Page 64 of Ice Cold Hearts
When I pictured having a driver, I assumed it would be a door to door service type of thing. Sure, I had a little bit of a Hollywood red carpet fantasy, but I knew that wouldn’t be what it was really like. Still, it was an amusing daydream.
Technically, it is door to door, but I wasn’t expecting it to be from back door to back door. It’s inconvenient walking through the wet grass in the backyard to the car, but I promised my men I’d defer to the driver’s expertise and safety plan. So here I am at a back entrance of the hospital surrounded by dumpsters filled to the brim with rotting food.
What a glamorous life I lead.
At the end of the day, though, I’d rather have the rotting food than cameras in my face. It’s much harder for them to find me back here. The past few days with a driver have been frustrating for both me and Audrey as we try to navigate this new normal, especially with the varied routes, but we’re starting to get used to it. Just knowing our driver is one of the biggest reasons they haven’t gotten any good pictures of Audrey yet or found her school is enough to ease the sting of these new changes.
My phone pings, and I see a message in our group chat that turns my blood to ice.
Oliver - Brace yourself. Things are about to get worse.
Against my better judgment, I open the link to the gossip column after climbing into the back of the car. The headline stretches luridly across the page in Comic Sans.
Seriously? Of all the fonts in the world, this chick picks Comic freaking Sans.
Hockey Hat Trick?
How original. It’s not like every other article has had a title like that.
I roll my eyes and scroll down, wondering what all the fuss is about.
There are the usual photos of me entering and leaving work in the slideshow at the top of the web page, and I nearly close the browser when the next photo pops up in the slideshow.
It’s Audrey on my hip as we’re walking into the guys’ house. It’s only our backs, but I’m still furious. I clench my phone so hard I’m liable to break it in half.
The next one is even worse. It’s from the next morning when we rushed out the door to get her to pre-school on time. Audrey is on my hip again, but this time the camera has a perfect view of both our faces. I don’t know where they were hiding out or how long their lens was, but it must have been a pricey one because I’m able to make out the identical sprinkling of freckles across our noses and cheeks. Hank, our driver, has his back to the camera.
He was the guys’ usual driver so I knew him fairly well, but I was still a little miffed that the guys had moved so fast on things. Now, however, I’m beyond grateful. If I’d done what I wanted, they would have managed to follow me straight to her school.
The sight of my baby’s face splashed across the internet for the world to see makes me sick to my stomach. Even though I’ve already hit my breaking point with the article, I have to know what else they said, so I keep scrolling.
Things are heating up for the Cold Hearts and I’m not
talking about their recent winning streak. Things seem
to be getting spicy for our city’s golden boys. Emily
Hayes, a physical therapist at Grace Harbor Hospital,
has been seen entering the house Alexei, Oliver, and Ian
share in the Deer Woods Gated Community and not leaving
until the next morning. I can’t confirm anything, but it
implies quite a lot, don’t you think?
I won’t be able to read the whole thing and be in a good mood when we pick up Audrey from school, so I opt to skim it instead.
… have to wonder about her parenting if she’s bringing
her kid to a romantic tryst…
Do we have another frouple on our hands? (let me know
how you feel about my new term in the comments!)
Then again, Ms. Hayes might just be a genius test driving