The One Love Collection Read online

  I laugh and shake my head. “Now, you know there’s a one hundred percent chance of that not happening, right?”

  He claps me on the back. “That I know is a safe bet.”

  “There’s this thing that happens when you have a daughter. You can pretty much never set foot in a strip club again. Unless it’s to take a long trench coat inside and, I don’t know, rescue a friend’s kid or something,” I say with a shrug. Fact is, I was never into that scene before my marriage, and it’s certainly not something I’m eager to partake of now. I’ve been invited to a few for bachelor parties lately. I’ve declined the strip club portion of the boys’ nights out.

  “I hear ya on that one. I guess you can just put it in your piggybank then,” he says, taking out his wallet and rifling through it for a bill. He hands me one.

  I take it and hold it up. “You want it back?”

  He laughs. “Course I do.”

  I fold it and stuff it inside my boxer briefs underneath my gym shorts. “Want it now?”

  He cringes. “If you gave it to me I would burn it.”

  I laugh. “Excellent. I know exactly which bill I’ll be using to buy drinks next time I see your sorry ass,” I tell him, since we never use our winnings for anything but drinks or dinner the next time we connect.

  As we near the path at the edge of Central Park, Tyler clears his throat. “So what’s the latest? You met anyone?”

  I shoot him a look as if he’s crazy. “It’s not as if I’ve been looking.”

  “But you’re not not looking?”

  “Such a lawyer,” I say, laughing. “Always turning language around.”

  He holds up his hands in surrender. “All I did was make a double negative. But do feel free to answer the question, unless you want a ruthless cross-examination. Have you met anyone during your not not looking?”

  We weave past early morning joggers and cyclists on the loop. As we near Fifth Avenue, I take a breath and decide what the hell? If I told my sister, she’d want to comfort me, advise me, and guide me through the Abby situation. But Bungee Jump Tyler, as his cousin calls him? Considering the guy’s got his sights set on winning back the woman he was once crazy for, and he stands such a minute chance of succeeding, it’s a sure bet he’ll get my impossible romantic situation.

  “There is someone. But I can’t have her. Tell me, what do you do when you want someone you can’t have?”

  He nods sagely and taps his temple. “I got your answer right here.”

  “Knew I could count on you. Tell me your secret.”

  He holds up his right hand and makes the international symbol for self-love. “You spend a lot of nights reading your fortune.”

  I roll my eyes. “Seriously? That’s your trick?”

  He peers at his hand and pretends to study it. “My lifeline is going to be nice and long, on account of regular use of the hand brake.” As a bus rumbles along the avenue, he adopts a more serious tone. “Who is she? This untouchable?”

  I stop at the crosswalk and turn to face him. No point hemming and hawing. “The nanny.”

  His jaw drops. His eyes widen. And he blows out a long stream of air. “Didn’t see that coming. Damn. You and Ben Affleck.”

  I protest indignantly. “No. Not at all like Ben Affleck. Seeing as he cheated on his wife.”

  “True that.” Tyler snaps his fingers. “The Sound of Music. The father and the nanny. Well, technically she was the governess.”

  “And didn’t he have eight kids or something? Are you just trying to kill me now?”

  “One. Eight. What’s the difference?”

  “Sanity, man. Sanity is the difference. Besides, since when do you know the storyline of The Sound of Music so well?”

  “I represent the director of the Broadway revival, asshole,” Tyler says, laughing at me. “Besides, even if I didn’t, there’s nothing wrong with being culturally literate.”

  “Never said there was.”

  “Are you two . . .?” he asks as we cross the street.

  I shake my head, answering his unfinished question. “We had a brief . . . moment.” Though that hardly does the cab ride justice. That was the culmination of a million moments.

  “Impressive. Didn’t think you had it in you, Simon.”

  “Nor did I.”

  “But you’re going to stay the fuck away from that?”

  “Yeah, I think so.” I take a deep breath. “But is what I’ve done so far really that bad?” I ask, and this time there’s no trash talking, no giving each other a hard time. I ask him frankly, needing his honest appraisal. At his core, Tyler is an upfront kind of friend.

  “You’re fine. Considering you’re not in Affleck’s situation, it’s not that bad. If you want to keep her as your employee, then it wouldn’t be your wisest choice to have any more . . . moments.” He slows his pace as we reach the block where I live. “But you knew that.”

  I nod. “I do know that.”

  When Miriam arrives on Monday morning, she issues a curt hello. She’s suited up, her dark hair slicked into a bun, ready for business. Then, as if she just remembered our post-split vow to not be assholes, she flashes a smile. “How was your weekend?”

  What a loaded fucking question. Only she has no idea, so I keep the answer simple. “Great. I got a lot of work done. Did you two have fun together?”

  Hayden gazes up at her mother and answers for both of them. “Yes! We always do. And there’s something I have to find right now, but it’s a secret.” She takes off for her room like a tornado.

  Miriam fiddles with her purse clasp, clearly ready to go. “I’ll be back in a week. I’m meeting with lawmakers upstate, and we have a lot of ground to cover, but I should be home in time to have her Saturday night.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “See you then. Have a good week.” She turns to leave, then pauses. “Oh. She sneezed a few times this weekend.” She gestures to the couch and living room. “You might want to get your maid here more often. All this dust will only make Hayden’s allergies worse.”

  I rub a hand across the back of my neck. For starters, my home isn’t dirty. But that’s beside the point. “Hayden does not have allergies.”

  Miriam raises her chin. “Well, she could.” She taps her chest. “I have allergies.”

  “Then it’s a good thing you don’t live here,” I say, plastering on a tight grin.

  “You don’t have to be like that.”

  “If you feel the need to criticize my clean home, then I do need to be like that.” I heave a sigh. “Please. Let’s just be civil.”

  “I was civil. I said to have a good week.”

  “Civil also means no unnecessary insults about my home.”

  She huffs, then nods. “Fine. I was simply worried about her. Allergies are no fun, and I don’t want her to have any.”

  “And I will continue to be on a full allergy alert,” I say, even though Hayden’s never once shown a sign of them.

  “Thank you. Have a good week,” she says, and then leaves.

  I shut the door behind her, the click of the lock a satisfying sound, separating her from me. I make my way to Hayden’s room, where she’s curled over her toy chest, searching it. A true smile spreads on my face as I watch her hunt. She’s victorious when she finds a wooden sword, pops up, and challenges me to a duel. “En garde!”

  Immediately, I grab the matching sword, adopt a Three Musketeers stance, and proceed to fence with my daughter for the next five minutes.

  When she stabs me in the belly, I crumple to the ground and clutch at my wound.

  “Oh no! We have to save you,” she says, kneeling.

  “Help, help,” I call out, clasping my chest.

  “Don’t worry. I have a Band-Aid.”

  “Hurry, nurse. Please hurry.”

  She rushes to her toy chest, grabs a white plastic first-aid kit for kids, and procures a Hello Kitty Band-Aid. “It’s my secret supply,” she whispers, then opens the Band-Aid and pr
esses it on my shirt.

  I pop back up immediately and declare, “It’s a miracle! I’m all better.”

  She wipes a hand on her brow. “I was so worried.” She tilts her head. “Daddy, I think I want to take fencing lessons.”

  I arch an eyebrow as I lean against her bed. “Yeah? What inspired that?”

  “I watched Puss in Boots this weekend at Mommy’s.”

  “That sounds like an excellent reason to learn how to fence. Want me to look into it?” She nods excitedly as I look at my watch. “All right, sweet pea. It’s nine in the morning. I go into the office at one. Want to do anything special before lunch?”

  She sticks out a sandaled foot at me, showing me her nails. Cotton-candy pink polish has worn down to mere specks. “My nails look terrible. Can I get a pedicure?”

  “Yes, but you know the rule.”

  “No red or black,” she says.

  “But go crazy with the pastels,” I tell her.

  She reaches for my offered hand, and like that, with her small fingers laced through my big ones, we head to her favorite salon around the block. They know her at Daisy Nails, and treat her like a princess, as well as the regular customer that she is.

  Daisy, the owner, looks up from the brush, flashing me a crooked smile as a sheet of dark hair falls across her cheek. “You want one, too, Hayden’s daddy?”

  That’s what she calls me, and that’s fine with me. “Nah, I’m trying to cut back.”

  “Pedicures are good for you,” she says playfully. Every time I’m here, she makes a valiant attempt to get me in the chair.

  “That so? New medical study come out on the topic?”

  “Lots of men get pedicures these days. It’s important to have handsome feet,” Daisy says, patting a big brown chair next to my girl.

  “Yes, Daddy. Do it!” Hayden calls out from her perch. “You can have handsome feet!”

  “Aren’t my feet already good-looking?” I give an exaggerated wiggle of my toes inside my shoes.

  “C’mon,” Hayden shouts with a smile.

  I shake my head. “I’m holding out on you both. No pedicure for me today.”

  “Next time then,” Daisy says. “I won’t stop till you’re in the chair.”

  “I’ll consider myself forewarned.”

  I spend the rest of the time making funny faces for Hayden and keeping her in stitches as she has her toes painted silver and purple. “Can I get a flower on the big toe?” she asks as Daisy finishes the color.

  “Did you make your bed when you were at your mom’s?”

  “I did all my chores.”

  “And all last week with me?”

  “I did.”

  “And did you listen to Abby when you were with her?”

  “I always listen to Abby,” she says, and the way she says her nanny’s name squeezes my chest. Hayden says it with sweetness, with earnestness. She adores Abby, and Abby adores her.

  I scrub a hand across my jaw, wishing I didn’t love their connection so much. “Then you can get a flower.”

  After, I take her out to lunch at her favorite diner where we feast on chicken sandwiches and French fries, and the weight in my gut doesn’t come from the food but from the knowledge that the real playacting starts in thirty minutes when Abby arrives for work.

  We return home, and a few minutes later, Abby’s here.

  At the sound of the knock, I draw a deep breath and head to the door, my feet heavy, my nerves racing, and my dumb heart still pounding hard. I’m like a buffet of warring emotions—lust, desire, regret, and hope all tossed together, chopped and julienned.

  But when I open the door, one single emotion fights its way to the front of the pack as my breath catches in my throat. Desire wins, and it comes from the body and from the mind. She’s so gorgeous. Her wild blond hair is loose over her shoulders, and she sports an orange V-neck T-shirt, and a summery, flowered skirt. As usual, she hardly wears any makeup, and she looks good enough to kiss.

  Obviously.

  I’m right back where I shouldn’t be—thinking of touching her. Of how utterly fucking spectacular it was to taste her lips. How she practically climbed on me. How she felt in my arms, so warm and perfect, wanting what I had to give her.

  “Good to see you,” I say, and my voice sounds like it comes from another planet.

  She smiles brightly. Too brightly. “Good to see you, Mr. Travers.”

  I wince as she puts space between us by using my last name. “Simon. No one calls me Mr. Travers,” I say gently. But maybe this distance, this formality, is what she needs to deal with my transgression.

  She nods and then holds out her arms for Hayden, who crashes into them in a big hug. “What do you want to do today, crazy girl? Because I have some wild ideas.”

  “Oh tell me, tell me, tell me,” Hayden says, bouncing up and down.

  Abby doesn’t look at me. She only has eyes for my daughter as she shares her plans for their day.

  Unlike me, she doesn’t seem to have any trouble pretending it never happened, and that’s an invisible fist to the gut. The blow hurts more than I ever expected, even though I’ve seen it coming for days.

  14

  Abby

  After we explore both the funky and the traditional nooks in Chinatown that afternoon, Hayden face-plants on her bed, snoozing in seconds. I press a kiss to her wild hair and cover her with a maroon paw-print throw blanket. Her regular comforter is in the laundry.

  As I tug the soft material to her shoulders, I remember something Simon once said when I was hunting in the linen closet, and I’d asked him if he knew where the nap blanket was.

  “Why does that term exist?”

  “What term?”

  “Nap blanket. I don’t get it,” he said, scratching his head. “It’s smaller than a regular blanket. Does that mean you’re smaller when you nap?”

  I’d laughed. “Of course. Science has proven we become tinier during an afternoon snooze.”

  He’d beamed. “There you go.”

  As I leave Hayden’s room, the memory brings a smile to my face. His observation had amused me then; it has the same effect now.

  We’ve always had an easy rapport. Always gotten along. Sure, he’s been my boss. He’s been the man in charge, and the one who signs my paychecks, but it’s never felt like a work relationship where power flows from the top of the hill to the lowly employees at the bottom.

  We joke. We tease. We talk.

  He’s always felt like a . . . friend, even though I have a crush on him. But a friend nonetheless.

  I want to make sure we can be that way again. Not just boss and employee, but friends . . . nap-blanket friends.

  With the door shut, I tread quietly across the carpet, grab my phone from my bag, and set the alarm for forty-five minutes. If I let Hayden nap too long she’ll never go to sleep at night, but she’s tired since we covered a lot of ground sampling soft buns and noodles, hunting through quirky boutiques, and eating fortune cookies.

  In a tchotchke shop full of embroidered jackets, fans, and other little items, she’d asked me so politely for one of those red and gold cats with the ceaselessly waving paw that I’d picked one up for her, then a back scratcher for her friend Madison on the third floor of the building, and then she’d wanted to bring a bamboo plant to her dad for good luck with his business deal.

  As I’d plunked down the bills at the counter, my heart had twisted with a strange combination of guilt, shame, and, oddly, excitement at buying something for Simon, even if it was actually from his daughter. The most dangerous organ in my chest had been shouting at the little girl, Your father is amazing and I’m crazy for him.

  Then my brain had scoffed and said, Don’t be a fool. Stop fantasizing about this girl’s daddy.

  The man I’m crazy for is the father of this precious, sweet, adventuresome, wonderful girl. I want her in my life, and I need this job.

  That ought to make him easy to resist.

  Ought.

>   Scooting back into the pillows on the chocolate-brown couch in the living room, I click open my text messages to find one from Harper.

  Harper: Soooo???? How was it? Did you manage seeing His Hotness?

  I smile faintly. I’d told Harper everything Friday night about what happened in the cab, and how it had been like a dam bursting between us, then how it had slammed shut when he’d turned me down.

  Abby: I survived. It was hard. I put on my game face when I arrived. But as you know, my game face sucks.

  I insert an emoticon of a fox with his eyes narrowed, his lips a thin line. Then I add another text.

  Abby: Dude, do I not have the best emoticons ever?

  Harper: You so do. :) But do you think he could tell it was your game face?

  I consider her question. Simon certainly seemed to be doing his best this morning to be cordial, and to follow my directive to pretend nothing had happened.

  Abby: I guess I need to give him credit for doing what I asked. He was unruffled.

  Harper: Is that what you want?

  Abby: You know I barely have a clue what I want.

  Harper: Not true. You do know. And you know what you need to do.

  She means the advice she gave me when I’d pulled her into the ladies’ room of the pool hall. “Tell me what to do,” I’d said, gripping her arm, desperate for something, anything. “I’m so crazy about him, and it’s so wrong, but I want it to be right.”

  She’d smiled sympathetically, brushing an errant strand of hair from my face. “The situation is complicated, and I can’t tell you what to do. But at the very least, you should try to talk to him.”

  She’s too damn smart. Talking to him about the longing I have for him gives me the willies. It’s akin to lacing up sneakers and going for a run. I shudder at the mere prospect of both. And I’m a talker, so that should make it abundantly clear how terrified I am of voicing my feelings.