“You have a banana? Is it nice?” I asked. He didn’t sound too bad, which was a small relief, but that didn’t mean he’d feel this way in an hour.
“Yes.”
“What about an orange?”
“No. I hate oranges.”
I tried not to sigh because it wasn’t worth arguing with a toddler about the fact he’d literally had a clementine last night. If he hated oranges today, he hated oranges. “Oh no,” I said. “Do you like strawberries?”
He sniffed again, then said, “Bye Daddy, I have to go.”
I didn’t know where he was going but all I heard was a thump and crackle, like the phone had been dropped, and then Harper’s muffled voice. “Whoops! Can I have that? Got it, thank you,” Harper said, his words becoming clearer as he rescued his phone from wherever Jack had disposed of it.
“In case you were wondering, he has the rest of his banana at the moment along with some strawberry slices and bits of clementine.”
“He just told me he hated oranges,” I said with bemusement.
“Oh well, he’s eating it right now.”
“Good,” I said. Someone called my name from further down the corridor and I turned to see Devon beckoning me. “I have to get back to training, but I’ll call again in a bit.”
“We’ll be absolutely fine,” Harper said. “And we’ll see you later.”
He hung up, leaving me staring at my phone. His answers had been good, and Jack had sounded better than I’d expected.
But I still opened the app for the nanny cams as I walked back towards the canteen.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Harper
Jack was happily eatinganimal-shaped cheesy pasta with peas and some grilled chicken when Matty came home. He still had a bit of a fever and snotty nose, but after a chilled afternoon on the sofa, he seemed to have perked up a little. We’d watchedRobin Hoodand a bit ofThe Nightmare Before Christmas, which Jack said was his favourite film ever, with a good nap in between.
Managing a sick child, no matter how mild the illness, always took a lot of concentration because there was no telling if it would turn more serious. Kids could be fine one second and be throwing their guts up the next, and when they were little it was so much harder to know how they were actually feeling.
But I had enough experience to know Jack likely just had a bit of a bug, probably something he’d picked up from one of his classmates at nursery since these things tended to go around. It would clear up in a day or two, and he’d be back to jumping off the sofa while doing his best impression of a fire engine.
In fact, Jack’s illness hadn’t been the worst thing I’d had to deal with.
The real problem was Matty’s overbearing micromanagement.
From phone calls every hour to incessant messages about Jack’s breathing, temperature, and bodily functions, it had been non-stop since lunchtime. The nanny cams made me feel like I was under constant supervision, and while I’d known other families that used them, none of them had spied on me to the extent they could message me about what I was eating.
I’d take a projectile-vomiting toddler any time over that.
“Hey, how’re you doing, Jack?” Matty asked as he strode into the kitchen like his butt was on fire. I was sat at the table with Jack and tried not to scowl up at my employer by instead imagining his underwear actually catching fire.
Was it petty? Yes. But it helped.
Matty had spent the afternoon tap-dancing all over my limits, and I wasthisclose to being done. The only thing stopping me was the tiny voice in the back of my mind that kept reminding me Matty was obviously struggling with the idea of someone else caring for his son.
I could still imagine his pants catching fire, though.
“I’m nice,” Jack said, scooping up more of the cheesy pasta and inspecting it. I’d realised he liked looking at each mouthful to see what animals he was eating, and it was so adorable my heart squeezed every time he did it. “Look Daddy, a lion!”
“A lion? Does it taste good?”
“Yeah.” Jack nodded as he put the pasta into his mouth and Matty smiled softly as he sat down next to him. I tried to ignore it because one smile wasn’t supposed to undo the seething irritation in my chest.
