Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
preston
I don’t sleep well back in my bedroom. I stayed in what’s now Mia’s room for weeks, and my own bed feels… wrong.
I’m not sure if it’s this room and the sour memories of my ex in it, or the dream I had last night—me at the front of a classroom and Mia being a very, very naughty student—yanking me awake.
Either way, instead of lying here overanalyzing it and drowning in guilt about where my subconscious insisted on taking me, I blame the pillow and punch it, trying to knock some of the tension out of my body.
It’s 6 a.m. when I give up falling back asleep and text my parents, who are surely already awake and running errands around the house.
I ask them to bring Lily home on Saturday morning instead of Sunday, and they stubbornly agree after a few more text exchanges where I threaten to go there and get her myself.
They live on Compo Beach and will take the ferry to New York. Lily loves the trip, and I know they don’t want to miss her joy during the ride.
Coffee. That’s what I need now that’s settled. I’m mentally calculating how many shots to make it through the day when Mia’s voice startles me on my way down to the kitchen. She must have been waiting for me to pass by her door.
“Good morning, Doctor.”
“Morning, Miss Thorne.” Fuck, she gets prettier by the day. I force my gaze down. “Would you like some coffee?” I wrap the linen robe tighter around my waist and make a plan to buy one made of chainmail.
“Yes, please. But first, could you show me Lily’s room?”
I wasn’t expecting that. “Sure, but… why?”
She shrugs and smiles. “To get to know her a bit more. See which books she reads, what toys she likes to play with. That kind of stuff.”
It’s so… thoughtful. And thorough. I don’t think it’s for show. Mia’s worried about impressing Lily, not me. That tug in my chest is appreciation, which is somehow more dangerous than the attraction.
“Oh.” My shoulders loosen into a better place. “Please. This way.”
Coffee forgotten, I watch as she goes through Lily’s books, laughs at Dog Man’s ridiculous jokes, and asks which plushies are Lily’s favorites out of the dozens crammed into the net hanging in the corner.
She walks around, taking in every detail, smiling at things I can’t pinpoint but don’t question. Then I’m hit with a round of questions I’m not ready for.
How the divorce—ha, divorce is a mild way of putting it—has affected her grades, her behavior, her friendships. Questions I don’t have answers for.
But if I’m going to make real changes around here, I need to have them.
Next, we go over the apps and school emails.
Once Mia’s satisfied, she settles onto the couch with her laptop.
I try to get her out of the house—and my mind—but it’s no use.
She refuses to take the day off or to stay in her lane.
Even when I hide in my room for the better part of the morning to avoid her scent, her curves, her annoying way of speaking to me with a hand on my body, she texts me, invading my mind.
And my mind can’t make peace with the fact that she’s here to be my daughter’s nanny.
Not after hearing about her plans with her list. I appeal to reason, which has always been a friend of mine.
I remind myself that this is temporary. That temptation won’t last forever.
That I can stop myself from raising my hand in the air and volunteering as her sex instructor. Of course I can.
My stomach rumbles. It’s way past 1 p.m., and hiding in my room isn’t just ridiculous—it’s downright rude when I’m supposed to be handling lunch for the guest in my house. I make my way down with heavy footsteps to announce my arrival.
“Mia?”
“Yes, Dr. Preston?”
Never thought I’d see the day I hated being called “doctor.”
“I don’t think there’s much in the fridge, and it’s your first time in the city. Let me take you out for lunch.” The house might implode with us inside otherwise. Or just me with my inappropriate thoughts.
She seems reluctant at first, but ends up shutting her laptop and asking for five minutes to change. She takes three or four times that.
Once we’re outside, we head straight to my favorite ramen spot on Ninth Avenue.
The place is a hole-in-the-wall. All steamed-up windows and handwritten specials, but I’ve yet to find better.
From there, I get the brilliant idea to buy us last-minute tickets to a matinee musical.
That’s two solid hours of enforced silence.
Afterward, we take the train and walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. I’ve been obsessed with this bridge since I was a kid and know everything about it. By the time we cross it, I’ve told Mia enough geek-filled facts for her to run her own guided tour of the bridge.