I took a deep breath and pushed off the weird feeling I had. “So, also, the guy I’ll be working for is kind of gorgeous.”
Bree had been mid-sip and started to cough. Lately, she spent half the day coughing because of the progression of her disease. But this time, my admission had caught her off guard.
“Shit.” I grabbed the wine glass from her and patted her back as her face reddened. “Are you okay?”
She held her hand to her chest and tried to take a few deep breaths. “I’m fine,” she said, straining to get out the words.
After a few minutes of residual coughs and sputtering, the color in her face started to return to normal.
“I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I know you’re not his biggest fan, but Tobias is your brother. I’m an ass.”
“First of all, stepbrother. And second of all, don’t be crazy. I’m…happy to hear you met someone. I just didn’t expect you to say that.”
“Are you sure? I understand if it might be weird for you.”
She nodded. “I’m positive.”
“Okay. Well, it’s not like he’s interested, anyway. I didn’t exactly make a good first impression. And I’m not ready to start dating again either. But it felt good to feel a little spark from my blackened heart. Like maybe it isn’t dead after all.”
Bree got up to grab the champagne in the kitchen. Her steps were slow, but I knew she didn’t like me jumping in and taking care of things for her. I stayed seated, even though it wasn’t easy to watch her struggle. She walked back to the living room, winded.
Refilling my glass she said, “It takes a while after we get hurt to feel ready. And trust me, you’re not a proper judge of the first impression you make on men. I’m sure his impression was today must be my lucky day.”
“You know what’s funny? I think one of the reasons I found myself attracted to him was because he didn’t seem bowled over by my looks.”
Bree smiled. “You like a challenge.”
I sipped. “I like honesty. And beauty is the biggest lie of them all. People look at you, see the outside, and assume the inside is a match. But a mirror doesn’t show who you are.”
Bree sighed. “God. My asshole-very-handsome stepbrother really burned you badly.”***“My uncle thinks you’re hot.”
I stopped mid-braid, with a handful of Hailey’s hair in each hand. “He told you that?”
She shook her head. “I overheard him on the computer.”
“What do you mean you overheard him on the computer?”
“He installed this program on my cell phone so he can listen to my phone calls. He thinks I don’t know. But I do. So one night I swiped his phone and installed the same thing on his. When I’m bored, I listen to his calls.”
I had soooo many questions. Why would you do that? Why didn’t you just speak to him? Do you know that two wrongs don’t make a right? But yet, I led with…
“Who was he talking to when he said I was hot?”
“His friend Lucas. He’s like…seven feet tall. He has to duck going through doorways.”
Let’s not get off track here. “What else did he say about me?”
“He said you were a…brasif.” She shrugged. “Whatever that is.”
“Abrasive?”
“Oh, maybe that’s what he said. What does abrasive mean?”
“It’s sort of someone who gets on your nerves.”
She smiled. “Uncle Hollis is abrasive for me then.”
I chuckled. Yeah, he’s abrasive to me, too.
But I had to back up. Returning to braiding, I tried to set the right example. “You know, Hailey, when you found out your uncle had put something on your phone to monitor your calls, you should have sat him down and spoken to him about it.”
“Sat Hollis down? You have met him, right?”
I guessed she had a point. “You know, your uncle comes off as sort of…difficult…at times. But he can be reasonable, too. Look at him and me—we didn’t meet under the best of circumstances, and I never thought he’d give me a shot after that. Yet here I am. I came back to talk to him, and then he thought about it and changed his mind about hiring me.”
I tied a rubber band around the bottom of the second French braid I’d made in Hailey’s hair, and she turned to face me.
“Uncle Hollis hired you because of tampons.”
“Ummm…come again?”
“After we met in the cafeteria, I asked Uncle Hollis if you were one of the people interviewing for the nanny job. He said yes, but that you weren’t qualified. The next day, he had some man come to the house from a nanny agency—a guy nanny. I heard Uncle Hollis saying how much great experience he had, and it sounded like he was going to hire him. So he called me out from my room to meet the dweeb and asked if I had any questions for him. I asked if he could show me how to put a tampon in.”