Page 113 of Sweet Distraction

“Hey. Look at me.”

“You don’t have to explain anything,” I say.

“I do. I didn’t kiss you just now because I panicked. I looked up and thought, what if someone takes a picture? What if that gets put on social media? How will that affect you when you take the stand in the custody hearing?”

“Affect me or affect you?” I ask, confused how we could spend all day together in public places, places where photos of us close together were undoubtedly taken, but now he says that?

“Both? Your credibility and selfishly my ability to keep Poppy. A picture getting out of us slow-dancing and kissing in public will decimate your credibility to vouch for me. You’re my nanny, Willow. Not my girlfriend. Not ‘officially’ anyway. That’s how they’ll see it.”

He’s not wrong. My stomach pitches at the thought. And yet stupidly, that small rejection lingers like a bruise.

“Right. I forgot. My opinion comes with a disclaimer.”

His jaw tics. He closes his eyes for a beat. “Fuck, Willow. I’m trying to protect you.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

But that doesn’t mean that it didn’t seem like he’s embarrassed for the world to see me with him. That he wants to keep me a secret to keep his approachability up.

I move toward the end of my aisle, and he mirrors my action in his. When I go to walk past him to hang with Poppy, he catches my wrist.

“Don’t walk away. I told you how I felt. The quiet. That still stands all these minutes later,” he teases.

I can’t help my smile or the sudden embarrassment regarding my overreaction.

And before I can answer, he’s tugging me around the corner, behind one of the taller shelves, half-shadowed by bins of dusty cassette tapes and forgotten band posters, but still with a direct line of sight to Poppy.

“No cameras here,” he murmurs before cupping my face and kissing me.

His mouth is hot and demanding but tender and reverent. He kisses me like I’m not just a secret or a mistake or a risk.

He kisses me like I matter.

And when he finally pulls back, breath ragged, pupils dark, he rests his forehead against mine.

“In case you misunderstood what my lips just did, I’ll repeat myself with words. I want to kiss you every goddamn second I’m around you, Willow. Just give me time to figure out how to do it without losing everything in the process.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Willow

The hotel room is quiet for once.

Poppy’s napping in the bed behind me, her little body curled around her rabbit like it’s an extension of her spine. I’m in the corner by the window, phone pressed to my ear, eyes trained on the skyline of downtown Des Moines, and trying not to feel like the walls are closing in.

“Girl. You realize you’re freaking everywhere, right? TikTok, Insta, random-ass gossip blogs I didn’t even know existed.” Lily snorts. “Did I not tell you this was going to happen?”

“Yes. You did. You were right.” I groan and sink lower into the chair, dragging a hand over my face. “I’m just the nanny though.” It’s a lie that very few people, including her, know differently on, but it bears repeating.

The people jumping out of bushes to blind me with their flashes, who have no regard for Poppy or how scared it makes her, are my least favorite part of this trip.

Yes, it comes with the territory—or so I’m learning—but it doesn’t make them any less of an asshole.

“Just the nanny? More like you’re officially the hot new thing,” she says.

“Which also makes me the hated new thing.”

“Fuck them,” she asserts in a way that only she can. Like those two words are empowering rather than angry.