“All ready for your trip?” Mae questions, eyes slightly sad, but she would never try to talk me out of doing something like this. We’re best friends. Plus, she and Poppy havepromised to come and meet me in a few months for a girls' trip.
Still, I can’t help but feel numb. I should be jumping for joy. Packing my things. Planning what I’m going to do in each state. But I’m almost dreading it. No, Iamdreading it.
Leaving this place makes my heart swell in the worst way possible. Leaving Leo. LeavingEvan. But this trip will be good for me. And Leo needs a nanny who will be around for the entire year—someone he can develop a good bond with. Someone whose lifestyle is stable, and I’m just not. I don’t even know what I’m doing with my life, so how can I guide him in his?
“Flo? Hello?”
“Oh, yeah.” I swallow. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
Poppy and Mae glance at each other, their faces unconvinced for a second, before they plaster on smiles. “Okay, great. We can help you pack if you’d like. You’re welcome to borrow some of my lingerie.” Mae nudges me, and I flick my eyes up in a roll.
“There will be no camper van sex, trust me.”
Poppy chuckles, wiggling her light brows as she says, “I thought there was going to be no single daddy sex either?”
That makes me blow a raspberry, shake my head, and look away.
Leo then rushes over without his tricycle. “Get up, get up! We didn’t finish!”
“We’re tired, kid. We don’t have as much energy as you,” I explain. “Come and just sit with us for a bit.”
“To be honest, I’m craving a milkshake.” Mae stands, holding her hand out for Poppy to take. “I’m sure Evan has the ingredients. Anyone want one?”
“Chocolate!” Leo yells, and I turn to him with furrowed brows.
“Manners, young man.”
Redness tinges the kid’s cheeks. “Sorry. Chocolate milkshake, please.”
I flatten his hair and smile. “Good job.”
“Coming right up.” The girls look at me. “And don’t say you want a matcha milkshake because I’m not making that slop.”
A wheezy laugh slips from me. “I’m feeling spontaneous. Surprise me, please.”
My arm wraps around Leo whilst Poppy and Mae enter the house to get to work. His head is on my shoulder, and I swoop his long hair away from his icy eyes.
“I like you, Flo.”
The kid’s words take me off guard. “I like you too, buddy.”
“You’re the bestest nanny I’ve ever had.”
“And you’re thebestkid I’ve ever nannied.”
Leo’s lips pout as he thinks. “Daddy said you haven’t done it before.”
“Okay, that’s true, but I thought I’d start with the coolest kid.”
Silence is upon us as Leo smiles, before he breaks it when saying, “Daddy likes you too.”
My heart constricts. “Well, I like your daddy too.”
“Are you gonna marry him? Then you could stay!”
My throat works.Woah.Why did that just hit me so hard?
Evan and I are currently stuck in limbo. Neither of us knows what’s happening with…us, or if there even is anus, but what we both know is that I’m leaving for half a year. He’s got a lot of pressure and responsibility on his shoulders. He’s working hard, practising for the Storks, as well as being a single father and trying to spend as much time with his son as he can. The press follows his life like a lost puppy, and anything he does is a newsworthy event. Messing around with his kid’s nanny would be a ‘scandal’ the journalist pigs would love to get their little trotters on.
