13. Chapter 13
OLIVER
Where the hell does she go?
A question that definitely wasn’t the thought stuck in my mind all weekend.
There was an entire clause in Luna’s contract stating that she always had a prior family engagement on Sundays, but now I had Min-Joon’s stupid thoughts in my head, and I’d been second-guessing everything ever since she strolled in late Sunday evening and then again yesterday.
Granted, she arrived home around nine last night, so it was a little earlier than the day before, but still.
The time and effort my curiosity is using to try and figure this out was a few notches away from crazy, and I can’t keep entertaining it; I was busy as it is.
What with Theo, who acted like the world came to an end after Luna left yesterday, and that he didn’t want to play Mario Kart or go bowling, which he loves doing.
I even suggested we try go-karting with April. He had a lot of fun when the three of us went out last time, and what better thing to do than play Mario Kart in real life, but he turned it down and wanted to remain cooped up in his room. But I couldn’t allow that.
I only get two days a week where we spend the entire day together, and if I didn’t try to do something active with him, I would end up sleeping the entire day, and Theo would just play in his room, which I consider a waste of a day.
So, I packed up a couple of things and shoved him in the car. He didn’t ask where we were going at first and just silently watched out the window, but the moment I pulled onto the motorway, his eyes lit up, and his signature smile returned, knowing what it meant.
“The beach? We’re going to the beach!” He screamed for joy, pumping both his fists in the air. We were going to the beach and not just any beach, but a sandy beach.
Which in the UK meant you had to drive outside of London to find one; most beaches here, like Hastings or Brighton, were pebble beaches, and regardless of how tired I was, I was determined to have a good day out with Theo and show him he could still have fun with his original favourite person.
“That’s right, bud, we’re going to the beach,” I reply with a small smile, making eye contact with him in the rear-view mirror. He beams back at me, overly excited, telling me all the things he wanted to do once we got there and if I packed his beach things, which I did.
I then listened to him sing along to random songs that came on the radio, a habit he picked up from Min-Joon, but it kept him entertained for the two-hour car ride. It was a nice sunny day, and the day was filled with fun potential.
Okay, so it turned out to be a day full of tantrums, but then it was a day filled with fun. You know, because Theo felt entitled to have everything in a small gift shop by the beach because ‘I have the money’,
Then he cried because he wanted ice cream before lunch, and last but not least, he was kicking and screaming because he had made a friend on the beach and did not want to go home, but all in all, after I let him cry it out and blocked him out with the radio, he calmed down.
We were pulling into our road when Theo finally started to nod off, so I made sure to get him inside and helped him brush his teeth, then put him straight to bed. Today was a good day; I know Theo enjoyed himself, and I even learnt something new.
One of the other dads I met on the beach shared a tip that if you dress your child in their pyjamas before you head home, you can put them straight to bed, so best believe I went into the nearby town and bought him a new pair of pyjamas, and the trick worked like a charm.
After putting Theo to bed, I headed back into my office. My caseload is about to double with my pro bono case coming up, so I had to try and start making some headway before I’m back to my usual cases from tomorrow, but I could not have been more unproductive.
I sat in my office chair and I ended up passing out, I honestly don’t even remember falling asleep and I only woke up to the sound of Luna coming in from wherever the hell she had been going over the weekend, to avoid running into her I waited a while for her to go upstairs and for her to fall asleep before I carried my body up the stairs and straight into my bed.
Unable to remember the last time I went to bed at a reasonable hour, like 11 pm, until right now, when I slept like a baby till morning.
****
As the week went on, I kept coming back to the weekend, whether it was because my curiosity about my live-in nanny hadn’t died down yet or it was the fact that I sacrificed getting a bunch of work done for a few extra hours of sleep.
It was against my usual routine; my body was making me pay for it.
I’ve reached a whole new level of exhaustion and only allowed myself to temporarily shut down during my lunch break, which cut into my workout time, and I used it to nap in my office. Then I woke up and continued with my work until it was time to go home.
But sleeping had only increased my workload, so for the rest of the week, I spent less time catching zzz’s and working on what needed to be done. That meant no more naps or going to bed early, just work and Theo’s bedtime routine, then work again.
Although that may not have been a great system, as it meant I hadn’t been giving myself time to eat, or the fact that I was so delirious from lack of sleep that food had trumped work and work had trumped sleep, by the time Thursday had come around.
Luna looked at me as if I were crazy when I came home and accepted the food she had made as she was dishing it out. She apologised for making too much, but it was the greatest news to my ears, and she offered me a healthy plate that I went back to my office to devour.
I ended up eating three servings worth of her Greek Lasagna, and I don’t know what she put in that food, but it gave me more than enough energy to go back into my office after putting Theo to bed, and I ended up catching up on all the work I’d been behind on in a matter of hours.
I still felt weird having a woman live in my house, but I was already getting used to the home-cooked meals and extra hour of sleep in the mornings because I didn’t have to worry about getting Theo ready for school.
Still feeling the effects of her superfood wearing off when I sit back in my chair, and my phone rings. I lean forward to see that it was Min-Joon and stretch my arm to answer it.
“If you call me honey, I’m going to hang up on you.” I declare before he can open his mouth.
“You’re no fun, grumpy bear.” My best friend sulks, furrowing his eyebrows at me.
“Damn, you look like shit,” he adds, taking in my body language, slumped and leaning back in my chair, too tired to fix my posture.
“I’m whatever the biggest word for exhausted is,” I grumble.
“Hmm, Zonked? Knackered? Ooo, spent!” he blurts, treating my pain like some kind of guessing game, but I didn’t even have the energy to stop him.
“No, but seriously, dude, you need to get some sleep; you look wiped out,” he recites, shaking his head and leaning in close to spot the bags under my eyes.
“I didn’t even eat today; I completely forgot what food was until I came home to see Luna dishing out dinner for her and Theo,” I mention, rubbing my hands over my face and finally looking at my best friend.
“Damn. Work is that bad, huh?” Min-Joon asks, but he already knew it was; he knows exactly what I get like when my case files and minutes from endless meetings are piling up so badly, I can’t dig myself out just yet, so I didn’t have to give him an answer.
“Have you finished working through the new game plan for Henderson’s case?” He adds, because apart from Nigel, he was the only one who knew about the few extra cases I took on every year, and well, he kind of had to, since he used to be the one to care for Theo since I started going international.
Which reminds me, I must ask Nigel to rearrange some meetings so I can come home early on Friday to go over the plan for the weekend with Luna. This would be her first time having Theo for a full seven days, and even though she was great, I was still shitting bricks about it.
“Yeah.” I sigh deeply. “Nigel and I had to scrap the other plan because the son of bitch’s lawyer is trying to sneak insufficient evidence in before the court case on Saturday, so we had to change our whole strategy,” I explain, feeling tense about the upcoming weekend.
Usually, these cases went on without a hitch, and I had almost reached a two-year winning streak with all my pro bono cases, but this was a tough one.
My client’s soon-to-be ex-husband was really putting up a fight this time around, and with the new promotion, everything else made my workload heavier than what I usually bench in the gym.
“Damn. Sounds like it’s gonna be a long one, but you’ve got this bro, ???.” Min-Joon hums in encouragement, adding the Korean equivalent of ‘you can do it’. Which did seem to be working, as I feel like I have the energy to get up the stairs later.
“So, you’ve finished for the night, right?
I think you’d better head up and get some extra hours of sleep.
” Min-Joon mumbles in concern, again acting as if he were, but the only resemblance he had was his mother’s nose and her crooked smile; other than that, he was the carbon footprint of his father.
A sweet man of very few words, but I still held a lot of respect for him.
“No, not yet.” I groan, knowing he was going to fight me on this,
“Dude, I know you love your work and your job, but you’re gonna end up in A&E if you keep going like this. It’s already unnatural enough that you live off less than ten hours of sleep a week,”
He pauses to look at me to make sure I’m listening.
“Do you need me to conference in? Because if you don’t go to bed, I will!” he threatens, which I didn’t appreciate because I was trying to avoid the real reason I couldn’t go to bed yet, and the one person I wasn’t able to be grumpy or rude around was Min-Joon’s.