for what I really wanted rather than hedging my bets or planning for failure. If he was apprehensive, the last thing I needed was to show him that I too was unsure about things.
14
Noah
We flew back to New York. Silas, Lacey and I had done an admirable job, but we’d still lost authors. I’d have to do some digging to replace them. I’d work my usual rounds again. New York was full of struggling and up-and-coming authors who just needed the right big break. I was good at finding the ones who had potential, and coming in like some kind of white knight with a fat wallet to bring them out of obscurity and into stardom.
It was honestly the part of the job I liked the best, not stroking the egos of authors we’d already puffed up and made big. I didn’t enjoy begging them to stay with us even though we’d made them what they were.
Lacey had seemed cheerful the whole flight back, but I could sense some unease beneath that big smile.
We took a private jet back, so my driver was waiting for us on the tarmac as we got off the jet.
I picked up Lacey’s suitcase for her and took her by the hand. “I was thinking. Why don’t you come stay with us?”
“Stay?” she said. “You mean like, live with you?”
I nodded.
“Like a live-in nanny?”
I shook my head. “More like a live-in girlfriend.”
She smiled, and this time it was full and genuine. I saw the tension melting away from her.
“You, uh, still want me to be the nanny though, right?”
“I’m still paying you the big bucks, so yeah.”
“I’d spend the day with Naomi for free, Noah.”
“Be careful,” I said, “I might just take you up on that.”
I’d thought things over. I’d been too slow to make the decision, but that was in part because I was a decisive man. Once I did make a decision though, it stuck, and this was my olive branch to her for being so slow to decide during the cruise. I wanted her to live with us. I didn’t want her to feel like I was pushing her away. I wanted to welcome her into my life in New York, and into our home.
Still, my driver took her back to Staten Island. She said she needed a few days to get her stuff packed and moved.
On the drive back to Manhattan, Naomi looked excited.
“Happy to be back home?” I asked her.
“I’m happy that Lacey is going to live with us. And play with me every day. And read me all the Gobblegurt books. And make the new ones. The new ones, Daddy!”
“I am too,” I said, leaning back and smiling.
Naomi had Mr. Panda on her lap. I grinned at him, remembering the secret I’d told him.
Talking to stuffed animals was just something that happened to you when you became a dad. I was beyond feeling weird about it.
We got back home, and it felt empty. The house was full of all of my nice and expensive stuff, and also my cooks and housekeepers, but without Lacey there, it just didn’t feel right.
I took that as a good sign. I’d worried that I’d somehow start regretting my invitation to have her live with us, but coming home and feeling so empty without her confirmed to me that I’d made the right decision.
Naomi seemed bored without her too.
I called Lacey up and asked if she wanted to meet for dinner. She agreed, and she asked if her roommate could come. She’d felt bad that she was abandoning her roommate on short notice, and of course I had no problem with her coming along.
We met in Brooklyn. It was the best middleground between Manhattan and Staten Island. After getting off the cruise ship, I did not want to be on the water again for at least another two years. I’d full-on vomited twice while on the cruise. The first time, I made it to the deck and got it all off into the sea. The second time though, I’d lost it before I’d reached the toilet. Fortunately no one had seen that.
My driver dropped me off right by Prospect Park, and I took Naomi by the hand when we saw Lacey and her roommate.
“This is Natalie,” Lacey said,
Natalie had dark brown hair, and was a little bit shorter than Lacey, but she smiled at me and shook my hand. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Moneybags.”
“Is that what you two call me?”
Lacey laughed. “I might