All It Seems

Part 5: Lucy-Lu

In honour of reaching 1k here is a chapter :)

I woke early Monday morning, leaving an extra ten minutes for me to get there so there wouldn't be a repeat of what happened last time.

I wanted to look cool for Lucy, I knew she'd probably judge a book by its cover so I wanted to make sure that she could talk to me, woman to woman.

It was an interesting conversation the night before with Isaac about early mornings and late nights. As you can imagine he wasn't exactly the happiest person about it and of course we argued.

He kept telling me to tell them I can't do the job which was ridiculous. He knew as well as I did that the longer I continued without money in my pocket the more bills were going to stack up on my dresser.

"How am I meant to know you're safe?" He repeated and it was getting boring having the same fight over and over again.

"You're just going to have to trust me," was my reply over and over again.

Reading over the contract last night I thought it was a little unusual. There were a few things - as I read between the lines - that meant I wasn't supposed to ask about Lucy's parents, I wasn't supposed to persuade her morals, I wasn't supposed to interfere with her learning etc etc. Weird but not a big enough warning sign that I shouldn't sign on the dotted line, I mean, what interest would I have in influencing her morals? I'm just there to make sure she's safe and having fun. Two things that I happen to be quite good at.

So, here I am running up the footpath and through the gate to find the hidden key that Mr Stanford had told me about.

Sure enough, it was under the pine cone in the third pot plant to the left from the door.

I took a deep breath to prepare myself for whatever was about to come and entered with a big smile.

I went into the kitchen to put the contract on the bench corner closest to the fridge and when I turned back around a little girl that I assumed - well, hoped - was Lucy staring at me with a slight glower.

"Oh, hi there, Lucy," I smiled brightly at her and she eyed me cautiously. "I'm-"

"Alexis Miles, 22 years old, studying education at the University around the corner and now my nanny,"

I was shocked. She knew everything about me, at least, everything that I'd told Mr Stanford.

"Yeah, but you can all me Alex... do you have a nickname?" I asked, still being friendly and wanting her to see that I'm a friendly person.

"Lucy, it's my name and what you should call me." She was a little taller than other seven year olds I'd seen or babysat before, but not unusually so. She came up to just below my elbows and I was a decent height of 5ft7".

"Have you had breakfast?" I asked, taking in her appearance as she was already dressed and ready to roll.

She shook her head and took her place on a stool at the counter.

She was adorable but I didn't think I should tell her that in accordance to her attitude earlier. She had dark chocolate hair that formed tight ringlets and fizzed a little, they dropped down her shoulders and was the perfect shade against her tanned skin.

"What do you say I make you something special? What do you like?" I put my bag and jacket on the seat next to her and looked through the cupboards to see what I could make her.

"I just want to let you know that I've had 3 nannies in the past year," she told me, her chin resting on her hand as she watched me move about the cupboard.