I rolled my eyes. Me and the nanny were more parents to Everett and Verity than she’d been. She was just lucky, now that there was no money to pay a nanny, the two kids were in school from eight ’til four.
My father pinched the bridge of his nose. “Please don’t argue. I don’t have the energy for it. Nichelle, shouldn’t the kids be on their way to school?”
She huffed off, and my father gazed down at me. “I don’t like to put pressure on you, but you do know how precarious our situation is at the moment, don’t you? When you marry Caleb, things will turn around for all of us, but until then…”
I sat up, pulling the sheet up around me. I hated the stress lines that had appeared on his face in the last six months, since everything had gone downhill for him. “You don’t need to worry about me. I already got another job.”
“You did? Where? Another childcare center?” He perched on the end of my bed, his eyes filled with pride. “I should have known. You’ve always been so responsible.”
The day Nash and Axel had brought me to this house with a tiny Barbie backpack filled with the few things I owned, Axel had crouched so we were eye to eye. His big hands had gripped my skinny little shoulders, and he’d held me tight. “Be good, Bliss. Do whatever they tell you to do. Don’t argue, okay? This is your big break. Your chance to get the hell out of Saint View. Don’t give them any reason to send you back, okay? Promise me.”
I would have done anything Axel asked of me. If he’d asked me to swallow razor blades or wrestle crocodiles, I would have done it without question. He and Nash were my big brothers and the only heroes I had.
So I’d done exactly as he’d said. I’d been quiet and good and never made any trouble.
I was still doing it now. I couldn’t tell my father about Psychos. That pride in his eyes would have extinguished the moment the word fell out of my mouth.
I wanted to confide in him. I wanted to tell him all about Axel, and Nash, and the bar I now owned, and Caleb. But I couldn’t add any more to his plate. Somewhere deep inside I was still the little girl, terrified of his rejection.
I’d have to tell my family eventually, but me leaving Caleb would be a huge blow to my father’s hopes for getting the company back on track. Caleb wouldn’t want to work with him now, but if Psychos party nights did as well as Nash had made out, then we wouldn’t need Caleb. I could invest the money into Dad’s company, if I could get enough of it. He’d looked after me. I wanted to look after him.
If that meant sex clubs and drugs, then so be it.
It was the only way.
I turned up at Psychos in the middle of the day, right in time for the lunch rush.
But when I walked inside, the bar was completely empty, except for Rebel sitting on the bar top, cracking a piece of gum between her teeth, her Doc Martens swinging.
She dragged her gaze away from the TV when my movement caught her attention. “Disney! What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at your kiddie germ factory?” She jumped down off the bar and skipped over to hug me.
I hugged her back. “The kiddie germ factory is no more.”
Her eyes went huge. “You blew it up?”
I snorted on my laughter. “What on earth? Who hurt you, Rebel? ‘Cause it’s really twisted that that is where your mind went.”
Her shoulders relaxed a little, and she shook her head. “Trust me, you do not want to know about my hidden traumas and how they shaped my twisted mind. We’d be here all day. But just to clarify. You don’t have a penchant for explosives that I should watch out for?”
“I can confirm that I do not have a stash of TNT in the trunk of my car. No.”
She giggled. “Okay, so fine, maybe I shouldn’t guess what happened to the daycare and you should just tell me.”
“The truth is much less interesting. I got fired. So here I am, ready to work. Not that there seems to be much work to be had. It’s dead in here.”
Rebel’s mouth dropped open. “You’re gonna work? Here? With us?”
“Sure. Why not? I do own the place, so I figure I should probably get involved.”
Rebel let out a screech of excitement and grabbed my hands, dancing around with me in excitement. “Oh my God, yes! We’re gonna have the best time! You are gonna make so much money at the parties. Like, those guys are gonna take one look at your tits and they are gonna be shoving hundred-dollar bills in your cleavage.”
It took me a moment to process what she’d said, but when I did, shock jolted through me. When I’d said I wanted to work here, I hadn’t even considered the parties. I’d been thinking more about working here during the day, maybe getting some new meals on the menu and some lunchtime two-for-one specials.