Undeniable You (Sapph in the City #4)

Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Jo

Weekends that weren’t full of schoolwork were my new favorite thing. Couldn’t get enough of them. I probably should spend all my time doing fun activities, but what I really wanted was to read and take walks in the city and browse the shops without any intention of buying anything. Reid and Sophie had invited me to go hiking, but hiking with just the two of them usually involved me looking the other way as they took every opportunity to kiss and touch. Most of the time it was fine, but it was more in my face when we were on the trail together.

Instead I did all the other shit I wanted to indulge in that I held myself back from during the week. Summer was the perfect time to get a late lunch on the water by myself, ordering a gorgeous and delicious drink and a fresh lobster roll and enjoy the live music of a random guy strumming on a guitar.

When I walked home after my lovely lunch, I took a detour to walk by Larison’s bookstore. The windows were still covered in paper, but the sign was up on the front of the faded brick facade.

BETWEEN THE SHEETS with a little logo of a person sitting up and reading in what looked like an open book. Cute and clever. The font reminded me of those vintage romance covers.

On one side of the bookstore was a jewelry shop and the other had a toy store that had dozens of plush animals arranged in the window.

It was a great location, as if I knew about that kind of thing. I couldn’t wait to come when it opened up soon. No doubt a bunch of the money she paid me to watch Juniper was going to get funneled right back through to her pocket when I couldn’t stop buying books. I’d have to set a limit for myself or something.

When I’d started working for Larison, I’d requested to follow her social media accounts and she’d accepted me, so now I could see what she and Juniper were doing today. There were a few pictures and videos from today of them at the beach together and I did my best not to stare too much or zoom in on the way Larison looked in her swimsuit. It was one of those one-pieces that looked vintage, with the little strip of fabric on the front that made the bottom part almost look like a skirt. It was black with white polka dots and with her hair blazing red in the sun she looked like a pinup dreamgirl.

Shit. Looking at pictures of Larison in a swimsuit wasn’t what I needed to be doing. Instead, I set my phone aside and decided to spend the rest of my time reading. Much better use of my weekend than lusting after Larison.

Monday rolled around, as it was wont to do, and I arrived at Larison’s apartment for the day. She opened the door looking harried and I could tell things weren’t going well.

“Sorry. We’re having a rough morning,” she said to me as she let me in.

“Hey, Juniper, how are you doing?” I asked as she sat at the table and swung her feet back and forth, her mouth in a thin line.

“We’re struggling a little bit today, aren’t we?” Larison said and Juniper glared. It was cute seeing a very serious expression on someone that young.

“Okay, why don’t you do what you need to do. I’ve got this.”

Larison glanced at Juniper and then sighed. “Thanks.”

She vanished into the bathroom and I went to see what was up with Juniper.

“Hey, Princess Juniper, how’s it going?” I asked, sitting down in the only other chair. The table was only built for two.

Juniper grunted, which was something. She looked tired, her hair a tangled mess that I guess Larison hadn’t been able to tackle yet. No big deal. She also still had her pajamas on. Looked like today was going to be the kind of day where we maybe spent a little bit of time at the park and the rest of the time watching movies or reading on the couch or did some simple projects. I had puzzles and coloring books and clay in my bag if she wanted to use any of those. I also had a deck of cards and hoped she’d let me teach her how to play Go Fish.

“It’s okay if you’re not having a good day. Is there anything I can do to help?” I asked her as she stared at her half-eaten plate.

“No,” she said in a firm voice. Okay then.

Larison came out of the bathroom with her hair up and different clothes.

Any luck ? She mouthed at me.

Not yet , I mouthed back.

“I’ve got to go to the bookshop, baby. I’ll be back later today, okay? You have a good time with Jo.” Larison kissed Juniper on the head and Juniper got up from the chair and threw her arms around Larison’s legs, burying her face into Larison’s belly.

“Oh, baby. It’s okay.”

Muffled sniffing came from Juniper.

“She’ll be fine. I’ve got this,” I told Larison. She picked up Juniper and hugged her tight, swaying gently back and forth.

“Listen, baby. We can video chat later. And remember we got ice cream at the store so we can have some tonight. Maybe Jo will let you have some earlier.”

That didn’t seem to help, but I reached out and Larison managed to pass Juniper over to me without much fuss. She clung to me like a baby koala and I had the feeling a nap was in the near future. Let her get some rest and hit reset on this day.

“Have a good day,” I said in a low voice to Larison. Her eyes were shiny, and I could tell she was choking back tears. I rubbed Juniper’s back and nodded to Larison as she gathered her stuff to leave.

She waved sadly and closed the door softly.

“Hey, how about we have a little couch snuggle?” I asked Juniper.

She just clenched her surprisingly strong arms around my neck and that seemed like an affirmative answer.

I’m so sorry for dumping her on you like that. She doesn’t have bad days often, but when she does, they’re doozies. I hope she’s not getting sick. Larison sent me a message while I was stroking Juniper’s hair. She’d crashed out on the couch and I’d wrapped her in a blanket and set Mozzarella right next to her so he could watch over her while she slept.

I’d also checked her temperature and made her tell me if she had any tummy problems or anything else. No fever, no aches, no runny nose or anything else. Unless things changed, I was going to say she was just having a bad day. Those were always allowed.

I sent Larison back a picture of Juniper while she slept.

She’s out right now. Hopefully when she wakes up she’ll be back to her regular self. If not, we’ll just spend the day being grumpy on the couch. I’ll let you know if anything changes.

My fingers kept getting tangled in her hair, but I did my best to comb through without waking her or yanking on any knots.

Carefully, I moved away from Juniper and went to clean up from breakfast. Looked like Larison hadn’t been able to. If she were here, she’d probably tell me to leave it, but I wasn’t going to do that.

Juniper continued to sleep while I found other ways to occupy myself, including looking at Larison’s bookshelves. She had a smaller one for all of Juniper’s books, of which there were dozens and dozens.

Larison’s shelves were larger and filled with a wide range of books, from fiction to non-fiction and on the bottom it looked like several of her textbooks from school. I hoped she’d be able to go back and finish her degree someday.

Her fiction was a lot of romance, which was expected. I was about to pull one promising title off the shelf when I heard Juniper waking up.

“Hey there,” I said blinked up at me. “How are you feeling?”

“Okay,” she said, which was better than the grunt I’d gotten earlier. “I’m hungry.”

I expected she would be. Once she was fully awake, she came with me to the kitchen to make something to eat and then I got her in comfy clothes and brushed her hair out, doing a quick braid. One of my favorite things to do when I’d worked at the campus daycare had been to play with the kid’s hair and do all kinds of braids and twists and updos that they begged me for. I wasn’t a professional or anything, but it was sometimes the only way I could get the kids to sit still for more than five minutes.

“Do you like it?” I asked her as she spun back and forth in front of the mirror.

“Yeah, can we show Mama?” Juniper directed me to take various pictures of her and approved the ones she liked. I went ahead and sent several of them to Larison.

Someone is feeling more herself I think.

Her response was almost instant. Omg, she looks so cute! I’m not very good at braiding so I feel like a bad girl mom. I even tried to watch some of Hunter’s tutorials, but I got lost every time.

I smiled and wrote back. Well if you ever need help, I’m available. I’ve perfected the art of making a tight braid without pulling too hard.

That wasn’t too much, was it? No, surely not.

Juniper was feeling so much better that she asked to go to the park to play for a while before Larison got home.

“Hey, why don’t we do something nice for your mom?” I asked.

Juniper thought about that, striking a very serious thinking pose with her hand under her chin and her eyes squinted. No idea where she’d gotten that idea, but it was adorable.

“Any ideas?” I asked after a little while.

“Hmmm,” Juniper said, tapping her chin. She really was too much.

“You could draw her a picture. Or maybe we could make something for her. What does she like?”

Juniper did some more intense thinking. “Mama likes books. And ice cream.”

I knew from being in her fridge and pantry that someone in this house had a sweet tooth and I didn’t think it was just Juniper, although she definitely did.

While it would be cute to get Juniper to help me make a dozen cookies or something, that would just make a mess in the kitchen and leave Larison with dirty dishes.

I pulled out my phone and searched for anything nearby.

“What about pizza?” I asked.

“Mama loves pizza,” Juniper said, nodding and bouncing.

“What kind?”

“Green pepper and pepperinos.” I was going to assume that “pepperinos” were pepperonis because that was cute as hell and I wasn’t going to correct her.

“Okay, how about we surprise her with pizza? Then she doesn’t have to cook dinner.” Buying dinner for the woman who was paying me was probably a little weird, but I didn’t care. Larison probably had a rough day and I wanted to make things just a little better.

With Juniper’s help, I put in an order and scheduled it to be delivered after I left.

“Let’s make her a card to tell her about the surprise,” I said once that was done.

“But then it won’t be a surprise ,” Juniper said.

“You’re right. But we don’t want her to make dinner and then have the pizza come, right?” Juniper seemed to agree with me, so we got out some paper and her crayons and colored pencils and I helped her with her letters. I wanted her to write the whole thing by herself. She was already reading, which didn’t surprise me, but she was having a little bit of trouble with writing. I was more than happy to help.

I helped her draw a pizza and added green peppers and “pepperinos” to the top.

We had just propped the finished drawing up on the coffee table when Larison arrived home.

Once again, my heart did something strange, but instead of tripping, this felt like it was jumping up and down like Juniper did when she was excited about something.

Juniper ran to greet her, and I watched Larison’s shoulders slump as she hugged her daughter and closed her eyes. She was tired. I wish there was more I could do about it. At least I’d covered dinner.

“Mama, we have a surprise for you!” Juniper ran over and grabbed the card and ran with it back over to Larison.

“What’s this?” she asked, and I watched as her eyes read the words Juniper had written with my help.

“What is this?” She looked up at me and I felt my cheeks go red.

“I just… We, uh, wanted to do something nice for you.” There. If I could convince her that part of it was Juniper’s idea then it wasn’t that weird.

“Oh,” Larison said, blinking a few times. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I know.” I stood up from the couch. “The pizza and everything else will be here in two hours.”

I grabbed my bag and tried not to stand too close to Larison. It was too risky. These feelings I had toward her got worse the longer I was in her presence.

“Jo,” Larison said, reaching out and touching my arm.

“Yeah,” I blurted out.

“Thank you. I really…” she trailed off and closed her eyes for a minute. “Thank you.”

“Anytime,” I said, and I meant it. But for right now, I needed to go or else she was going to hear how erratically my heart was beating or I’d end up doing something really awful like licking her face or falling at her feet or smelling her hair. Truly embarrassing, but that was what happened when I was around her.

“Have a good night, Jo,” Larison said.

“Bye, Jo Jo!” Juniper said, waving. It was the first time she’d called me that and I didn’t hate it at all. In fact, I kind of loved it.

I skipped down the stairs and out onto the street.