Now, Faye had detected a flaw in this seemingly simple babysitting arrangement, and it was standing right in front of her. She had let someone into her little family, and into her heart. Faye was falling in love before she had even realised what was happening.
Jake attempted to look down at what she was doing.
‘Chin up,’ said Faye pushing his chin up perhaps a little too hard.
Jake lowered his eyes instead to look at Faye’s bent head. Herface was a mass of concentration as she flicked the ends of the tie this way and that. She wasn’t wearing make-up, and her face was scrubbed clean, but her cheeks were slightly flushed in the hot confines of the lift. Her hair was still a little damp from her morning shower, and he thought he could smell lavender.
A mental image of Faye in the shower crept up on him, forcing him to avert his gaze – this was his colleague, his mentor, he was thinking about, and it was inappropriate. Still, he couldn’t get the image out of his head of how she’d looked when he’d seen her on Saturday morning, fresh out of the shower.
The lift door opened on another floor.
‘Good morning!’
They both recognised the headteacher’s voice. Faye and Jake, standing in very close proximity to one another, Faye’s hands on Jake’s tie. They both turned to look at the head.
Faye and Jake both mumbled an awkward good morning, Faye instantly dropping the ends of Jake’s tie and stepping back.
The head eyed them as he got in the lift. ‘Good weekend?’
Jake and Faye immediately nodded their heads, ‘Yeah, good thanks,’ said Faye, hoping she sounded convincing. Jake echoed her sentiments. They both avoided eye contact with each other.
Faye noticed the head’s eyes lingering on them both. She hoped he didn’t think there was something going on between them. It didn’t help that the lift door had happened to open just as she was helping Jake with his tie. She hoped the head didn’t mention seeing them together in the lift on Monday morning to anybody else. It was all innocent enough, unless he read something into it, and the last thing she wanted was tongues wagging at their expense on a Monday morning at work.
The head got out at the next floor.
Faye sighed in relief and turned to Jake, surprising him when she reached for the tie.
Faye turned down the collar of his shirt. ‘There.’ She brushedthe tie against Jake’s chest as he looked down at her handiwork.
‘Thanks.’
She studied the tie.
‘Still not speaking?’
She thought a moment, then shook her head.
They both turned to face the front of the lift. Faye thought back to the first time Jake had babysat Natty.
The sitter had unexpectedly cancelled. She wouldn’t have asked any of her other colleagues – they had enough commitments after work with their own families, and didn’t have time to look after someone else’s child. The young, single teachers had better things to do at the weekend than look after Natty – apart from Jake. She’d overheard a snippet of a conversation between another student teacher they’d recruited and a newly qualified teacher – both single, attractive young woman talking about Jake.
It was unprofessional, talking about a colleague behind his back. As the deputy head, she really should have reprimanded them on the spot when she’d realised who they were talking about. But Faye’s curiosity had got the better of her. It sounded as though they’d both tried some friendly banter with Jake when they’d discovered he was single. Faye wasn’t surprised by this. Jake was a good-looking guy. However, it sounded as though he was steering clear of them, to the point of being rude.
How could he not be interested?one had said with a flick of her hair. She was clearly under the impression she was god’s gift, Faye thought, which Faye decided was fair enough. They were both very attractive women. The other one had explained that Jake had lost his wife. They had both decided that they didn’t want that sort of baggage. Besides, they’d concluded he clearly wasn’t ready for another relationship, otherwise how could hehave resisted either of them?
That was Faye’s take on the situation too, so she had approached him to see if he wouldn’t mind babysitting – just for one night while she went out on a date.
From the start of his employment, Jake had taken a genuine interest in Natty’s welfare during Faye’s conversations with him. So, despite some initial reservations – namely how Natty was going to get on with her new sitter – Faye had picked up the phone and dialled his home number. She’d rehearsed it. She was going on a dinner date, she’d be back by eleven-thirty at the latest, and it was an absolute one-off. Did she sound desperate? She hoped not. The meal had been planned for two weeks, and the sitter had let her down at the last moment. Thirty minutes later, Natty was ensconced on the sofa, cuddled up to Jake, listening to a story. She hardly gave a rather bemused Faye a second glance as she headed out of the door.
And that was how it had started. More dates had followed, but then she had started her headteacher training, and she’d no longer had time for pseudo-relationships.
Jake had become the back-up sitter, and then, before she knew it, the original sitter had become the back-up sitter, as she found herself reaching – at Natty’s insistence – for Jake’s number first.
And that was how, Faye had realised that morning, she had unwittingly let into Natty’s life that which she sought to keep out; namely a man who would in all probability not be around in the foreseeable future. At some point, he would meet someone, whether he was ready to start a new relationship or not, and understandably he would have other priorities. Looking after someone else’s child would go out of the window.
The question she was now asking herself was: should she wait for that to happen and let Natty’s obvious attachment to Jake grow? Or should she end the arrangement straight away?
The lift jerked to a halt unexpectedly, throwing Faye into Jake’s arms. She quickly extricated herself from his embrace. Not that she wanted to. And there was the crux of the problem. Natty wasn’t the only one whose attachment to Jake had grown over the course of the last few weeks.
