The next day Octavia took off was on a Thursday. I noticed her leaving when I looked out the window of Aleesa’s playroom. It faced the front yard and cobblestone driveway. Octavia kept her car parked there, but on this particular night she was taking an Uber.
She wore a skintight red dress and high heels. Her hair was pinned up, a few locs hanging around her heart-shaped face. And she had those jewels in her hair again, the ones that made her appear ethereal, like awoman from another planet, too beautiful to belong in a simple place like this.
She was already beautiful, but there was something about the twinkling of those jewels, or the shells or the beads, that did something to me. I wanted to touch them. Tug on them. Feel her hair run through my fingers and ...
No.
Not the nanny.
I watched her climb into the back seat of the Uber and leave. Afterward, I felt a little annoyed. Probably because I knew she was going on a date.
A date with some guy she had met on Spark.
And that she would most likely be drinking if she needed an Uber.
And that if she was drinking, she was expecting something to happen with whoever this guy was.
But again, her personal life was none of my business.
Sixteen
Octavia
I know, I know.
It was stupid to arrange a date while being a full-time caretaker for an NBA star. Javier didn’t like to see himself as a star, but he was.
Most if not all of my time was spent taking care of Aleesa. Javier was busy about 85 percent of the year, with back-to-back games every week during the season and practices in between. The NBA season lasted far too long, if you asked me, but who was I to say anything.
With a schedule like his, there was no room for me to have a deep, personal life, and that was fine because I wasn’t looking for anything long term. I’d gotten out of a serious three-year relationship. I’d almost married the guy ... until I stumbled into a rude awakening.
This was why I always told Davina that I didn’t care about dating again. I didn’t really trust men anymore, and if anything, they were only good for one thing ...
Dick.
“You have really pretty eyes, you know that?” my date said after sipping from his tumbler of scotch. His name was Terry. We’d been chatting on Spark for four weeks before officially setting up a date. “They remind me of Cleo’s.”
My brows dipped, and I blinked with confusion. “Who?”
“Oh—nobody. Just the mama of my oldest kid.” He waved a hand, half laughing.
I refrained from rolling my eyes.
Unfortunately, Terry was not living up to the flirty text messages we’d shared before our first face-to-face meet.
Don’t get me wrong, Terry was handsome, with deep-brown skin and dark waves in his hair that melted into a fade. One diamond earring pierced each of his ears, and he had really nice lips that I knew would be good for ...certainsexual favors. But what he’d failed to mention was that he was a father of three children, all under the age of ten, and that all those kids had different mothers.
This I found out when his phone rang and one of his kids’ mothers interrupted our conversation to ask if he could send money for formula. He apologized once he was off the call, then proceeded to tell me about his children. He then went on about how his last relationship hadn’t worked out but they were trying to coparent for the baby’s sake.
Three different mothers to his kids. It took everything in me not to get up from that table and walk out of the restaurant. Theonlyreason I didn’t was because a part of me was considering sticking it out just to satisfy my hankering for sex.
I’d make sure he put on a condom, and it helped that I was on birth control, so I wouldn’t be one of his baby mama victims.
I squirmed in my chair, battling my sexual frustrations. It’d been so long since the last time I had sex. My vibrator, Rosie, had become my best friend, but I could go only so long without the real deal.
The one good thing about Terry was that he didn’t secretly want a serious relationship. Maybe that was because he was too busy popping his seed into every woman he met. That or he had too much on his plate already on top of a massive fear of commitment.
Regardless, it was good that he wasn’t seeking something deeper. No relationship business, no expectations, no attempts to be tied down. At least we agreed there.
