Mom:Please tell me you’re not doing this because of Derek.
My jaw tightens. I shove the phone into my coat pocket without answering and grab my duffel bag from the passenger seat.
Derek has nothing to do with this. The fact that my ex-boyfriend got engaged to someone else three months after our breakup is completely irrelevant. The fact that he did it while I was still sleeping on my best friend’s couch, filling out job applications, is just coincidence… and a stab to the heart.
I’m not running away from my life.
I’m regrouping. Strategizing. Surviving. Not surrendering to the sadness.
The cold hits me the moment I step out of the car, sharp and bitter, cutting through my jacket like it isn’t even there. I grab my suitcase from the trunk and haul it up the porch steps, my breath coming out in fuzzy white puffs.
The front door has a wreath made of cinnamon sticks and dried oranges. It smells like Christmas and something else— vanilla, maybe, or a ton of butter. Something warm and sweet that makes my empty stomach growl.
When was the last time I ate?
I ring the doorbell.
Silence.
I wait, shifting my weight from foot to foot, my fingers already going numb. Ring again.
More silence.
“Great,” I mutter. I pull out my phone to check the time —4:47 PM, exactly when we agreed— and I’m about to call the number from the ad when I hear it.
A crash from inside the house. Then a child’s voice, high and panicked: “Daddy, Mia spilled theflour!”
Another voice, equally panicked: “Ava pushed me!”
“I did not!”
Then a man’s voice, low and strained: “Girls, please, I just need to —hold on?—”
Another crash.
My finger hovers over the doorbell, but something stops me. Some instinct, or maybe just the memory of what chaos with small children actually sounds like.
I try the doorknob.
It turns.
The scene inside the Westerland house is not what I expected.
The entryway opens directly into a living room that might have been cozy once but is currently drowning in what appears to be the aftermath of a flour explosion. Two identical little girls —both covered head to toe in white powder— stand in the middle of the room, pointing at each other accusingly. A man kneels between them, flour in his dark hair, on his shirt, dusting his forearms like he’s been rolling in it.
He looks up when the door opens, and I get my first real look at Jonah Westerland.
Tired. That’s my first thought. He looks absolutely exhausted, dark circles under darker eyes, the kind of weariness that goes bone deep. But there’s something else there too— something careful and controlled in the way he holds himself, like he’s carrying something heavy and can’t afford to drop it.
“I’m so sorry,” he says immediately, pushing to his feet. “I meant to —we were just— “ He gestures helplessly at the destruction around them. “You must be Chloe.”
“I must be,” I agree, setting down my suitcase.
One of the twins, I can’t tell them apart yet, tugs on Jonah’s flour-covered shirt. “Daddy, is she the new nanny? The one who’s gonna live with us?”
“Yes, Ava, she is, but we talked about this, remember? We need to make a good impression?—”
“Mia started it,” Ava announces, pointing at her sister.
