The Kid, the Boss, and the Incorrigible Nanny

Part Thirteen

Her stomach was bubbling. For the first time since high school, Kid felt like she was walking on air. All week, the feeling had been growing in her stomach. It had been there when he'd touched her arm the other day. It had been there every evening when he'd come home from work and seen dinner on the table and his face had transformed into a little boy's at the announcement of cookies for dessert. The fabric of their interactions had changed. She didn't dread seeing him every day anymore.

It was horrible.

That Friday night at her grandmothers' house, over the usual game of Scrabble and coffee, she was struggling to focus. It wasn't for the first time since she'd met that man that she'd been having problems focusing.

"Something on your mind, dear?" Donna was carefully rearranging her letter tiles. Her words, though they sounded innocent enough, were pointed. She was winning.

"Nope. Nothing. Just... off my game I guess."

"It's your turn."

"Oh!" She blinked and forced herself to focus on the letters in front of her. It had been a tough round so far. But one word did pop out to her. "Table," She sighed, laying the tiles down. "And I believe that's a triple word score!" She smirked.

Her grandmother frowned. "Twenty-one points on a five letter word. Not terrible."

Kid shook the tile bag, counting in her head as she did. "Well we can't always have fifty point words."

"No," Donna sighed. "I suppose we must have a weak word every once in a while. But you are off your game, you know." She was pointing a pen in her granddaughter's direction. "Why is that?"

Kid's heart skipped a beat in her chest. A memory of him smiling at her flashed across her mind. "I really don't mean to be. I'm just tired, that's all."

"Ah, yes. Working for the miscreant bachelor. How is that going?"

"Well..." Kid grabbed her coffee mug and rose from her chair. Her heart was pounding. "It's going better than I expected." With that, she escaped to the kitchen. Donna would be able to see through her in a heartbeat. And if she started teasing her again... there would be no way that Kid could hide her reaction from her. She needed to tread carefully.

"Is he behaving?" Donna's voice called from the other room.

The coffee pot was almost empty. Kid poured the last of the brew into her mug and turned the pot off. "Aiden always behaves. Well," she laughed, "unless you feed him vegetables. We tried broccoli yesterday and it didn't go well."

"Mhmm. And how is the father behaving?"

She made her way back into the dining room, not sure how to phrase her next words. How were you supposed to talk about the pain of others? "Actually... Adrian is Aiden's older brother. Their parents died."

All traces of mirth left the older woman's face. "Oh."

"Yeah. Adrian has been raising his brother since. And apparently he's had to take on his father's position on top of not only grieving for his parents, but raising a child as well."

"Well." Donna looked around them and sighed. "I guess that does well to remind us to not take anything for granted, doesn't it?"

The moment fell on their shoulders like a heavy blanket. They shared it in silence.

"It's your turn," Kid offered after a few moments.

"Ah, yes. Let's see where we were." Donna leaned forward and plopped a handful of tiles down, turning QUIT into UNREQUITED.

"What?" Kid's jaw dropped. "How did you manage that?"

Her grandmother raised a brow. "If you think that's impressive, then you've lost your edge."

"Oh, please." Kid hunkered down over her own game piece. She needed to focus. Was she losing her edge? She moved some letters around, trying to think of a strategic move to put her back in the game.

"By the way," Donna cleared her throat. "What are you doing tomorrow night?"

"Nothing that I know of. Laundry probably. Why do you ask?"

"Because someone at church asked me if you were free tomorrow, and I said that you were."

Kid sighed. "I mean, I'm not busy. Who is it? Do the Greens need me to babysit for them?"

Donna cleared her throat again. "No, it wasn't the Greens. It was... someone else."

Something in her grandmother's voice made Kid pause and look up at her. The look on the older woman's face was difficult to decipher. "Well, who? Why are you acting weird?"

"It wasn't someone asking if you could babysit. It was someone asking if you could go on a date."

"What?!"

...

Chapter thirteen is complete! Thank you for reading! And thank you for commenting as well. It means a lot!

I'll see you next week! 

-j