Chapter 9 The deal
Lily's POV
Sunday was the best day I had had in a long time.
Church with Mia was something I had not expected to enjoy as much as I did. She had dressed herself carefully in a yellow frock, shoes matching, hair brushed into two neat puffs, and had walked beside me the whole way with her hand tucked into mine like it belonged there. She had sat through the service with her eyes wide and attentive and on the walk back she had pointed at things, a cat on a wall, a flower pushing through a crack in the pavement, and looked up at me each time to make sure I had seen them too.
I had seen every single one.
Wade had refused to join us, blaming work, which we both understood to mean he wanted the house to himself for a few hours. I had let it go without argument.
After lunch Mia and I changed into comfortable clothes and settled on the living room couch with her favourite cartoon playing on the television. She curled into the corner of the cushions with her feet tucked under her, eyes fixed on the screen, and laughed. Silent, shaking laughter, shoulders moving, at something a cartoon character did.
I watched her more than I watched the show.
She never made a sound. Not when she laughed, not when something surprised her, not even the small involuntary noises most people made without thinking. The silence around her was so complete and so practised that sometimes I forgot to notice it. And then I would remember and the ache would come back quietly.
I was still watching her when footsteps came down the stairs.
"You are back," Wade said, appearing in the doorway in a t-shirt and shorts, hair slightly dishevelled.
"Isn't it obvious," I said, eyes back on the screen.
He lingered in the doorway. "I need to talk to you."
"You can say whatever you need to say in front of Mia."
He raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure about that?"
"I have nothing to hide."
"Alright." He pushed off the frame and stepped into the room. "It is about the rumours. You and the teach—"
I was on my feet before he finished the sentence, my hand over his mouth, my eyes cutting immediately to Mia. She had turned to look at us with an expression caught between curiosity and amusement.
I steered Wade firmly backward out of the living room and pulled the door shut behind us.
"You have five minutes," I said. "Talk."
He looked at me for a moment, Then he let out a short quiet laugh.
"You are actually a little frightening. Has anyone told you that?"
"You have spent weeks making my life miserable at school and it took you three days to find me frightening. Should I be offended?"
"I said it was a little frightening. Not terrifying. There is a difference."
"Four minutes and forty seconds."
He smiled. Not the mocking one I had catalogued carefully over the past weeks but something smaller and more unguarded that appeared and disappeared quickly, like he had not meant to let it out.
He moved closer, unhurried, and lifted one arm to rest against the wall above my head. I stayed where I was and kept my expression neutral and told my heart to calm down because it was embarrassing everybody.
"I realised something," he said. "All that bullying at school." He tilted his head slightly, "You never actually broke. Not once."
"Is that what you wanted to talk about?"
"I want to make a deal."
Something shifted in the atmosphere between us. I kept my eyes on his and waited.
"The kind of deal," he continued, his voice dropping slightly, "where I stay out of your way completely. You nanny Mia without any interference from me."
His fingers moved lightly along my arm as he said it and every point of contact felt like a small, deliberate fire that I was absolutely not going to acknowledge.
"And in return," he said, "you stay out of my business. Tell my dad I have been cooperative. Give me the freedom to run my own life without a report card."
I looked at him steadily. "And why exactly would I agree to that?"
The corner of his mouth moved. "Because if you do not, I tell my father that I am developing feelings for my nanny. And you will be out of this house before dinner."
I held his gaze for a long moment.
I thought about my mother's medication. The breathing room this salary had created for the first time in years.
"Fine," I said, stepping back and putting proper distance between us. "But this only works if you actually behave. You do not skip school. Your grades do not drop. If your father comes home to any problems, the deal is finished."
He nodded slowly. "Fair, But I have ground rules too."
"Go on."
"Rule one. You already agreed to. You treat me like a person in this house, not a job. No nannying me in name or in action."
"Only as long as you hold up your end. The moment you slip, the agreement is over."
"Rule two." He met my eyes directly. "Nobody at school finds out that you live here or that you are my nanny. Not a single person."
I considered this. It suited me as much as it suited him. The last thing I needed was that information spreading through Diamond High.
"Agreed," I said. "But I have a rule of my own."
I settled onto the arm of the nearby chair and looked at him evenly.
"You stop the bullying at school. You do not have to defend me publicly. You do not have to acknowledge me in corridors. You just need to stop bullying me at school."
He was quiet for a moment.
"I will control myself," he said finally.
"That is not what I asked."
He looked at me for a long beat. Then, quietly, "I will handle it."
It was not everything I wanted. But it was more than I had come into this house expecting and I was practical enough to know the difference between a perfect deal and a workable one.
"Then we have an agreement," I said.
He crossed the room toward me slowly, a look on his face that I did not entirely trust, and leaned forward until the distance between us was closer than was strictly necessary for any conversation.
"We should seal it," he said.
"With what?"
"A kiss."
I stared at him. “Are you kidding? We hate each other”
He straightened up immediately, something flickering briefly in his expression. "You are right." He thought for a moment. Then he held out his hand, spat into his palm, and looked at me expectantly.
I looked at his hand, then at his face. Then I sighed deeply, spat into mine, and shook it.
He grinned. A real one, sudden and unguarded and entirely different from anything I had seen from him before.