fun.”
I turned and fled into the studio, locking the soundproofed door behind me. I sat down in the control room and took a slow, belly-deep breath, the way one of my therapists had taught me.
In four. Hold four. Out four.
Why the fuck did I think I could do this? Masquerade as a fucking normal person?
Like she wasn’t gonna notice.
You’re different than other people.
Yeah. No shit.
I could put on a mask for a few minutes at a time, but when she spent the day with me, day after day, she was gonna see who I really was.
The thing I just couldn’t figure out was why I wanted that so badly.
Chapter Eight
Taylor
Be Yourself
Monday morning, I got ready for work in the poolhouse with an anticipatory buzz in my chest. Same way I might feel starting any new job, but this one felt like there was way more at stake.
I’d already been paid. A hell of a lot. And now maybe I was feeling this strange sense of performance pressure, like it was now on me to prove to my new boss that I was worth all the money and the perks he’d generously donated to my bank account and my general living conditions.
The poolhouse itself was amazing. There was a combined living room / kitchen area, the bedroom and bathroom, and it was beautifully furnished. The plush towels and bedding were way nicer than what I had at home.
It still struck me that the pay-in-advance thing was a little weird, but when I’d confronted him about it, he’d seemed so genuinely horrified that it might’ve offended me. And then he just let me go about my weekend, never asking a thing of me.
I didn’t want to take advantage, but he’d told me to treat the yard like it was my own, and just to let him know if I was having anyone over. He’d been so entirely generous and reasonable, I couldn’t find any fault with anything he’d done so far. Even the money thing.
Like I told him, I was pretty sure his heart was in the right place.
When I had Danica over for a drink by the pool again yesterday—just Danica—I told Cary first. By text. I hadn’t seen him since we spoke about my pay. He didn’t come out while Danica was here and say hi, but he seemed fine with it. All he said in response to my text was: Have fun.
As I packed my laptop into my bag, ready to head over to the house and find out how this job was going to roll, I managed to convince myself that everything would be fine. That I didn’t need to be nervous. There was no reason to think this arrangement was weird or too intimate. Cary’s sister had lived here. So did the assistant before. I’d taken the liberty of getting his contact from Courteney and calling him a few days ago; he said the job was fine, but Cary didn’t seem to warm to him and fired him within the week. He also said Cary gave him a generous two weeks’ notice pay even though, according to their contract, he didn’t have to.
I didn’t ask him if Cary direct-deposited any of his pay into his account upfront.
While he’d stayed in the poolhouse that week—it was a perk of the job Courteney had offered when hiring him—he said he never got inside the studio. He barely got inside the house.
I wondered how far I was gonna get, or if I’d be working out by the pool on my laptop, alone all day. It hadn’t occurred to me until yesterday, when I sat by the pool alone and heard not a peep out of Cary all day, that this job might actually get lonely, all perks aside.
On my way out of the poolhouse, I texted Cary that I was coming over, and I showed up for work at nine a.m. as agreed, at the French doors to the living room. He’d outlined nine-to-five work hours in my contract, with the possibility of working overtime, basically whenever he wanted me to. I wondered if he actually would.
He met me at the door, opening it for me.
“Good morning,” I said as I stepped into the room. “Nice day.”
He looked outside like he hadn’t noticed. “Yeah. Looks nice.” He shut the door behind me, and there was an awkward pause as I waited for him to say something else.
He wore gray jeans again and a gray T-shirt, which seemed to be his