"Probably work. Or Grandma." Amaya peeled off a damp sock.
Aelin watched him rub his temple. She couldn't help herself, she was curious about him. Ryan was quiet. His expressions rarely gave a hint at what he was thinking, but without realizing it, she’d already started to catalogue tidbits about him. There was a strained relationship at work. He’d do anything if Amaya asked him to.He didn’t talk about his wife.
Aelin cleared her throat. "He's close with his mom?"
Amaya shrugged. "Not really. But he talks with my mom's mom all the time."
Aelin's heart tugged. Adorable. She took the girls to the café and got them water cups, then pulled out the snacks she and Bailey had packed that morning. "Now I see why you wanted tobring two Fruit by the Foots." She raised an eyebrow, and Bailey had the decency to look at least a bit chagrined.
Ryan walked up a few moments later, his expression grim.
"Everything okay?" Aelin asked, busying herself with cleaning up the trails of contact paper trash.
He nodded once. "It'll be fine." Aelin dropped the wrappers into the bin next to their table. "If you haven't already, don't apply to the childcare place I gave you."
She put her hand on her hip. "I was planning to do that tonight."
"Yeah. Well, they just decided to shut down."
Amaya looked up, her eyes wide. "Ms. Christy isn't doing it? Why?"
He shook his head. "She didn't give details, just said she has some personal issues she needs to deal with."
Aelin blinked. "A week and a half before school's out."
Ryan's jaw ticked. "Looks like it."
He kind of looks like Tarzan, Aelin thought. With his hair pulled back and that brooding expression on his face. She cleared her throat. "I can send you some of the other places I was looking at if that's helpful."
"NO!" Amaya shouted, and both of them jumped. "No, no, no." She hopped up from the table, and nearly tripped on the bench as she ran over to them. She put out her hands like two stop signs, grinning at them. “You need a job, right?”
Aelin frowned, not sure whether she should play along.
Amaya turned to her dad. “You need a place to ditch me for the summer.”
“Okay, ouch,” Ryan’s brows pulled closer together.
Amaya looked between the two of them, miming first to Aelin then to Ryan. “Dad! Why don’t you hire her to be my nanny for the summer!”
Chapter
Eight
Aelin threwthe pile of old magazines into the recycling bin, then swept her hair up into a high ponytail. Two days of dejunking was exactly what her cold dead heart needed after mediation that weekend, and since she’d woken up feeling like a seventy-year-old woman after her trampoline shenanigans, puttering around at home was the correct life choice.
She couldn't get the idea of nannying Amaya for the summer out of her head.
Except for the fact that she’d have to see Ryan every morning and night, the whole thing was perfect. She’d chew off her own arm to spend the summer with Bailey, so forcing her lady parts into compliance seemed like a small price to pay.
But Ryan hadn’t immediately jumped on the suggestion yesterday. He didn’t have her number, and she didn’t have his, and they hadn’t crossed paths at drop-off that morning.
When she finished cleaning the main floor toilet, a thought hit her like a brick.
The choir concert. It was at six that evening, and Ryan would definitely be there.
But what was she going to say to him? If he hadn't already asked, was there a reason? Every parenting moment she'd hadover the past week replayed in her head, and she cringed. The first time he'd met her, she'd just left her daughter at the school unattended. Not a great first impression.
But she had let the girls make slime and made grilled cheese. She'd shown she could be responsible, hadn't she?
