Page 87 of The B!tch List

“Hey, sweetheart. You woke up.”

Tia’s head turned to me, and she gave me a huge smile. She certainly was starting to settle and had seemed much happier over the last week or so.

“Dada.”

“Hello, baby girl. Did you have a nice sleep?”

She lifted up her arms for me and continued babbling away. She was getting good at waking up, not grumpy at all. I guessed she must take after Monique for that because it certainly wasn’t me.

“Dada, biscy.”

“Okay, sweetheart. We’ll get you a biscuit.” I lifted her and with a deep breath took her out to meet her public.

* * *

“Well, that went well,” Mom said as she bounced Tia up and down on her knee after Mrs. Shelby and Mr. Alexander had left.

I glanced over at Nancy who was standing near the doorway, her eyes darting around the room, looking ready to bolt.

“Yeah, it did,” I replied with a great sense of relief. “I think Nancy helped a lot.”

Her gaze rested on me, and she gave me a small smile and I was aware that we needed to talk. I needed to know why she’d done what she’d done after our conversation the day before. “Do you have a minute, Nance?” I asked.

She nodded. “I guess so.”

I walked past her and out toward the yard. I figured she was following me because I heard Mom ask someone, ‘What do you think that was all about?’.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I said turning to face her once we were a safe distance from the house. I loved the women in my family, but they were so damn nosey. “But seeing as you did, why?”

She shrugged. “It just felt right.”

“What if they find out?” I asked. “What if they discover you’re not my girlfriend?”

“They won’t, and I doubt it made that much difference to the result.”

“I think it did.” I scrubbed my hands down my face and groaned. “I don’t want you to get into any trouble.”

She dug her hands deep into the pocket so her jeans and shook her head. “I won’t. Don’t worry about it.”

I did worry though because I didn’t want her to get into trouble and potentially lose out on opening her preschool because of me.

She must have seen my worry because she said, “Honestly, Shaw, it’ll be fine. It’s not like I’m trying to get a green card or anything and I will help you out with Tia. Even if it’s just as a friend.”

Something stalled inside my chest at the thought of us being just friends, but I knew I’d blown it for anything else.

“Well, I appreciate what you did,” I said taking a step closer to her.

It was only small, but I saw it, the tiny step back she took, so I forced myself not to move any closer. I had to accept that she was hurt, and I just had to bide my time until the time was right to get her to change her mind.

“I’d better go,” Nancy said, glancing over her shoulder. “I need to get the keys to the bank back to Belinda.”

“You got the keys already? How come?” There was no way the contracts could have gone through so quickly

“I think Mr. Jennings feels bad for what happened with Ruthie, so he said I could go in and measure up.”

“Figures,” I said with an empty laugh. “He clearly knows that he fucked up.”

Nancy smiled. “Is that a legal term?”

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