When my mind wanted to back me into a corner, it sure as hell was good at it. And the voice in my head had a point. Marissa and I moved much too quickly with things between us, and that was how we had ended up in the situation we created. The last thing I wanted was for Eva and myself to travel the same path and meet the same destructive end because we didn’t do shit right the first time around. I was over the broken hearts and the manipulation. I knew falling for another woman wasn’t going to solve all of my problems. If anything—with what I went through with Marissa—I knew falling in love would only create yet another delicate dynamic in my life that I’d have to treat with care.
I also knew my choice of career didn’t always afford me that kind of luxury.
“I should go check on Asia just to make sure she’s still sleeping,” Eva said.
Her voice pulled me from the recesses of my mind, and I watched her get up. I didn’t try to stop her because I heard the determination in her voice twinged with a worry that matched my own. Silently, I watched as she crossed over toward the stairs, disappearing beneath the boat without another word spoken.
And at that moment, I knew I’d never find another woman as good to my daughter and myself as her. Because dammit, she was a better mother to Asia than Marissa could ever be.
20
Eva
“Yes, up the stairs and down that middle hallway, all the way at the end. Thank you.”
“Yep, that goes up there, too.”
“Oh, no, no! I’ll take that, thank you. That’s going down here in one of the closets.”
“You got it! I can do that.”
“This is supposed to be in storage. You can take that back out to the truck. Thank you so much.”
I pointed the men hauling my stuff into Gavin’s place on where things went and what needed to be taken back to the storage facility. I had so many more things than I ever imagined, and even after donating some of my junk to the local thrift stores, I still had an entire storage container filled to the brim. Granted, most of it was furniture I wanted to keep, but some of it was of value to me. Mementos from my childhood and things I kept from my teenage years that held significance to my development. Journals I scratched my emotions into and a lockbox I kept under my bed that housed my “prized possessions” as a sixteen-year-old.
And yes, I picked the guest bedroom with the best bathroom attached to it.
Not only that, but the guest bedroom I picked out for myself had its own little second-story balcony just for me to use. Gavin had two chairs and a table set out there, as well as a little coffee machine set up in the corner so I could brew whatever I wanted and enjoy it right there on my private porch. The idea seemed nice if I could stomach the idea of coffee.
But here lately, coffee seemed to turn up my nose rather than make my mouth salivate.
“No, no, no! That goes in storage as well. Guys!”
I turned around and halted all of the movers coming through the front door. “Guys, please check the colors on the tops of the boxes. The red-topped boxes go into storage; they don’t come inside. Thank you.”
After our weekend away on the beach, I had come to two very stark conclusions. One, there was a good chance that I wasn’t a permanent thing in Gavin’s life, and I was okay with that. But, two, I had also come to terms with the fact that he and I would have regular sex while I worked for him. And I was also very much okay with it.
I mean, it was nice to daydream about playing house with some big Hollywood star, but I didn’t really see him that way any longer. He was just Gavin to me—a single dad who was trying to figure out his way in life and provide the best he could for his daughter. That was it. That was the lens I saw him through, and it suited him well.
Plus, I didn’t need to get attached to someone who was about to broaden a career, which meant he’d never be around.
At least it makes sense as to why he wanted me to move in.
Why I allowed myself to think that he wanted me to move in for other reasons, I’d never know. I chalked it up to being a naïve, idiotic little girl, and it was time for me to grow up. The days of playing house were gone, and this was the real world. I was the full-time nanny to a Hollywood A-lister, and that was that.
Nothing more, nothing less.
However, with those realizations also came a very important appointment—a doctor’s appointment to get on birth control. While I’d been spending way too much money on Plan B pills after our encounters, I couldn’t keep doing that shit to my body chemistry. Every time I took those damned things, they made me feel worse. And if Gavin and I were going to be sleeping with one another regularly, I needed to get my ass on birth control. It was the only responsible thing to do. I needed to start treating this less like a “coming home” situation and more like a “hook-up” situation.
So, after the movers got my stuff inside and left to put the rest of my things in storage, I headed straight for my doctor’s appointment.
Thank fuck, Gavin’s got the day off today.
I hadn’t seen much of him since we had gotten back from our yacht trip, and that pretty much solidified my thoughts. We had gotten over the idea of playing house together, and we were finally coming to terms with what our relationship was really going to be like. And while I didn’t want to admit how much that hurt, I knew I’d get over it. I’d been through worse in my life. A little bit of heartache over a man that was never truly mine would wash away with the ebbing and flowing of life’s tides soon enough. Then, I could focus all of my attention on raising Asia to be the best version of herself she could possibly be.
I pulled into the parking lot of my doctor’s office and started inside. I hadn’t had a check-up in a while, so I braced myself for all sorts of things. Poking and prodding. A pap-smear and a breast exam. I bounced from room to room, giving urine samples and letting them draw blood. The doctor swabbed the inside of my cheek and checked my pupil dilation before taking my blood pressure.
But, when a nurse quickly rapped her knuckles against the door, I watched them exchange folders and glances. And it had me worried.
