites, as far as the eye can see.

And the ladder-climbing types do love their parties. A party leads to a glass of wine, and then one of those leads to two, which leads to my car cracked in half like an egg on the bumper of some F-150.

Owen is just trying to keep me from being splattered on the pavement somewhere.

I push him towards the kitchen. "I'll make some coffee."

Daniel and Aiden play another round of hide-and-seek while the coffee brews. Mira moves into the living room. She's sitting on the couch, her back to me. But I can see the tension in her shoulders.

"How's the kid doing?" Owen asks.

I shrug. "He seems okay. His therapist told me to give it a few weeks before I worry about anything. He needs time to adjust."

"Does he talk about Paige?"

I look over my shoulder to make sure Aiden isn't nearby before I shake my head. "Not yet. I wonder if I shouldn't bring her up, but I don't want to fuck him up even more."

He scratches at his hairy chin. "You can't do anything Paige didn't already do worse."

Owen never met Paige, but he saw firsthand the kind of chaos that trailed in her wake. I have a lot of reasons to hate Paige, but I can never seem to get there.

In the end, she was as lost as I was.

The only difference is, I found my way out.

"Bitch," Owen mutters. "She should have told you about your son."

"Even if she had, you'd still be calling her a bitch."

He shrugs. "I call ‘em like I see ‘em, lad. Women like that always have an angle. They look out for themselves." He jabs a stubby finger in my direction and adds, "And you have to learn to do the same."

"I take care of myself just fine these days." I slide a mug of coffee towards him.

"You say that, but this coffee isn't strong enough to make me forget your little nanny in the other room." He takes a slurping sip anyway. "Keep your tadger out of that one if you don't want to find yourself in this mess again."

Mira bolts up, since I guess you don't need to be familiar with Scottish slang to pick up Owen's meaning. As she turns to face us, I'm positive I'm about to referee a bare-knuckled, no-holds-barred fist fight between my nanny and my sponsor.

A part of me is looking forward to it.

Owen might get his ass kicked.

But then Mira breezes past the kitchen and down the hallway. Her voice echoes back to us. "Let's go to the park, Aiden. We need to get out of this house."

I rest my elbows on the counter. "Ease up on her, O. Mira is helping me out."

"For a price," he warns. "She's getting something out of it."

"Yeah, money . It's what most people get out of a job."

He sits back, hands folded over his stomach. "You're hot for nanny."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" I snap a little too loudly.

"Until today, Paige was the only other woman you've ever mentioned to me."

"Weird, since you just stood in my living room and told everyone I'm a fucking manwhore."

He ignores that, powering ahead. "You've never cared about a woman enough to bring her up in our meetings, but you've known this woman less than a week and she's living in your house. After you found out you had a son."

"If you think it looks like I?—"

"It looks like life dumped a kid in your lap and now, instead of reaching for a bottle to cope, you're reaching for this woman. It's addict behavior, Zane."

"I needed a nanny," I grit out.

"Making excuses. More addict behavior."

By this point in our relationship, Owen has tossed enough quotes from the NA handbook at me that I could recite the damn thing by memory. I'm used to him calling me on my shit. It's why he's my sponsor.

But this is grating on my fucking nerves.

"Someone has to be here with Aiden while I'm at work."

" Someone ," he agrees. "Not her. She's here for the money, and if you can't see it, then?—"

"I see just fine," I snarl, shoving myself up tall and crowding into his space. "What I see is that Mira isn't on your payroll. So you don't get to come in here and say shit that hurts her feelings."

Owen snorts. "You care about her feelings now?"

"I care about Aiden being taken care of by someone he trusts. Aiden likes Mira, which means I like Mira. There's nothing else going on."

Of course, Mira picks this exact moment to clear her throat behind me.

I spin around and try to read her face. Fuck. How much of that did she hear?

She has on a pair of white Chucks and her sunglasses are hanging from the deep V of her tank top. "We're going to walk to the park if you want to come."

Honestly, I wouldn't mind. I've been inside all day, Owen is pissing me off, and it would be nice to see more of Aiden being a kid.

But Owen's accusations are still hanging in the air and every time Mira and I are alone together, this line we've drawn in the sand gets fuzzy.

She's my nanny. Nothing else.

I need to make sure it stays that way or I really will wind up "off my trolley."

"If you want to take him out, go ahead. I don't need to be there."

She chews on the corner of her mouth as her cheeks flush. "I know you don't need to be there. I was just offering in case?—"

"In case I decide to do your job for you?" I snort. "No, thanks. I already have one."

Aiden walks into the living room with his Spiderman water bottle and light-up sneakers, and Mira turns all of her attention to him. That tension is still radiating off of her, like every cell is thrumming with it. She plops a red baseball cap on his head and doesn't even glance in my direction as they stride out the door together.

Daniel is in the kitchen a beat later. He lets out a long, low whistle. "Wow. The assholery in this room is spreading. I'm gonna go before I catch any." He snatches his keys off the counter and gives me a wave. "See you tomorrow, Z."

As soon as he's gone, Owen stands up. "Don't listen to him. You did the right thing. Keep that woman in her box or you'll regret it."

But when everyone is gone and I'm left brooding at the counter alone, it doesn't feel right at all.