Chapter One
Charlotte
Every day, I wake up with the best intentions, but once twenty to the hour rolls around, I’m carrying my kid to the car under one arm, Superman-style, with both of our bags tossed over one shoulder and my cold coffee sloshing around my to-go mug.
There’s nothing like the exhaustion that comes from working nights while having a child who is awake all day.
Second shift isn’t even that late.
I try to schedule my hours from three or four to eleven p.m. Even that’s rough when I don’t get home and settle in until after midnight, but the best time to make money at my job is during evenings and weekends, since that’s when our clients are off work and have time to come into the clinic.
By the time I eat something, shower, and clean up, it’s usually two or three in the morning. Lukas pops up at seven or eight, ready to tackle life, while I barely feel human. Then we get to do it all over again the next day. If he were one of those kids who likes to rise with the sun, I probably would have had a mental breakdown by now.
I’ve heard from some of the other moms that their kids wake up at five or six a.m. There’s no way I would survive that, but he goes to bed later than normal because of our schedule.
During spring and summer, we usually head to the park so he can burn off some of his never-ending energy, but it’s in that awful sleeting and snowing part of the year. Still, we have to get out of the house and do something, or I’ll fall asleep on the couch while he’s watching his shows.
“Don’t buckle me in,” Lukas says, kicking his feet as I try to do exactly that. “No! Please, Mommy!”
“Sorry, Lucky,” I say, calling him by his nickname. “If you want to make it to story time at the library, we gotta go now.”
I kiss him on the forehead and scramble to get his door closed as a chilling gust of wind cuts through the parking lot.
Dammit, I grew up in Florida.
One thing I’m still struggling to get used to is winter in Boston. I’ve been here for three years, and it never seems to get any easier.
The hair on the back of my neck prickles, and I walk around the back of my SUV, instead of the front, as I head to the driver’s door.
I try to be covert about checking for anything out of place, but nothing catches my eye.
I’ll never be a super spy.
I’m just a run-of-the-mill toddler mom.
Nothing exciting to see here.
But I do try to be extra aware of my surroundings.
It could be the difference between knowing someone is after us and finding out when it’s already too late.
Trusting my instincts has kept me alive for this long. When my gut tells me something, I don’t ignore it. It’s how I know when it’s time to end a session with an alpha at my job at the pheromone clinic, and when not to see a client again.
Women are taught to be polite and not to offend someone unnecessarily. That used to be me, back before life proved what a terrible idea it was to be cordial at my own detriment.
I’m not abrasive or angry for no reason.
I just don’t go out of my way to make strangers comfortable anymore. It’s actually made my life a whole lot more enjoyable.
The weird feeling in my stomach that I can’t shake is responsible for why I drive around in random circles, checking my rearview mirror the entire time, instead of heading straight for the library.
My head stays on a consistent swivel.
Am I extra paranoid today, or is something really off?
Nothing sticks out, and no one follows me, so I drive toward our destination.
Lucky talks my ear off from the back seat. If there’s one thing about my child, it’s that he never runs out of things to say.
