22. Collin
Istared across Joe’s desk at him and tapped my fingers on the arm of the chair I sat in. “She locked me in a room for eight hours.”
Joe twisted his head from side to side, popping his neck. “Yeah. She did.”
“She’s an absolute pain in the ass, Joe. She locked me in a room. Are you hearing the words I’m saying? Our nanny locked me in a fucking room. With quarters. That part is just insulting, by the way. I was held in a room with five quarters and the whim of a twenty-something.”
He leveled a stare at me. “If you’re going to fuck outside of the bedrooms in this house, you should know to erase the footage.”
I clenched my jaw and sat back. “Is that what’s gotten you in a pissy mood?”
He looked like he wanted to swing at me. “What’s gotten me in a pissy mood is that I spent the day with my daughter and she hated it. She told me that she knew Ada was up to something and went along to make Ada happy. If not for Ada, she said she knew we wouldn’t be hanging out together because I’m a jerk who would rather play on his computer than talk to his family.”
My mouth fell open. That was harsh. I’d felt some of that when I’d realized I was locked in a room with my sons and they were staring at me like I was a stranger they didn’t know how to talk to. It hadn’t felt great.
“And yeah, asshole, I’m a little pissy that you fucked the nanny. We don’t do that shit.”
I raised my hands in surrender. “You’re right. It’s never happened before and it wasn’t anything I planned. There’s just something about Ada that gets under my skin. That’s not what we’re talking about right now, though. We’re talking about you and Kendall.”
He shook his head. “No. We’re not. I’ve already heard that I’m a shitty father two times today. I don’t need to hear it again.”
“She said you were a shitty father twice? The first time wasn’t enough?”
“No.” Joe’s eyes moved to his computer screen. “Her. The parasite that’s gotten under everyone’s skin.”
It took me a moment to understand what I was seeing and when I did, I let out a shocked bark of laughter. “What the fuck is she doing?”
Ada was in the middle of the hallway in front of her suite, ass in the air as she crawled around on the floor. Joe snorted. “She dropped something fifteen minutes ago. If she doesn’t find it, I’ll tell her later that it rolled under the door into her room.”
I grinned at the screen. “This might be my new favorite pastime.”
“She told me that I’m a shitty father earlier today and when I got home, she comforted me and gave me a pep talk and a kiss on the cheek.” He rubbed at his cheek like he could still feel her lips. “I think she might really be unstable.”
“I’d buy that.” I went back to watching her on the screen. It looked like she’d given up. She laid flat on the ground with her arms and legs spread out around her. Before I could think better of it, I pushed the button for the intercom inside her room, knowing the sound would reach her. “Hey, Ada? What exactly are you doing and does it require medical assistance?”
Joe smacked my hand away. “Don’t use my shit to flirt with her.”
“I wasn’t flirting with her.” Maybe I was. The same way Joe was still feeling her kiss, so was I. I wanted more. “You want to hear something that makes me look like an asshole?”
We both watched as Ada flipped off the camera and disappeared into her room. Joe shook his head and finally gave me his full attention. “Of course. Maybe it’ll make me feel better.”
“She asked me to go to the lake with them and I accused her of trying to date me.” I nodded when Joe winced. “Yeah. She laughed. Not just a little, either. Then she told me I wasn’t her type.”
He howled with laughter and we both nearly missed the buzz of Ada’s intercom. He caught it at the last second and opened the connection. “Yes, Ada?”
“How long were you watching me search for my ring and did you see it roll into my room?”
Joe bit back a smile. “Goodnight, Ada.”
He cut the connection and we both watched as she opened her bedroom door and glared up at the camera.
I tapped my knuckles on his desk and hesitated a second. “She called you a shitty father and you still want her.”
Joe nodded towards his office door. “Out.”
“You didn’t fire her.”
He narrowed his eyes even further and pointed. “Get out of my office, Collin. I don’t want to see you right now. Or anyone else, for that matter. I’m going to sit here and think about the fact that my kid hates me.”
“Come on, Joe. She doesn’t hate you.” I stood up and moved towards the door anyway, knowing he needed to lick his wounds in private. “Ada, on the other hand, I think she might hate us all. She’s all sunshine and butterflies but I feel like there’s a demon hiding under that sweet top layer.”
I left him to stew in his own misery and climbed the stairs to head to my room. I’d missed an entire day of work but I needed a shower before I could head back down to get anything done. Kendall opened her door as I was passing by and frowned when she saw it was me. I wanted to demand a smile from the kid I’d helped raise but I knew that wasn’t how it worked.
“Have you seen Ada?” She peered around me like I was hiding the nanny. “I want to ask her to take us to camp tomorrow.”
I froze. “Your dad always takes you and the twins.”
“Yeah, well, things change.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I want Ada to take us.”
“No. Your dad is downstairs beating himself up because you made him feel like a bad father today. He loves you and you know it. You can’t take away tomorrow, too.” I shook my head at her, frustrated that she was so taken with the nanny and so quick to dump on Joe. “Seriously, Kendall, what’s gotten into you?”
Her eyes flooded with tears and she glared at me, the same glare I’d gotten from Joe minutes earlier. “You don’t get it. You’re the same as him. All of you are. You’d rather work than take care of your kids. You probably can’t even tell the twins apart.”
I didn’t even get past the initial pain from her words before she’d slammed the door in my face. The anger didn’t hit until I was in the shower, roughly scrubbing my body. I knew my kids. I was the only parent willing to be a parent to them. Their mother had taken off to California after the divorce to be an actress and she barely saw them. I took care of them. I made sure they could do to the expensive summer camps and schools and I made sure they had everything they could ever want.
The depression had struck by the time I was going back downstairs to work. Alex and Avery’s faces had been a clear indicator that they didn’t know how to act around me. When we’d gotten locked in, they’d just stared at me and then at each other. They’d seemed nervous. It was gut wrenching to think that my kids were nervous to spend time with me.
I took a detour and went by their room, the one they insisted on sharing, despite the plethora of rooms available in the home. I listened outside for the sound of games or talking but it was silent. Opening the door as silently as I could, I peered inside and saw they were asleep in their beds with a nightlight on between them. It cast the constellations around the room and I watched as a shooting star danced across Alex’s face.
I left feeling like a piece of shit.