Chapter 4

 

~ ANNIE ~

 

 

“I’ll give you five hundred dollars if you drop whatever you’re doing and come to my place right now.”

At the sound of the voice on the other end of my phone, my chin tucks in toward my chest as I stride across the parking lot of the Queen K Resort. I hadn’t recognized the number when I picked up the call, but took it anyway, hoping it might be from someone who had seen my fliers.

“What?” I ask, certain it must be a wrong number. After showing up for work at six in the morning, I’ve just clocked out from a much-needed eight-hour weekend shift at their keiki care and all I want to do is go home and soak my feet in the sorry-looking thing my landlord calls a bathtub.

I’d hang up—I don’t have the energy to deal with a prank call or maybe some bullshit telemarketer who’s about to attempt to sell me a time share. But the words five hundred dollars sound pretty good to a girl with ramen noodles waiting for her for dinner… again. So I decide to give this person fifteen seconds of my time.

“Who is this?”

“I’m sorry. It’s Cam Sheridan, the guy you met in my condo’s parking lot a few days ago.”

My heart does a flip-flop, the kind a goldfish does when it’s out of water. “I remember you.” I try to say it casually so he won’t suspect that he’s been joining me in bed every night the past week in my fantasies.

“Yeah. Remember that kid I told you about? The one I’m taking on for a few months or so? Well, she showed up yesterday and things aren’t going well over here.”

Of course, I remember his story. How many men would take on someone else’s kid while their friend deploys? “How is it not going well exactly?”

“She came in late yesterday. Her dad spent the night just to see that she got settled in. But he left this morning, and now she won’t even come out of her room.”

“Poor thing.”

“Oh, I’ll be okay,” he answers, oblivious. “It’s just a shock for me, you know? I don’t really know anything about kids.”

“I meant poor her.” Men can be so clueless sometimes. Even the hot ones.

Correction. Especially the hot ones.

“Oh.” He pauses awkwardly. “Of course.”

“She’s probably scared and overwhelmed.”

“Yeah. That’s what I figured. And I was ready for a lot of crying, you know? I really was. I dated a drama major once—”

I suppress my snort because he’s saying it dead seriously.

“—but the silent treatment is scary. I mean, it’s like she’s a teenager and freezing me out, you know?” His voice is hushed. “I meant every word I said. I’ll pay you five hundred dollars cash if you’ll drop whatever you’re doing and come here right now.”

Picking my jaw up off the ground, I say, “That’s a little more than I usually charge, for the record.” I feel morally bound to point it out.

“Consider it a big tip. If I don’t get help, my next call is to a child psychiatrist and the bill will be a lot higher, I’m sure.”

If he was living anyplace but in a luxury waterfront condo community, I’d say he was bullshitting me. But I think this guy is serious.

Five hundred dollars?

I’d have dropped everything for free—the poor girl needs all the support she can get—but I can’t deny the extra money will certainly make this month’s rent a lot easier. “Okay, then. I’ll be right there.”

He gives me his unit number as I get into my car.

When I hang up the phone, I can’t resist tapping in a text to my friend back on the mainland. “Are you sitting down?”

Exactly three seconds goes by before Samantha texts me back. “Lying down. It’s late here. U woke me, bitch.”

“Sorry, Sam.” I’d tell her to turn her phone off at night like everyone else does, but I’m too excited to state the obvious. “Remember Hot Guy from the parking lot?”

“Yeah.”

“Just got a call from him. Needs a babysitter NOW and paying $500!” I add about six or seven smiling emojis.

“Holy shit. U sure he’s not expecting a blowjob?”

Even though it was meant as a joke, I can’t help the way worry festers in my gut, considering my history. But I’ve got pepper spray in my purse and my need for some cash forces me to throw caution to the wind. I respond only with a meme, one with a guy’s eyes rolling upward.

After a few more quick texts, including one with his address and unit number just in case he’s a lunatic and I go missing at the end of the night, I stop by the grocery store with the full intention of wowing him with my kid skills in this last-minute job.

I pile some baking supplies into my cart, including plenty of chocolate chips, and load them into my car.

Chocolate chip cookies. There isn’t a kid alive who can’t be smoked out of their room by the scent of homemade cookies.

Barely a half hour later, the sight of my sad, used hatchback that I bought for a song raises eyebrows as it sputters up to the security gate of his lush, resort-style community.

“Hi. I’m here for Unit 210. I’m the babysitter.” I’d bet my last paycheck the guy at the gate is the same guy who tried to flush me out of their parking lot. I can’t quite tell because everyone looks the same when you’re ducking behind a car like a felon on the loose.

With that trademark aloha smile, he nods and hands me a visitor’s pass to hang on my mirror.

I peer through my windshield discerning the numbers on the two-story condos along the coast. With my window open, the scent of plumeria flowers wafts into my car. When I was a live-in nanny for the Shimozatos, they took me to a luau for my birthday. I always remember the intoxicating scent of the plumeria lei that the hostess draped around my neck when we arrived that evening.

As the same scent wafts into my car now, I can’t help shutting my eyes for a moment, letting it fill my lungs before I roll up my windows. There’s something enchanting about this island, making me almost feel as though I could click my heels right now and be transported back in time to that birthday luau, and erase everything that happened since then.

If I could just start over.

But reality is stronger than even the magic of this island, so I open my eyes and roll up my windows. Because in my reality, five hundred dollars will go a long way.

When I rap on the door of Unit 210, the man who greets me only distantly resembles the hot, confident guy I met in the parking lot several days ago. Sure, the sight of his biceps as the peek out from the sleeves of his t-shirt still liquefies my insides.

But the look on his face is sheer panic.

“Thank God, you’re here.” The words rush from him. “I wish I had babysat when I was a kid rather than mowed lawns. Then maybe I’d know something about how to lure her out of her room.”

He mowed lawns? The statement causes my brow to furrow as I pull off my sandals—a strict custom here in Hawai‘i when entering someone’s home—and leave them alongside his doormat. My assumption based on his address was that he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. But that doesn’t mesh up with a kid who mowed lawns in his childhood.

He ushers me in.

The soles of my feet step onto the cool imported tile, the kind you see in foyers on those interior design shows. Dark inlayed koa wood trims walls richly painted in a warm cream, and niches display Hawaiian art. At the wall opposite the door, a subtle pineapple mosaic greets visitors with Hawaiian hospitality.

Damn. I should have mowed lawns as a kid.

“Where is she?” I ask.

My eyes can’t help being drawn toward the ocean view as we walk into the home. My mouth gapes—I can feel it—and I slam it shut. I’m here to take care of a kid, not drink a margarita on that lanai even though I’d sell a kidney to do that right now.

He walks me into a small room off the main living space. An explosion of pink greets me, a stark contrast to the Hawaiian décor of the rest of the place. Underneath a pink castle decal, a little girl is curled up on a daybed topped with a soft pink duvet and several pink throw pillows, her arms wrapped tightly around a pink-maned unicorn.

“Hi,” I say softly.

“Stella, this is my friend…”

“Annie,” I finish for him, since he seems to be struggling.

“I like your unicorn,” I tell her. No response. The little girl’s lower lip juts out even more, deepening her pout. “Does he have a name?”

“She,” she corrects.

“Of course. With a pink mane, I should have guessed that.” I pause. “I bet I can guess her name.”

Her eyes finally meet mine, sparking with challenge.

“Pinky,” I offer, always starting with the obvious.

Her head shakes slightly.

“Sparkles,” I say. “Because her tails sparkles.”

She shakes her head again.

“Am I close?”

She only shrugs in response.

“How about Star?”

Her eyes widen. “It’s Starlight,” she tells me. “How did you get so close?”

My mouth curves upward. “Because your name, Stella, means Star.”

“How did you know that?”

“I just know.” I beam, grateful the Latin I took in high school finally paid off. I dare to sit on the side of her bed. “I was going to make some chocolate chip cookies. Want to help?”

She shakes her head no, just like I was expecting.

“Well, how about I leave your door open and you can come join me when you want?”

I leave her in her room, knowing that in ten minutes, she’ll be out of there. No heartache can’t be cured by a plate of homemade cookies.

I’ll bet five hundred dollars on it.