Page 43 of Nanny for the Damaged Ex-SEAL

“I don’t know what I would do if Chad cheated on me. We’ve been together for three years now. I would die.”

“No, you wouldn’t, you’d survive. You’d only feel like you’re going to die.”

“Chad would never cheat on me. He loves me too much for that.” She stretches her hand to show me a bracelet he got for her. It’s silver and has diamonds in the middle of it.

“Beautiful. It looks expensive.”

She nods. “So, how’s Mr. Grump doing?”

“He’s fine. We’re learning to coexist,” I lie. I know if I tell her we’re on good terms she’ll have more questions for me.

But I hate it. Bria was the one person I had there for me when Mom died. Dad was grieving and we had to look after ourselves for a long time. We were teenagers and Dad refused to get remarried. It was tough, but we got through it. Dad came around later, and when he got married to Amy, she became the second mother we’d always wanted. I miss Mom still, but Amy has shown us nothing but love.

Bria stops eating and gives me an intense look. “Do you think you can love someone else like you loved Jake? Can you genuinely love again?”.

“Yes,” I answer. Because I’m currently in love with someone more than I was with Jake, but I don’t add that.

"He's so cute!" I say as I run my right hand through the soft fur of the golden retriever in front of me. It’s eating food out of my left hand.

"I wonder why he only accepts food from you?" Val, one of the other volunteers, says.

"Because she's pretty," another one says.

We laugh and I sit on the floor so the puppy can climb into my lap. He nestles his nose into my belly and curls up.

I'm at the animal shelter where I volunteer three times a week, tending to the dogs that have been rescued. They get adopted into families after they are taken care of. The puppy in my lap has been named Gogo. He lost his owner, a homeless man, and had been wandering around hungry when we found him. He was scared at first. He wouldn't come to anyone and would only stay in the doghouse in his run. He still doesn't play with the other dogs that much, but one day he started to follow me around and then began to eat more. When I walk through the doors, he jumps for joy. And when I have to go home, he looks sad.

He reminds me of Connor in some ways. Connor was closed off at first. When you see him, you see someone who doesn't even want to make an effort with people. And, just like Gogo, he became that way because he lost the person closest to him. He’s distrustful of others and, just like Gogo, when he decided to open up, I could see that he was yearning for someone he could be close with again. He just didn’t know it.

"Gogo will be getting adopted soon," Val announces.

I stop running my fingers through his fur. "This is news. Why didn’t anyone tell me?"

"Because we're still trying to get him to like her. She came in last Thursday. You weren't here then, it was your day off. She came again yesterday. She insists he’s the dog she wants. She lost her husband last year."

Gogo looks up at me with his warm brown eyes. "Aww, I hope he takes to her."

"He will. When she came yesterday, he didn't run. He actually sat beside her, but wouldn't let her touch him."

I laugh. "He'll come around."

I know, because if you're patient, they always do.

Connor is in the kitchen, humming and dancing to his own tune. He's making dinner for us. He insists I stay out of the kitchen. We’ve transitioned from buying food because he was just too worn down to cook, to me cooking because I think it'll be more cost-effective, to him doing a lot of the cooking and enjoying it. Connor doesn’t admit that he used to order pre-made meal delivery because he was too depressed to cook; he says it's because Ethan has an expensive palate.

He protested at first when I offered to start doing the cooking rather than buying pre-made meals because he doesn't want me to go through the stress. But I'd counter-protested and he'd given in. Today, he's making dinner, and we're to stay out of the kitchen unless we're summoned. That's exactly how he put it.

I look over at him again. He's doing his own version of The Running Man now. Ethan and I laugh out loud. He's making penne pasta with vodka sauce and parmesan cheese, corn on the cob, and grilled vegetables while Ethan and I watch TV, a kid’s show where they go on different adventures.

"Food will be ready in five minutes," he announces. He peeks beneath the lid on the skillet then announces again that it’ll be ready in twenty minutes. Then laughs amusedly at himself.

I love this side of him. I remember being so jealous when I saw him doing this same thing for another woman. Though he didn't dance then, which makes this time special. I remember wondering what he saw in her. I wondered why he was doing it for her and if I wasn't worth it. But now I'm getting all of that and more. And at the end of the day, I'll end up in his arms. In his bed.

I watch him dish out the meal onto three plates. I stand up to go help him bring them to the dining table, but he stops me.

He puts a hand in front of him. "No, Chef Connor's got this."

Ethan catches the sentence and repeats it, laughing. "Chef Connor’s got this. Daddy is Chef Connor."

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