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“Hey there,” he said. “Can I help you with those?”
I took in a deep breath and looked at my car, which was almost full as it was. Steve always seemed to appear out of nowhere whenever I was outside. It gave me an eerie feeling sometimes, making me wonder if he sat there watching, waiting for me to be out front: something that I didn’t even want to have stuck in my head.
“Sure,” I said, not wanting to hurt his feelings. “I have a couple more boxes right inside that we can jigsaw into the car.”
We walked inside, both of us grabbing a box and carefully making our way back out to my car parked in front of the house. I put my box in first and then took his, pushing it to the back by the window. I stood up and stretched my back, trying to ignore his eyes moving over my body.
“So, what are you doing? Having a major donation day?”
I stood there speechless for a moment, realizing that I hadn’t thought about the fact that no one in my life knew about Luke. I wasn’t sure what to say to Steve, so I decided that the best way to do it was to tell him the truth, or the public version of the truth. I kind of hoped that it would actually deter Steve and his major crush on me since me refusing date after date was obviously not getting the message across.
“Well, I’m moving in with my fiancé,” I said, trying to act nonchalant about it as if the existence of a fiancé was common knowledge. “I mean, I’m keeping the house for now, but I’m moving my important stuff over.”
“Oh,” he said, hardening his face and clearing his throat. “I wasn’t aware that you had a fiancé. I have never seen anyone over here. Forgive me, but it seems rather sudden.”
“Yeah, we spend most of our time at his house,” I said, shrugging. “I’ll be the first one to admit that things are moving really fast, but I’m okay with it. I’ve spent a lot of time alone, and now I am ready to jump in with both feet. No more being too cautious for me.”
“Well, good luck then, I guess,” he said, turning and walking away.
He shuffled through the grass between our houses, shaking his head but not looking back. Immediately I felt a weight lift off my chest, no longer feeling bad and always trying to spare his feelings, or feeling guilty when I couldn’t force myself to be attracted to him. At least this whole debacle had come in handy for something, and now I was ready to head over to my new temporary life.
Chapter Seventeen
Luke
She was on her way over, the girl who had saved me from a life without my son. I was excited to get things going, get her settled, and show her that she wasn’t in this alone. I knew that she was fearful of the outcome, I knew that she was uprooting her life to live here and make this work for me and for Jake, and that was a huge sacrifice for someone she barely knew. When the knock finally came, I jumped up from the chair and ran over to the door. I swung it open with a wide smile on my face and greeted Quinn. I grabbed my jacket and threw it on, following her to her car without a word, then helped her carry all of her boxes and suitcases inside, stacking them to the side, and waiting for her to close the door.
“Quinn,” I said, smiling at her. “I just wanted to thank you again for doing this for us. I owe you more than I could ever repay you for. But one thing I can definitely do is make up for the fact that you lost your job in the deal. I want you to know I’ll be paying you full-time wages for the entire time you are here.”
“That’s really great,” she said, smiling. “I appreciate that because I hadn’t quite figured out how I was going to keep my house when I didn’t have a job. But the real reason I was doing this was for Jake, and you now, too, of course.”
“Listen though, even though I’m paying you a wage, I don’t want you to think of it as taking care of us,” I said, feeling guilty now. “We are going to take care of each other. This is a huge thing, I know, but we will get through it together. Anyway, let me show you to the room so you can get all comfortable and set up.”
I grabbed a couple of her suitcases and walked her through the house and up the stairs. My bedroom was the first door to the right, and I pulled the suitcases in there, setting them in the middle of the floor. Quinn slowly walked into the room, obviously feeling nervous about what was going on.
“So, I cleared a bit of the closet for you, over half, and I bought this new dresser for you to use,” I explained, showing her around. “The bathroom was just cleaned, and you can take whatever space you need in there. Really, I just want you to make everything feel like home for you.”
“Thank you,” she chirped. “I might feel a bit awkward now, but once I get settled in, I’m sure I’ll get back to normal. I appreciate you being so sweet, this is a bit of a change for me.”
“Understood,” I said. “If there is anything that you need, you just let me know.”
I walked over to the dresser and wiped a bit of dust off the top, looking back over at Quinn. I followed her gaze over to the king-sized bed and tried to hide a laugh. I didn’t even realize what this would look like when she came into the room. I walked over shaking my head and put my hand on her shoulder, feeling her jump a bit under my touch.
“Ah geez, I’m such a moron. Don’t worry, Quinn,” I said sweetly. “You aren’t going to be forced to sleep next to me. You would go crazy anyway; I tend to snore when I am really tired.”
“I wasn’t even thinking about it,” she said, with a blush over her cheeks. “Okay, that’s definitely a lie: I was thinking about it.”
She let out a deep breath and looked at me for a moment before bursting into laughter, causing me to start laughing too. She definitely had an interesting way of breaking the ice, but I liked it; I liked everything about it. Quinn was the most unique person I had ever met, and though from the outside she seemed like any other woman, on the inside she had a personality that was just bursting to reveal itself. I didn’t know what she had gone through in the past, but whatever it was, I could tell it had taken a serious toll on her. I was excited to watch her move forward and start showing more of that funny and playful personality.
“No, you’ll be sleeping in here, and I’ll sleep on the pull out in the den,” I said, my eyes watering from laughing so hard. “Of course, we’ll need to make it look like we share a room so if the court official comes, it’s not strange. I’ll make the bed in the den every morning and put away all the linens, so there are no questions about it when they come. I don’t want to leave anything to chance or be caught off guard in any way. It’s always good to be prepared, and for this situation, I want to be as prepared as humanly possible.”
I offered to help her unpack, and she smiled happily as she handed me a box. I read the spines of the books I pulled out of the box and was really impressed by the authors that she chose to pursue. There was way more to this babysitter than met the eye. She must have seen my face because she smiled big and looked at me with her hands on her hips.
“I wasn’t always a babysitter, you know,” she said, chuckling. “I actually had a highly technical career in the energy field for quite a while.”
“I’m not doubting your intelligence at all,” I said, smiling broadly. “I’m just happy to see there are so many facets to you.”