Page 17 of Clinically Delicious
Chapter Eight
Cate
Okay, so here’s the thing about anxiety: it makes you do spectacularly stupid things at spectacularly stupid times.
Case in point: showing up at your employer’s house at seven-thirty AM on a Saturday because you spent the entire night convinced he wasn’t entirely thinking correctly and was in fact going to fire you for breaking his daughter’s arm, and the only way to prevent said firing was to prove you were the most dedicated, responsible, punctual nanny in the entire tri-state area.
Was this logical? No.
Was this sane? Also no.
Did I do it anyway? Obviously.
I’d been awake since five AM, mentally rehearsing my “I’m so sorry and also I’m amazing please don’t fire me” speech. By seven AM, I’d convinced myself that showing up early to check on Megan was exactly the kind of initiative that separated good nannies from great ones. By seven-thirty, I was out the door. By seven thirty-five, I was standing on Dr. Lyon’s doorstep, knocking with the confidence of someone who definitely hadn’t just made a series of questionable life choices.
The door opened.
And that was when my brain just... stopped.
Completely flatlined.
Because there he was. Gabriel Lyon. My employer. Megan’s father. The man who’d spent just yesterday glaring at me like I was a particularly disappointing lab result.
Wearing nothing but a towel.
A small towel.
A towel that was slung low on his hips, held up by what I could only assume was sheer willpower and perhaps divine intervention, because physics alone couldn’t explain how that thing was staying in place.
Water droplets traced lazy paths down his chest—and oh God, what achest. No—not just a chest. A whole situation. Defined muscles that suggested he did more than just hold stethoscopes all day. Abs that had abs. A V-line that disappeared beneath the towel in a way that made my brain produce a sound like a dial-up modem trying to connect to the internet.
His hair was wet, pushed back from his face, and there was a drop of water clinging to his collarbone that I suddenly wanted to—NOPE. ABORT. SYSTEM MALFUNCTION.
“It’s Saturday,” he stated.
I blinked at him.
Words. Those were words.
English words.
I knew English.
I spoke English.
Why couldn’t I remember how English worked?
“Saturday,” he repeated, slower this time, like I was a particularly dim houseplant. “Your day off. The day you don’t work.”
Saturday. Right. The day after Friday. The day I wasn’t supposed to be here. The day normal people slept in and didn’t show up at their boss’s house to gawk at them in towels.
“I—” My voice came out as a squeak that would’ve embarrassed a mouse. “Saturday. Right. Yes. The day. That’s today.”
Smooth, Cate. You’re really nailing this whole “competent adult” thing.
Another water droplet slid down his temple, tracing the line of his jaw, and I watched it like it was the most fascinating thing I’d ever seen. Which,to be fair, in that moment, it absolutely was.
“Did you need something?” He crossed his arms, and the towel shifted.
