Page 18 of Knocking up his Nanny

CHAPTER 12

Pressing the app on my phone, which randomizes numbers, I call out: “G-48!”

“Bingo!” shouts an old man in the hospital room.

Everyone else groans and mumbles and complains.

“I was almost there!” my mother says.

“One number away,” complains another old woman.

“Mr. Harrison wins the bag of Skittles,” I tell them all, after checking his card to confirm he wasn’t cheating.

It turns out Bingo is a big hit among the chemo crowd. It’s not all old people today. There’s also a teenage boy with leukemia, but even he’s enjoying the silly game.

Thanks to the fact that I now have a job, I can afford to give out lucrative prizes like Skittles. Dollar bills will soon be plentiful, so I made that vending machine my bitch. I fed her lots of paper, and she popped out snacks like a good little girl. No fuss, no muss, this time. It’s like even the vending machine can tell that I’m less pathetic now, that things are getting better for me.

But I haven’t seen my handsome stranger yet.

“Why don’t you go for a walk, sweetie?” my mother asks when she sees me glancing at the door. “I can take over running Bingo for now. You seem antsy.”

“Are you sure?” I ask her.

“Yes, yes, go,” she tells me. “I don’t need you to sit here and babysit me all day. I can run a simple game of Bingo. Go!”

Smiling at her, I exit the room and begin aimlessly wandering the hospital halls.

I’m definitely feeling a lot more positive and hopeful than I was even a few days ago. I guess there’s a lot of comfort and security in having a job that pays well, plus one that I immensely enjoy.

It won’t magically fix my mother’s health, but it’s a step in the right direction. At the very least, it should help us scrape together enough money to pay the mortgage, so we don’t lose Snowfall Inn.

Now, I have the stability of a decent job. No immediate danger of losing the family home and business. My mother’s health is on the mend.

The only thing that’s missing is a boyfriend.

Not that I need one. But as I wander the hospital halls, searching for my tall, dark, and handsome stranger, I can’t help feeling that anxiety return.What if I never see him again?It has been days without any communication, without even the ability to send him a text. It’s so strange, to have been so intimate with someone, and then to have him completely disappear like this.

I mean, I guess it’s not that strange. Guys do it all the time. It’s probably their preferred method of interaction, for the most part. I just didn’t think thathewas like that. He said he wasn’t. And for some stupid reason... I believed him.

But I know that people say a lot of things they don’t mean. It’s okay, in the end. No harm done. If that was the only time I’ll ever get to spend with him, at least it was a beautiful memory.

My legs carry me back to the vending machine where I met him, and I press my forehead against the glass, staring at the snacks.

“Hey, Cheetos,” I say, talking to my old friend. “I know, I would normally be craving you pretty badly, and beating on this machine to try to get you out of there and into my stomach. But I think I was just in a bad place back then, and emotionally overeating to compensate for unhappiness, loneliness, and financial distress caused by a cancer diagnosis in an unkind healthcare system.”

Sighing, I continue talking to the snacks in the vending machine. “But things are looking up now, and I think I can afford more nutritious and less processed food. Which will hopefully prevent me from also getting cancer, somewhere down the road. Even though I don’t share my mother’s genetics. I was adopted, you see. So I’m probably not at risk for the exact same illness—but I guess we’re all at risk as we get older and it’s important to adopt healthy habits now. Seeing what Mumsy is going through—I hope I’ll have a healthy future, free from any kind of serious illness like that. But you never know. So, goodbye, Cheetos. It’s been fun, but I’m going to stick to healthier options from now on. I hope we can still be friends, and still talk sometimes.”

A deep, masculine laugh behind me alerts me to the presence of another human being. “Are you having a deep conversation with snacks in a vending machine?”

I don’t turn around immediately, but a smile slowly overtakes my face. The warmth begins to spread in my stomach again, this time, with a rush of relief. His voice is like music to my ears. “Maybe if I had the phone number of a nice human being to chat with, I wouldn’t have to talk to inanimate objects,” I tell him.

I feel his hands on my waist, and see his reflection in the glass. For a moment, I wonder if I’m just daydreaming that he’s here. Maybe the fingertips gently caressing my ribcage are all in my imagination. Then I feel his lips against my cheek, and I close my eyes happily.

Thank God, he’s really here. I thought I’d lost him.

Turning my face to the side, I let my lips press against his in a gentle kiss. He kisses back at once, wrapping his arms around me. All at once, that same feeling of safety comes rushing back to me—but it’s even stronger this time. Like the emotions have crept deeper into my mind and under my skin, like they have had time to marinate and grow, creating some kind of foothold in me.

When he holds me close, it just feels like home.

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