His Curvy Nanny

Chapter 3: Routine

AMARA’S POV

The first week settled into a rhythm faster than I expected.

Mornings started early, Elijah bursting into the kitchen still in his pajamas, demanding pancakes with a level of confidence that suggested he'd never once been told no. Ezra followed quieter, always a few steps behind his brother, watching me from the doorway until I set a plate down and nodded at the chair across from me, an invitation rather than a command. It took him three days to sit without being asked twice.

By day five, he was the one asking if I'd make the pancakes shaped like dinosaurs again.

Grant left for work before seven most mornings, dressed sharp, coffee in hand, offering a clipped "Have a good day" on his way out the door. I told myself I didn't notice the way his eyes lingered on the kitchen sometimes on me, on his sons, on the strange domestic scene he probably hadn't let himself imagine having again.

I definitely told myself that.

My sister Denise called on my second Sunday there, catching me folding laundry in my room while the boys watched a movie downstairs.

"So," Denise said, without preamble, the way she always did. "Tell me about the mansion."

"It's not a mansion."

"You sent me a picture of the driveway, Amara. It's a mansion."

I laughed, tucking the phone against my shoulder as I smoothed a small T-shirt covered in dinosaurs, Ezra's, obviously, into a neat fold. "It's a nice house. The boys are sweet. It's a good job."

"And the dad?" There was a teasing lilt in her voice that I recognized immediately and chose to ignore.

"Is my employer."

"That's not what I asked."

"Denise."

"I'm just saying," my sister said, entirely unbothered by my tone, "you sound different. Lighter. I haven't heard you sound like this since before—" She stopped herself, the unspoken weight of the sentence hanging between us. Since before the string of jobs that hadn't worked out. Since before the landlord who'd looked at her like a liability during the apartment search that had taken four months longer than it should have. Since before a lot of things.

"It's a good job," I said again, softer this time. "That's all it is."

"Mm-hm," Denise said, in a tone that suggested she believed roughly none of that, before mercifully changing the subject to ask about our mother's latest attempt at online dating.

I hung up an hour later, still smiling, and told myself Denise was just being Denise. Reading into things that weren't there.

I mostly believed it.

By the second week, I'd learned the house's quirks: which stair creaked, which cabinet stuck, the exact volume Elijah's cartoons needed to be at before Grant would appear in the doorway with that particular look on his face. I'd learned the boys, too. Elijah, loud and fearless, always the first to jump into anything. Ezra, careful and watchful, needing time to trust something before he'd commit to loving it.

I recognized a little of myself in that.

Grant remained harder to read. He was polite, always. Fair, generous even, the kind of employer who never made me feel like "the help" in the way I'd half-expected walking into a house like this. But there was a wall there, unmistakable, something carefully constructed and maintained.

I caught glimpses of what might be behind it: small, unguarded moments that felt like accidents on his part. The way his shoulders dropped half an inch when he walked in and heard the boys laughing. The rare, real smile he gave Ezra when the boy finally worked up the courage to show him a drawing he'd been hiding all week.

I wasn't supposed to notice things like that. I definitely wasn't supposed to find them as affecting as I did.

"You're good with them," Grant said one evening, appearing in the kitchen doorway as I wiped down the counters after dinner.

"They're good kids," I said. "Makes it easy."

"They're a lot," he said, with the particular weariness of a man who loved his children fiercely and was also, occasionally, exhausted by them. "Most people who've worked for us didn't last two weeks."

I paused, cloth still in hand. "What happened to them? The others."

Something shuttered in his expression, quick but noticeable. "Different reasons. Long story, for another night."

I didn't push. I was starting to understand that with Grant, information came in careful, measured doses.

"Well," I said instead, "you're stuck with me for a while, then. Fair warning."

That earned me something rare: a real smile, small but genuine, before he retreated toward his study with a murmured goodnight.

I stood in the kitchen after he'd gone, staring at nothing, very aware of the way my heart hadn't quite returned to its normal rhythm.

This is a job, I reminded myself. He is your boss. This is temporary, professional, uncomplicated.

I almost believed that too.