Chapter Eight
Cate
Okay, so here’s the thing about anxiety: it makes you do spectacularly stupid things at spectacularly stupid times.
Case in point: showing up at your employer’s house at seven-thirty AM on a Saturday because you spent the entire night convinced he wasn’t entirely thinking correctly and was in fact going to fire you for breaking his daughter’s arm, and the only way to prevent said firing was to prove you were the most dedicated, responsible, punctual nanny in the entire tri-state area.
Was this logical? No.
Was this sane? Also no.
Did I do it anyway? Obviously.
I’d been awake since five AM, mentally rehearsing my “I’m so sorry and also I’m amazing please don’t fire me” speech.
By seven AM, I’d convinced myself that showing up early to check on Megan was exactly the kind of initiative that separated good nannies from great ones.
By seven-thirty, I was out the door. By seven thirty-five, I was standing on Dr. Lyon’s doorstep, knocking with the confidence of someone who definitely hadn’t just made a series of questionable life choices.
The door opened.
And that was when my brain just... stopped.
Completely flatlined.
Because there he was. Gabriel Lyon. My employer. Megan’s father. The man who’d spent just yesterday glaring at me like I was a particularly disappointing lab result.
Wearing nothing but a towel.
A small towel.
A towel that was slung low on his hips, held up by what I could only assume was sheer willpower and perhaps divine intervention, because physics alone couldn’t explain how that thing was staying in place.
Water droplets traced lazy paths down his chest—and oh God, what a chest. No—not just a chest. A whole situation.
Defined muscles that suggested he did more than just hold stethoscopes all day.
Abs that had abs. A V-line that disappeared beneath the towel in a way that made my brain produce a sound like a dial-up modem trying to connect to the internet.
His hair was wet, pushed back from his face, and there was a drop of water clinging to his collarbone that I suddenly wanted to—NOPE. ABORT. SYSTEM MALFUNCTION.
“It’s Saturday,” he stated.
I blinked at him.
Words. Those were words.
English words.
I knew English.
I spoke English.
Why couldn’t I remember how English worked?
“Saturday,” he repeated, slower this time, like I was a particularly dim houseplant. “Your day off. The day you don’t work.”
Saturday. Right. The day after Friday. The day I wasn’t supposed to be here. The day normal people slept in and didn’t show up at their boss’s house to gawk at them in towels.
“I—” My voice came out as a squeak that would’ve embarrassed a mouse. “Saturday. Right. Yes. The day. That’s today.”
Smooth, Cate. You’re really nailing this whole “competent adult” thing.
Another water droplet slid down his temple, tracing the line of his jaw, and I watched it like it was the most fascinating thing I’d ever seen. Which, to be fair, in that moment, it absolutely was.
“Did you need something?” He crossed his arms, and the towel shifted.
THE TOWEL SHIFTED.
My face went hot. Then hotter. I was pretty sure I was approaching core meltdown temperatures.
“No! Nothing! I just—I thought—” I gestured wildly at nothing, at everything, at the universe that had conspired to put me in this situation. “I wanted to check on Megan. Make sure she was okay. After yesterday. The arm. The broken one. That she has now.”
“She’s fine. Still asleep.”
“Great! Wonderful! Sleep is important. For healing. And... existing.”
And existing? What did that even mean? Why was I like this?
He was staring at me. I was staring at his collarbone because looking at his face felt dangerous and looking anywhere else felt even more dangerous.
“Cate,” he said slowly, like he was genuinely concerned for my mental health. “Are you alright?”
“Perfect!” I squeaked, hitting a pitch that probably shattered wine glasses in neighboring counties. “I should go. You’re clearly... busy. With your... towel situation.”
TOWEL SITUATION?
I didn’t wait for a response. I spun around so fast I nearly gave myself whiplash and speed-walked down the driveway like I was competing in the Olympic mortification event.
Quickly hopping the fence, I walked into my parents’ house, ran upstairs to my room, slammed the door, and slid down to the floor.
“Towel situation,” I whispered to myself. “You said ‘towel situation.’”
I was never going back. I had to move to Canada. Change my name. Become a hermit. Anything was better than facing Gabriel Lyon ever again.
My phone buzzed. A text from my mom.
Mom: Sweetie, I’m at the store. Do you need anything?
I stared at it for a long moment, then typed back.
Me: Yes! A suitcase. I’m moving to Canada.
She sent back a confused emoji.
I sent back a coffin emoji.
She called immediately, but I just sat there, watching it ring, replaying the entire catastrophic encounter in my head.
The towel.
The abs.
The towel situation.
Yeah. Canada was looking really good right about now.
The phone rang again. And again. And again.
I watched the screen light up with my mom’s contact photo—a picture of her making an exaggerated kissy face that she’d insisted on using despite my protests. Under normal circumstances, it was mildly embarrassing. Right now, it felt like the universe was personally mocking me.
I let it go to voicemail for the fourth time.
“Catherine Marie Brennan, I’m coming home right now,” her voicemail said, her mom-voice in full effect. “And you better be alive.”
Great. Now I’d worried her. Perfect addition to my day of perfect decisions.
I pulled my knees up to my chest and rested my forehead against them, trying to achieve some kind of meditative state where I could simply cease to exist. It wasn’t working. My brain was too busy replaying the scene on loop, like a highlight reel from the worst movie ever made.
“You’re clearly... busy. With your... towel situation.”
I groaned so hard I nearly dislocated something.
The thing was—and this was the part that made it infinitely worse—he’d looked good.
Like, objectively, scientifically, undeniably good.
The kind of good that made you question whether you’d been living under a rock your entire life, because how had I not noticed that Gabriel Lyon was an actual human specimen?
Sure, I’d noticed he was attractive in an annoying, grumpy, perpetually disappointed way. But that was different. That was like noticing a sculpture was well-crafted. Intellectual appreciation. Distant. Safe.
This was not safe.
This was wet hair and water droplets and muscles that had clearly been doing push-ups while I wasn’t looking, and a towel situation that had nearly caused me to spontaneously combust.
And I’d said that. Out loud. To his face.
“Towel situation,” I muttered again, banging my head lightly against the bedroom door.
“Who even says that? What does that even mean? It’s not a real phrase, Cate.
You invented it. You invented a phrase to describe the fact that he was half-naked and you were having a complete neurological breakdown. ”
I heard the front door open.
“Cate? Honey?”
My mom’s voice echoed through the house, followed by the sound of grocery bags hitting the kitchen counter.
I heard her pause, probably noticing the trail of destruction I’d left—my purse abandoned by the door, my shoes kicked off haphazardly, and me, apparently, having a full mental breakdown on the floor like some kind of tragic Victorian heroine.
“Cate?” she called again, this time with more concern.
“Up here,” I called back weakly. “I’m having a crisis.”
Her footsteps quickened, and then she appeared, taking in the scene with the practiced eye of someone who’d dealt with my dramatics for twenty-something years.
“Okay,” she said, setting down her purse and crouching beside me. “Talk to me. What happened? Did he fire you? Oh God, did Megan break something else?”
“Worse,” I said.
“Worse than a broken arm?”
“Infinitely worse.”
My mom sat down on the floor next to me, her expression shifting from concern to curiosity. “Alright, I’m listening.”
I took a deep breath. “He answered the door in a towel.”
There was a beat of silence.
Then my mom started laughing. Not a polite chuckle. A full, body-shaking laugh that echoed through the hallway.
“It’s not funny!” I protested, but I could feel my face heating up again just from saying it out loud.
“Oh, honey, it’s a little funny,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes. “So what? He was getting out of the shower. That’s... normal. People shower.”
“Yes, but he was—there was—” I gestured vaguely at the space in front of me, trying to convey the sheer situation of it all. “And I said, ‘towel situation.’”
My mom lost it again.
“I’m serious!” I huffed. “I actually said those words. ‘You’re clearly busy with your towel situation.’ Like I was commenting on his laundry schedule!”
“Oh my God,” my mom gasped between laughs. “That’s the most you thing I’ve ever heard.”
“You’re not helping, Mom,” I groaned. “In fact, you’re making it worse. I have to go back there on Monday. I have to see him again. I have to look him in the eye and pretend like I didn’t just have a complete meltdown on his doorstep because he was—” I stopped myself, but it was too late.
My mom’s eyes lit up with mischief. “Because he was what?”
“Nothing. He was nothing. He was just... wet.”
“Wet,” she repeated, clearly enjoying this far too much.
“Wet and—” I clamped my mouth shut, but the damage was done. I could see it written all over her face. She knew. She absolutely knew that I’d noticed Gabriel Lyon was attractive, and that this was somehow worse than the actual humiliation of the “towel situation” comment.
“He’s your boss,” my mom said gently, but there was still amusement in her voice.
“I know.”
“And you’re his nanny.”
“I’m aware.”
“And you just told him he was busy with his towel situation.”
“Can we please stop saying that?”
She patted my knee. “Honey, you’re going to have to face him eventually. You can’t hide in your parents’ house forever.”
“Watch me,” I said darkly. “I’m very committed to this plan.”
“Monday morning,” she said, “you’re going to walk in there, and you’re going to act like nothing happened. You’re going to be professional and competent and—”
“And he’s going to remember ‘towel-gate,’” I finished. “He’s going to remember it forever. It’s going to be the thing he thinks about when he thinks about me. Not that I’m a good nanny. Not that I care about Megan. Just... ‘towel situation’ girl.”
My mom stood up and offered me her hand. “Come on. Let’s get you some ice cream and we can strategize how you’re going to survive Monday without dying of embarrassment.”
I took her hand and let her pull me up. “I don’t think ice cream can fix this.”
“Ice cream can fix anything,” she said firmly. “Well, almost anything. But it’s a good start.”
As she led me toward the kitchen, I caught sight of myself in the hallway mirror—flushed face, wild hair, the general appearance of someone who’d just been through a minor apocalypse.
Monday was going to be a disaster.
But at least I had the weekend to prepare myself mentally.
Or to practice saying “good morning” without accidentally mentioning towels.
Whichever came first.