I am going to die. I've made a gross miscalculation, and Paige is going to kill me in her hire car.

"Indicate," I say, checking over my shoulder to confirm that Paige hasn't exactly picked a lane yet. "Indicate. Paige, we're gonna get hit. You need to get over." Bloody hell. If we don't die, we're going to get stopped by a coppa who thinks Paige is drunk. I've never seen such awful driving. "Go off here. Pull into that carpark." I point to the one nearest us.

Somehow she manages to get out of the roundabout. We'd been around it over and over with her riding the inside lane, too afraid to come out of it. Honestly lost count of how many times she hugged those turns in the chaos of making sure we didn't die. Should not have taken her to a busy roundabout to start.

"Right," I say, once she shifts the car into park at the far end of a garden center. After a few deep breaths, I feel ready to make an assessment without losing the plot or my job. "That needs a bit of work."

"Now do you understand why I haven't been driving?" She throws up her hands.

"I do. I really do." Would also love to throw up my hands, but I'd prefer to still be employed at the end of this. When she got the hang of changing gears so quickly down the backroads, I thought a bigger challenge was needed. We even did a couple hill starts, and she was aces. A busy roundabout felt manageable. I could not have been more wrong.

Silence swells in the car, and I realize she's waiting for me to come up with a solution to her inability to drive on a roundabout. "Let's get the car turned around, and we'll watch this roundabout for a while." Now that we're here, I can easily take her into the village to practice on smaller roundabouts with fewer cars and exits. To arrive at her work, she'll need to understand the system, or she really will end up in a wreck or driving in a circle for eight hours and never make it to her office.

Once we're facing the roundabout, I take her through all the basic principles of who goes where, when, and how to get somewhere else. She listens and watches in silence for several minutes.

"You don't have any roundabouts in America?" I ask.

"There are a few here and there, but definitely not like this. They make a lot of sense with traffic flow. Stop lights and four-way stops are always annoying when you're the only car around."

"Sit here a bit longer or are you ready to carry on?" Am I ready to carry on? I'm tempted to cross myself for luck.

"I can do this," she says, and she rattles the gearbox trying to get the car into reverse. "I would have thought the shifting would be the hard part, not the actual driving." She locks it into reverse and promptly stalls it. "Spoke too soon." She gives me a sheepish grin when she tries again and stalls it a second time. Third time is a charm.

My heart does funny things in my chest at her obvious embarrassment while she gets us turned around. There is something appealing about her perseverance. I can imagine she'd be good at her job. Lots of attention to detail. Not willing to give up easily. It's annoying that she's allowed the wankers there to undermine her confidence.

"You're doing alright." By alright, I mean that I am, in fact, still alive.

Two hours later after touring through multiple small towns and villages around the area, we're approaching the dreaded roundabout that baffled her the last time. She reads the sign as we approach and takes a deep breath.

"We're going straight over, so first or second lane, right?"

"That's right," I confirm as she slows to check the flow of traffic before accelerating into the middle and around the corner.

She lets out a little laugh, indicates she's getting off, and we're on the road home. "Oh, my gosh. I did it!" She slaps my leg in a burst of enthusiasm, and pride radiates off her as we make our way down the narrow lane back to the old farmhouse.

Once we've parked the car, Paige gets out and skips—actually skips—into the house. I shake my head and laugh to myself as I follow her in. She opens the front door with grandiose exaggeration and declares, "I conquered the roundabout."

Diya pops her head out of the living room, shoulder length brown hair swinging, and raises her eyebrows at me. "Well done?"

Neither she or Tejinder will understand how much of an accomplishment that is for Paige or how chuffed she is to have done it. We all grew up here, and a roundabout is as commonplace as—I don't know what—in America, but something used all the time.

"How's the roast coming along?" The house smells amazing. I went with lamb since, even if it's undercooked, it won't kill anyone. Still shocked no one died from those sausages the other night. They were minging.

"Checked it twenty minutes ago," Diya says as Chloe lets out a wail in the other room. "Still a while yet."

Chloe must have heard my voice, and I duck around Diya to grab my daughter from Tejinder who is struggling to keep her from toppling out of his grasp in her rush to get to me. As soon as she's in my arms, she snuggles against my neck, and I'm convinced there's no better feeling in the world.

Paige has Joey in her arms already, and she's swaying gently with him tucked into her embrace. Strange to feel so content so quickly in a place, but that's how I'm feeling right now as I gaze at Paige. Soul deep contentment, and I never appreciated how great that was until I was living off a steady diet of anxiety.

"Nanny Ash, ball?" Joey says when he catches sight of me.

"Tejinder will play footie with you, mate." I glance toward Tejinder who cracks his knucks.

"I reckon I could teach him a thing or two," he agrees. "Where's your ball?"

"He slept with it last night," I say. Paige washed and disinfected it before she let it in his bed, but he was insistent that he wouldn't go to bed without it. "Likely upstairs."

Paige goes with Joey to fetch the ball, and while she's gone, I pass Chloe to Diya. Dinner isn't going to cook itself, as much as I'd love that. Got no idea what I'm doing, but I saved some things on my phone last night.

I've just finished getting out the potatoes, parsnips, and carrots when Paige appears at my shoulder. "I can crack on with this on my own," I say.

"No," she says. "Absolutely not. You and your friends helped me a lot today when you didn't have to. The least I can do is learn how to cook."

"You won't be learning from me." I turn my phone toward her. "YouTube to the rescue."

"Who is Heston Blumenthal?" Paige takes my phone and enlarges the ingredient list. "What about Gordon Ramsey, he's British isn't he?"

"He is. But Heston's self-taught. I reckon his methods will be easier to follow. Watched him on Channel 4 when I was a kid with me mum." The memory causes a bittersweet rush. Chloe and I never would have been in this mess if she was still around. Of course, I might have been trying to feed the three of us on my shit salary, but I wouldn't have worried about childcare. My mum was excellent with kids.

"Where are your parents now? They must love spending time with Chloe. She's such a delight."

She glances up at me, and we're so close, I can smell the honey scent wafting off her. "Parents divorced when I was little. Me Mum died a few years ago, and I'm not close with me Dad. He lives up north somewhere, not even sure exactly where." Some of these details I hinted at in our email and text exchanges, but I'm not big on sharing my life story.

"I'm so sorry to hear that." She scans my face with an abundance of tenderness. "You and your daughter deserve so much more." She opens her mouth as though she's going to ask something else, and then shuts it, passing me my phone. "Where do you want to begin?"

It takes us a few false starts to realize we both work better when Paige is organizing us in terms of ingredients and directions. We get the potatoes and parsnips peeled and in the second oven. The carrots are boiling on the stove, and we're trying to tidy as we go so we aren't left with a monster mess after dinner.

"If you need to go read your regulations," I say, "I can finish the dishes. That was quite a stack you brought home, or I can help you again after the kids are in bed."

"Would you mind?" Paige asks, and there's so much hope in her voice that even if I minded, I wouldn't. "Reading through them by myself yesterday was not particularly stimulating."

"'Course not. Happy to help." Perhaps an overstatement of how much I enjoyed quizzing her, but I did relish watching Paige's mind work. Most of my friends and acquaintances aren't book smart—good with hands-on tasks or people smart, but not the type to memorize manuals and complex legal language. None of my friends went on to Sixth Form or university. We all went into trades and apprenticeships, which isn't bad. Pays the bills, mostly.

Paige is drying the last pan when Tejinder wanders into the kitchen with Joey trailing behind.

"Mate, are you coming back to Shahi? We could use you."

"Shahi?" Paige asks. "What's that?"

"Shahi Darbar Football Club in Bedford. Fixtures are on Sundays. Kick around and a social during the off season," Tejinder says.

"Can't." I don't get into the logistics of finding someone to watch Chloe or leaving Paige in the lurch with Joey when she's still getting settled at her job.

"Why not?" Paige asks.

When I don't answer, Tejinder comes over to me at the sink to swot my stomach, and I clench my muscles reflexively. "How do you reckon you'll get yourself another fit bird if you let yourself go?"

I glare at him, and I clench my jaw. Not convinced he should be making that sort of comment in front of Paige, and the last thing on my mind the last few months has been finding any kind of woman. Besides, part of me is sure Immy will return. Despite everything, I can't fathom she'd just abandon us forever. Even though I've never vocalized it, Tejinder has been on me for ages to let my flame of hope extinguish.

Paige tenses beside me before putting away the pot, and I silently curse Tejinder.

"That's enough, mate," I say.

"The club's not the same without you," Tejinder says.

"Ball?" Joey says, and he holds up a dirty football above his head.

"You need to wash your hands," Paige says. "Almost dinner time."

"I'll take him." Tejinder scoops him and the ball up and takes him out of the kitchen.

"You can sign up," Paige says. "I can watch Chloe for the few hours you'll be gone. It's not a big deal. You should have a life outside this house. You're young."

Except I don't feel it most days. I gaze at her for a beat, trying to decide what's fair to ask or take in a situation like this. She's my employer, and to have her watch Chloe doesn't sit right with me. Not if I'm off doing whatever I want while she does it. Different when we're swapping kids.

"It's every weekend. It's not a small commitment," I say.

"A few hours on a Sunday are nothing." Paige slots the tea towel back in its place near the stove. "I stand by what I said and my offer. If you want to do it, don't let me or Joey or Chloe hold you back. We'll manage just fine, I'm sure. It's probably during naptime, anyway."

It would be, but I'm still not convinced her plan is a good one.

"I wouldn't have offered if I wasn't okay with it," Paige says. "I'm also very good at keeping my mouth shut about things I don't want to do."

Her reminder over what I said to her a couple nights ago causes me to suppress a grin. "If you're sure, then?"

"Completely." She gives me a small smile, and the timer goes off for the potatoes and parsnips.

Later when I tell Tejinder over dinner that I'll be rejoining the team, he does a fist pump, and when I exchange a glance with Paige across the table, my heart skips at the warmth and amusement in her gaze. Strange to have such a high level of comfort and security with someone I just met. But I won't be looking that gift horse in the mouth—I'm just gonna be grateful I somehow landed here.

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