Page 9 of Beau Pair
Gordon
Iam stupid.
No. I’m not just stupid.
I am the stupidest person on this planet.
How can I hire someone, live in the same house with said someone, and not know he’s taking my class?
What in the actual hell?
It’s my fault, of course. If I’d looked through my list of students properly, I’d know. But as usual, I didn’t bother for the electives. Can you blame me? The kids drop like flies when they realize I teach them how to save money instead of how to make money to spend on parties and booze.
To be fair, it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that he’d take one of my electives, but… did he have to?
Isn’t it enough that we live together and that he works for me? Does he have to torture me in the classroom too?
Just the memory of him in the front seat, looking up at me through his long, dark lashes…
This is dangerous stuff.
“Where are you, mister?” Dolly asks.
I shake my head and go back to paying attention to her.
Elsie is sleeping in her stroller, and we’re having lunch at Gustavo’s after my morning classes are over.
“Sorry, what?”
“I asked you how was your first day back?”
The waiter arrives at the table with my gnocchi pesto and Dolly’s pizza bianca, taking another order for cocktails before he leaves us alone.
“It was fine. Nothing out of the ordinary really,” I lie, and Beau’s image comes up in my head straight away. “Turns out the nanny is taking one of my classes.” I have to tell her; otherwise, it’s just weird.
“Don’t you mean the manny?” Dolly laughs at her own joke, but she sees I’m not amused. “I thought you said he studies fashion.”
“Oh, yeah. He’s picked one of my electives. Personal Finance,” I reply.
“Well.” Dolly starts as she cuts a piece of her pizza with a knife and a fork and lifts it to her lips. I’ve told her countless times. Pizza is meant to be eaten by hand and by hand only. She won’t listen. “At least we know he’s responsible.”
“Wouldn’t have the job if he wasn’t,” I remind her.
“Oh, trust me. I know.” She laughs.
She has a point. We’d gone through so many years of bad girlfriends, bad jobs, bad deals, and bad candidates, and she knew I always wanted the best for everyone in my life. It was why I’d made sure to send Molly packing when I found her cheating on Dolly, and why it had taken all of Dolly’s third trimester to find a nanny we could trust with Elsie after she was born.
“How exactly are you going to make this au pair thing work with him in college?” she asks.
“We’re going to discuss it later this week once he knows his full schedule, and then we’ll figure it out, but it’s more than likely Elsie will go to Scholar Sprogs at least once a week,” I tell her.
“You know best, Gordon, but it sounds complicated. Why not just drop a class or step out of your portfolio, and then we can share a nanny like before?” she asks.
I understand why she thinks that, and we’ve had this conversation before. But I’m not ready to do any of those things. Besides, having an au pair means I can work at home while Beau is looking after Elsie, get as involved as I can, and still feel like I’m spending enough time with her. Or I hope so, anyway.
I know there will come a day in the future when I decide to reap the seeds of my hard work and partially retire, but I don’t want to do it just yet. Even though I could stop working completely tomorrow, and live my life as I please, I’m not wired that way. I’ve been working hard since I was eleven. I don’t know how to stop.
“How about you drop Elsie off on Sunday and we can all have dinner together?” I tell her when she keeps focusing on how much I’ve been working lately.
