Falling for Your Boss by Emma St. Clair

Chapter Eighteen

Gavin

I adjustthe rearview mirror again, trying to be nonchalant about the fact that I want to be able to see both Ella and Zoey. Because I’m playing chauffeur to my newly discovered daughter and my love interest slash assistant slash new nanny. I shake my head at the ridiculousness of the situation. I don’t have much experience with soap operas, but I am pretty sure I’m living one right now.

“Can I connect my phone to your Bluetooth?” Ella asks. “Does your truck have Bluetooth?”

She’s talking to me!I shouldn’t get so excited, but with Ella, asking me a direct question is kind of a big deal.

“Of course. Hang on.” I fiddle with the stereo when I stop for a red light. “There. It should be ready to pair now.”

“Thanks.”

It’s strange because my mind wants to fill in the blanks of Ella’s words, adding in my name. Thanks, Gavin. Or, Thanks, Dad. That second one freaks me out, and I wonder how long it will be until it sinks in that this is my new reality.

The conversation—if I can be so generous as to call it that—about Bluetooth is the most Ella has said to me. When Zoey left earlier, the same silence as usual descended in the house but worse, because the house wasn’t empty anymore.

I finally found Ella in the guest room, watching YouTube on the tablet that acts more like her IV drip.

“Can I talk to you?” I had asked. She didn’t answer, but did hit pause, which was something.

“I know that this is all very strange and difficult.” I waited for a nod, an acknowledgment, something. But she simply stared, with big brown eyes, whose shape was Eleanor’s but whose color seemed all mine. “Your mother never told me about you, or it wouldn’t have taken so long for me to meet you. I need you to know that.”

I hadn’t meant to get choked up saying the words but couldn’t help it. I’m not sure if Ella even noticed. She only nodded as I had worked to swallow down the lump in my throat.

“I know it’s probably a lot to leave and go to another place, but my parents have a pretty amazing ranch. It’s much better than … here.”

Here, where everything is designed for a man who planned to live alone for the rest of his life. Here, where the silence often threatens to swallow me whole.

“And your grandparents are thrilled to meet you.”

Thrilled was really an understatement. I’m pretty sure that people in China heard my mother’s shrieks when I called to explain the situation. She doesn’t care that Ella’s mother is Eleanor, a name that’s more like a curse word to my family. She doesn’t care that this is sudden. She doesn’t even care that I’m not one hundred percent positive that Ella is mine.

My mother is, finally, a grandmother. My brothers and I haven’t been adequately fulfilling our roles as baby-makers, a fact she laments every time I call home. I’m not sure if my younger brothers will want to give me an award for taking one for the team or will want to strangle me for caving and giving Mama what she’s had her heart set on since we were semi-responsible adults. Because I know that just one grandchild won’t be enough for her. She’ll be distracted by Ella and ease up, and then come back at us with double the force.

Mama is probably at the closest store right now, stocking up on whatever she thinks eight-year-old girls will like. Not that Ella is typical for her age. I suspect she isn’t, something that keeps concern humming like a gnat around my ear.

Where Mama had been beside herself with excitement, Ella’s response to my little speech had been to say, Okay, before pressing play on her tablet again. I had watched her for a moment, until I realized that I was probably being weird.

Loud pop music suddenly blares through the speakers, drawing me back into the present. I wince and adjust the volume to a non-ear-bleeding level with the controls on my steering wheel. I swear I catch Ella rolling her eyes. Zoey bites her lip to hold back a giggle, and I give her a mock glare in the mirror. Her grin grows, widening the crack down the center of my heart.

How did she do that? How did she get so close to Ella so quickly?

And why does it make her even more alluring to me?

“Which is your favorite album?” Zoey asks, clearly recognizing the song, which I am apparently not cool enough to know.

Ella answers immediately. “Speak Now.”

“Really? I might have thought Reputation or 1989.”

“I like the newer sound better but Speak Now just felt like a breakthrough for her. The songs suddenly became … more.”

“I know what you mean. ‘Dear John’? It’s epic,” Zoey says.

Ella wrinkles her little nose in distaste. “I don’t see what the big thing is with him anyway. Like, as a guy. Ew. But his guitar skills are amaze.”

Zoey chokes out a laugh. “I think that ew is the right word for him.”

I’m trying to follow along, but it’s like I’m eavesdropping on people speaking a foreign language. Never have I felt the age gap between us more, as I drive alone in the front seat, watching the two of them bend their heads together in the back. Then I hear the first vocals, and I recognize the unmistakable goaty bleating of Taylor Swift. I can’t suppress my groan.

“Not a fan?” Zoey asks, one eyebrow raised and her lips twitching in an amused grin.

“She’s … okay.”

I’m shocked when Ella’s small hand grasps the seat next to my shoulder as she leans up next to my seat. It’s the first time she’s made any kind of move to be closer to me, and I find myself holding my breath, afraid to scare her off.

“She’s a brilliant songwriter. Maybe the best in pop music today. You have to like her.”

Is this what being a dad means? Having to like Taylor Swift, or else?

“I agree, Gavin,” Zoey says, her tone playful. “You really should at least appreciate her.” I don’t have to look to see the smile in her voice.

I look anyway, just to see it. Her smiles have been so rare, like those kinds of flowers that bloom once a year for only a few moments.

“Why don’t you two educate me on Taylor Swift? Make your case. Convince me that I need to like her.”

Ella moves back to her seat, and she and Zoey exchange glances, both leaning in closer across the back seat so their shoulders are almost touching, as they do exactly as I ask.

Normally, few things would be more torturous to me than listening to Taylor Swift while simultaneously getting a lecture on her musical and creative prowess. But it’s Ella and Zoey talking. I find myself grinning more than once as I weigh the significance of this unexpected moment. My chest aches with a phantom pain, as though I’m already imagining losing them both, being back in this truck, alone again. It’s the last thing I want. And if Taylor Swift is the cost, then so be it.

I have a sudden vision of me, Ella, and Zoey in a stadium with a bunch of screaming girls, music blasting through giant speakers, lights brilliant up on a stage. We’re wearing concert T-shirts that I paid for even though they were too much, and Ella is jumping up and down, screaming, looking like the little girl she should be.

Oddly, it’s an image I could get behind. When’s the last time I went to a concert or to see live music anyway? It’s hard to miss music in Austin, which means that I’ve essentially been living under a rock. But it’s not the idea of going to a concert that has me feeling excited. It’s the mental picture of Ella and Zoey, beside me, grinning like idiots. Grinning at me.

I suck in a breath, holding it for a moment until the tsunami of emotion stops threatening to crash over the island of my heart.

The album and lecture finally end, and Zoey pulls out her phone. “My turn,” she says.

Ella sighs heavily, but even I can tell it’s all show. “Fine.”

I brace myself for another reminder in musical form that Zoey is from a totally different generation, but instead, Dolly Parton fills the speakers. This time both Ella and I groan.

Zoey shakes her head. “Oh no. The two of you cannot find fault with Dolly.”

“She sounds like a baby goat on crack,” Ella says.

A shocked laugh barks out of me, and I can’t stop laughing, even as I feel Zoey and Ella watching me in the mirror.

“See? He agrees,” Ella says.

My laughter dies with that pronoun. He. Not Gavin. Not her father. I’m just … he. So unfamiliar. Impersonal. Like I’m nothing to her. Just a tiny, two-letter word.

You aren’t anything to her. Just a DNA sample, the cruel but honest voice in my head reminds me.

But I want to be more. I will be more.

If she’s mine.

No matter what Eleanor said, I won’t fully believe it without a test. One that I’ll get sometime soon. I didn’t exactly want to start out my relationship with Ella asking for a cheek swab.

“Fine, fine,” Zoey finally concedes when Ella makes a choking noise. “Dolly is an acquired taste. Like coffee.”

“Coffee is gross,” Ella says.

“I used to think so too. But it grew on me. Like Dolly. She’s a classic. And just as good a songwriter as Taylor, if not better. I’d argue better, but she’s older, so we’d have to go back and look at their earliest songs to make an educated decision. How about this?”

Zoey scrolls around her phone until Dolly disappears, replaced by a more moody and stripped-down song led by an acoustic guitar. I don’t recognize the voice, but at first, I’m simply thankful that it’s finally someone who doesn’t sound like a barnyard animal. The song is haunting, to the point that the little hairs stand up on my arms. I quickly realize that the woman is singing a different arrangement of Dolly’s classic, “Jolene.”

“This is Mindy Smith,” Zoey says. “She was my gateway to liking Dolly.”

Ella and I are silent, and I wish I could properly see her to measure her reaction. Does she like this as much as me? It’s a lot less poppy, a lot more folksy-Americana, the kind of music I like when I’m not listening to my favorite bands from the ’90s. I guess now it’s considered classic rock, a fact that makes me want to vomit, but Nirvana and Pearl Jam will never go out of style.

“That’s Dolly doing harmony?” Ella asks, and I realize she’s right. On the final choruses, that unmistakable voice joins in on her own song. I don’t mind it so much blended with another voice, and I can see what Zoey means about a gateway. I could get used to Dolly in little bits like this.

Zoey picks the music for the rest of the ride, introducing Ella and me to bands I’ve never heard of. The Wailing Jennys and the Bittersweets, Act of Congress and a local Austin artist named Jesse Woods.

“I know this one,” I say on a new song. It’s a man and woman singing, their harmonies wrapping around each other in a way that’s beautiful. “The Civil Wars, right?”

Zoey seems pleased, and happiness bursts in my chest like a geyser.

“Yes. A shame they were so short lived. They’re one of my favorites.”

“They broke up over … creative differences?” I’d heard something about that because I don’t live that much under a rock. I think it was actually rumored to be an affair, but I’m not bringing that up in front of Ella, who’s been so quiet that I almost forgot she was here.

“Something like that. Lots of speculation. Especially if you listen to the lyrics from their last album together.”

“I like the guitar,” Ella says suddenly. “I’ve been asking for one, but Mother said no.”

Maybe it’s not bad that Ella doesn’t call me anything but he, because the way she says mother is so filled with derision that it almost chokes me. She hasn’t said anything about Eleanor until now, and that in itself says something. Again, anger at Eleanor leaves me hot and breathless.

I know it’s at least a little bit motivated by spite for Eleanor if not also a strange, growing affection for Ella, but the very first thing on my list to do is to buy that girl a guitar.

* * *

“What doyour parents think about all this?” Zoey whispers.

Her voice is closer than it should be, and I realize that she’s leaned forward between the two seats, her cheek close to my shoulder. Ella fell asleep a few minutes ago, looking much younger and sweeter. I’ve been driving in a sort of autopilot, my eyes unfocused on the road, taking in the cars in front and checking the mirrors with a kind of robotic regularity.

The sun won’t set for a few more hours, but it’s lower on the horizon, making Zoey’s hair glow like gold, and the blue in her eyes deepen into the blue of a west Texas sky. I quickly turn my gaze back to the road.

“They’re thrilled.”

My mother screamed almost as loudly when I mentioned that I was bringing Zoey home with me. Mama didn’t seem to care when I said that Zoey is coming as a nanny for Ella. Not a girlfriend, even if that’s what I wish for. Nanny is the last title I want for Zoey, because it’s one more layer of distance between us.

But I can understand why Zoey wanted to keep things professional, why she would like to have clear definitions of where we stand. Why would Zoey want to entangle herself with my mess? Or with me? If it wasn’t hard enough that I was her boss and much older, now I have a daughter. Not to mention the fact that she saw—and smelled—me at my very worst.

In the past two days, I ruined our date and her birthday. I gave her a black eye. And if my vague memory serves me well, I think I basically begged her to rub my head.

Zoey is still here, and that says something. I’m just not sure it says what I want it to say. But I have this weekend to work on that. While also getting to know my daughter and introducing them both to my family. No pressure. Keeping things nice and casual.

I turn to look at Zoey, seeing a heaviness to her face even in the brief look I hazard away from the road.

“Do you already regret saying yes?” I ask, unable to be anything other than honest.

She only hesitates for a beat. “No. Though I’m still not sure I’m the right person for this. Kids don’t really like me, and I didn’t even babysit in high school. I called my friend Delilah earlier for reinforcements because I was scared.”

That makes me smile. “Stop it. You’re so great. You don’t even know. I mean, just in this car ride alone.”

“I don’t know how to talk to her,” Zoey says, sounding like she’s telling me a dark secret. I give her a look telling her that she’s completely wrong.

“But you’re doing it. She opens up to you.” There is the tiniest bit of jealousy at that fact. But at least Ella is opening up to someone. That’s a start.

Zoey makes a face that I can see even from my periphery. “I’m not doing it right. I’m just talking to her, like I would an adult. That’s not how you’re supposed to be with kids.”

“I think talking to her like any other person is working.” I pause. “Ella doesn’t seem like the typical eight-year-old. Not that I know much about kids either.”

“No, she doesn’t.” Zoey pauses, long enough to give me a sense of dread. “Your ex … is she—was she always like this?”

I hate to think about what Eleanor did or said when she stopped by the house and met Zoey. There’s no telling, and nothing would surprise me.

I think about my beginning with Eleanor. The early days of bliss and glee. Where I couldn’t see the reality of the woman before me, or the future ahead.

“Eleanor puts on a good face, or at least, she did. Back when we met, she just seemed like a sweet, beautiful girl. It was all a mask. I’ve gone over it in my mind so many times. Did she change? Did I? But I think she was simply hiding who she was to get what she wanted.” I chuckle. “And what she wanted was never me. It was money. Over time, what she hid slipped away, leaving only the ugly truth of it.”

“I’m sorry,” Zoey says simply.

She reaches out and squeezes my shoulder, letting her fingertips linger for a moment. Her words make something in the back of my throat tickle.

I swallow it down. “Thanks. We’ve got about an hour left of the drive. Why don’t you take a nap too? I know I didn’t let you get a lot of sleep last night.”

She grins. “Yes, someone was very bossy. Not that I’m not used to it. Usually in a bit more of a professional context.”

I’d like her to get used to it. And definitely not in a professional context. It takes me a moment to recover my voice.

“Sorry for that,” I tell her. “And thank you.”

“My pleasure,” she says, her words a quiet murmur that makes me wonder. Did she enjoy it?

Zoey sinks into the back seat again, leaning toward Ella. I sneak glances in the rearview mirror at the two of them whenever I can.

“It meant a lot to me,” I tell her, wanting her to read the meaning behind my words. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Except I want her here not in some official, contracted position that I stupidly created. I want her here as mine. And I intend to do my very best to make sure she knows it.