Chapter 7 #2
How sweet. I’ll just put this soup away for tomorrow. Thanks, Officer Sunny
Controlling bastard.
Swiping over to my CGM app, I check the graph—137 with the arrow flat.
Without meaning to, I start to mentally tally.
I know from more than twenty years’ experience that two slices are about sixty carbs.
Maybe a little more. Pizza is one of those foods that just sort of does what it wants to anyway. I can never seem to get it quite right.
I tap the bolus screen on my insulin pump app.
The suggested amount is just under six units.
I chew my lip and bump it up to seven. Half delivered now and half to deliver over the next couple of hours.
It’s not like I’ve never been stuck dealing with a blood sugar spike at midnight before, but hopefully, this will stave it off.
Nellie finishes up her math and puts it away just as the doorbell rings.
“Yay pizza!”
I laugh at her enthusiasm and grab our dinner. We eat together at the table while Nellie regales me with stories of recess.
When we’re done, I put my soup in a glass container in the refrigerator and slap a sticky note on top.
Do NOT eat this disgusting soup.
My energy begins to wane somewhere around seven o’clock.
While Nellie watches her hour of television, I attack the broken vacuum and the mess left in her bedroom from this morning.
A trusty pair of scissors is all I need to remove a nasty tangle of hair wrapped around the brush roll, and it probably would have helped if he had ever emptied the canister.
I give it a good rinse and plug it in, smiling to myself when it doesn’t blow up in my face.
Another success.
Sutton might have his reservations about me, but he won’t be able to dispute the facts.
His daughter is happy and fed.
Her homework is done.
And the house is cleaner than it was this morning.
Win. Win. Win.
“All right, kiddo. It’s time to get washed up so we can finish your reading.”
She does a good job of not pouting too much. Thirty minutes later, she’s showered and in fresh pajamas, with clean hair and her library book held loosely in her hands.
“Miss Alice, can I read to you?” The question is hesitant, nothing like all our other interactions today.
“Of course you can,” I answer instantly.
She slips her small hand in mine and tugs me down the stairs.
“I always read in Daddy’s room. He has the biggest bed.”
Oh shit.
I pump the brakes. “I don’t think I should go into your dad’s room.”
“Why not?” Her brows slash deeply across her forehead. “I always read to everyone in here. Grammy, Cortney, Uncle Silas. Sometimes, reading makes me sleepy, and if I fall asleep, Daddy will let me stay for a while.”
The image she paints is beautiful. One of a secure childhood surrounded by love.
I don’t want to crush her and her perfect image of her father by telling her he hates me and might just burn the bed down if I touch it.
Not to mention that I don’t actually want to see the place where Sutton sleeps, more than likely in very few pieces of clothing.
“Your dad and I are brand-new friends. I think he’d be more comfortable if you read to me on the couch or in your room.”
She pauses at the threshold, and I nearly sigh. She tilts her chin just enough to meet my eyes.
“Nah. He won’t care. Come on.”
Her mighty tug sends me stumbling into the room.
I try really hard not to take it all in.
I barely notice that the carpet is the same as in Nellie’s room and in the hall.
That he sleeps in a king-sized bed pressed up against a black accent wall and a plush headboard with wooden posts on either end.
Or how the dark gray duvet is neatly made without a wrinkle, hiding the evidence of which side he sleeps on.
Maybe he sleeps in the middle.
I would.
I mean, if I was alone.
My cheeks puff out as she pulls me closer and climbs up. Nellie pats the space beside her.
“Here, I saved you a seat.”
“I, um…” I glance back at the open bedroom door. Shit.
I wonder if she’s going to cry if I back out now. Eight-year-olds are pretty tough. She should be fine.
My fatal mistake is looking into her puppy-dog eyes. I snap my mouth shut and lower myself onto the edge.
Ohhhh. It’s soft. The mattress topper beneath my ass feels heavenly. It curves around my hips and coaxes me to stay.
Don’t get too comfortable and don’t touch anything!
I cock my knee onto the bed and leave my other foot on the floor, ready to bolt at the sound of the front door opening.
“How much do you have to read?” I brush a fresh wrinkle out of the duvet. The longer I sit here, the more I’m surrounded by his masculine scent. Sutton might be a dick, but he sure smells good.
I blank my mind and try to forget about the fact that I’m sitting on his bed.
“Mrs. Johnson says I hafta read for thirty minutes every night.”
“All right.” I lean back gingerly against the wooden post. My hand flutters between us. “Go on then. Show me what you’ve got.”
Nellie grins that toothless grin and flips open to her bookmarked page.
She reads confidently, only stumbling briefly over some of the tough words.
I help her sound them out, and she continues as if nothing happened.
She changes her voice with the different characters, and I laugh along with her to the funny parts as I become engrossed in the book.
A throat clears from the doorway. Nellie slaps the book shut, and I jump.
“Aw, dang it. I lost my page.” She flips the cover back open and fans through the pages.
Sutton stands in the entrance, looking rather intimidating in his uniform, partially in shadow from the darkened hall.
“Nellie, time for bed.”
A pressure squeezes my lungs at his lack of acknowledgment.
“You did a great job tonight.” I rise quickly and give her room to scramble off the edge.
Her arms wrap tightly around my thighs, and her head slams into my middle. With her chin in my stomach, she looks me in the eyes.
“Will I see you tomorrow?”
I scan Sutton’s face, finding him unreadable.
“I’ll have to talk to your dad about that.”
“’Kay.” She lets go and marches to the door. “We had a great first day together. I think we’re going to be best friends.”
My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth at her innocent yet complicated declaration.
“Brush your teeth, Buttercup. I’ll be right back to say good night.” Sutton’s instructions to his daughter give me a burst of adrenaline to hightail it from his bedroom.
The problem is I have to squeeze past him to do so, and he doesn’t seem intent on moving.
I stop breathing, squishing my lungs as small as possible to slip past. My shoulders are rigid, and I keep my chin held high. His shadowed eyes follow me before the rest of him. His gaze feels like hot lasers on my back as we walk together up the stairs.
“On a scale of 1 to 10, how was your day?” I ask sweetly, rounding on him in the kitchen.
“Whose idea was it to go into my room?”
“I’m not big on tattling on eight-year-olds, but I also think you should know the answer to that.”
He lifts his chin.
I stare long after the motion ends.
“Am I fired?”
“Not yet.”
“Can you tell me what you approve of so I know to keep doing it?”
“No.”
“Great. That’s clear as mud, Officer Sunny.”
He scrubs his brow. “Will you stop calling me that?”
“That depends. Are you ready to call me Alice?”
“I am not, Ms. Thompson.”
The tiredness weighing down my limbs has me saving this argument for another day.
If he wants to continue to be this rigid, well, the stick is up his ass, not mine.
With my travel mug in hand, I locate my crossbody and cooler in the foyer and toss the straps over my head before picking up my cactus.
“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say, stepping into my shoes.
The jingle of keys right beside me startles me upright.
“What are you doing?” I press my rigid spine against the door.
“Driving you home.”
“I can walk.”
“Not when it’s dark out.”
“I’m a big girl, Sutton.”
He hinges at the waist, his nose moving so close to mine his gray eyes fill my field of vision.
“And I’ve spent the past twenty years dealing with criminals, which means I know what’s safe and what isn’t. If I say you aren’t walking home from my house in the dark, it’s because I know it’s not safe for anyone to be walking around after dark. That includes you.”
I lose the ability to breathe. “Wh-What about Nellie?”
“Neighbor’s keeping an eye on the house.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I’ll be gone five minutes.”
“Really, I’ll be fine.”
“Get in my truck, Ms. Thompson.”
“Sutton—”
“Get in my damn truck so I can get back home to my daughter.”
Well, when he puts it like that…
“Fine. Just until I get my license unsuspended.”
“Glad we’re on the same page.”
I give him my back in order to roll my eyes.
Then I get into his truck.