Chapter Two Charlie
Chapter Two
Charlie
“Daddy, why do you have hair in your nose?” Harper’s voice woke me from sleep, and I peeked one eye open as I stretched my arms over my head. I glanced at my watch to see that it was barely six o’clock in the morning.
“Why are you up so early, Harps? I thought we agreed that we’d stay in bed a little later on Saturday mornings?”
“We did,” she said, climbing up on the bed beside me. “But then I woke up because I missed you.”
My fucking chest squeezed at her words.
This kid was pure sweetness.
“You missed me, huh?” I said, tucking her long waves behind her ear. “Is that why you decided to come look up my nose?”
She giggled. “I was going to tickle you, but then I saw some hair up there. And guess what, Daddy?”
“Tell me,” I said, pushing to sit up, my back resting against the headboard as I yawned.
“You have hairs in your ears too.” Her green eyes narrowed as she looked at me.
“Everyone has hair in their nose and their ears, baby girl,” I said.
“No. I went to check. Look up there, Daddy.” She climbed on my lap and tipped her head back, giving me a perfect view inside her nostrils, which made me laugh. “There aren’t any hairs in there. And look in my ears too.”
She gave me a nice shot of her ear next, and I scooped her up and moved to my feet. “Maybe my parents were monkeys,” I said as she laughed some more.
I carried her to her bathroom and set her down on her feet, then handed her toothbrush to her and applied a dab of toothpaste. “Brush. Let me get dressed, and I’ll make you some breakfast.”
“You’re not a monkey, Daddy. You’re just a hairy man,” she called out as I walked back to my bedroom and into my bathroom.
I quickly slipped on some jeans and a hoodie. I needed to get out to two jobsites today for a few hours, just to make sure the weekend crew wasn’t slacking.
The large hotel that I was overseeing for my friend Myles St. James was progressing well.
We’d bulldozed the Seaside Inn several months ago, and we were putting up a much larger structure in its place.
I also had to get over to Violet Beaumont’s house to make sure they were making progress on the bathroom and kitchen renovation.
She was staying in my guesthouse, and the woman was a big thorn in my side, so the sooner I got her back in her home, the better.
She’d practically burned the place down a few days ago, and I’d walked in on her in a pair of panties and high heels. The woman was a mess.
A sexy-as-sin mess.
I finished brushing my teeth and rinsed my mouth as I thought about the way she’d had her hands on her hips, ready for battle.
She was feisty and always ready to argue.
A distraction that I didn’t need living in my backyard.
I strode over to the kitchen, and my little girl came out of her bedroom dressed for the jobsite: a white turtleneck, overalls, her cowboy boots, and the pink tool belt I’d gotten her for Christmas. “Saturdays are for pancakes, Daddy.”
“Yes, they are,” I said, grabbing the box and then whipping up some batter quickly.
My girl would eat pancakes every day of the week if I let her. But we saved them for Saturdays, and we either ate them here or went over to the Brown Bear Diner for a nice stack.
I ladled the batter into the pan before grabbing her a glass of milk and pouring myself a cup of coffee. Harper grabbed the maple syrup from the refrigerator, placed it on the table, found two napkins and some utensils, and set us up.
She’d wanted to learn how to do some chores over winter break, and she was a quick study, just like her old man. It was important to me to raise my baby girl to grow up and be self-sufficient, even if I knew that I’d take care of this little angel until I took my last breath.
She was my reason to do better.
To be better.
I plated our food, and we both sat down at the table.
“Napkin in your lap, Daddy. I saw it on a movie. We don’t live on a farm, so we shouldn’t act like animals.”
Did I mention that my daughter is six going on thirty?
She was a bossy little thing and full of fire. And I wouldn’t change a single hair on her head.
I set my paper napkin on my lap and raised a brow. “I suppose that means you should be keeping your desk area clean in your room, if you don’t want to live like an animal.”
She took a long sip of her drink, then set it down and looked up at me with a white milk mustache over her lip. “Those are art supplies on my desk. Artists are messy. Mrs. Wharton even told us so.”
“Is that so?” I waited for her to look up at me. “Would that be the same Mrs. Wharton who talked to me at school yesterday about you missing recess for talking too much?”
She shrugged. “That lady runs a tight ship.”
I tried to cover my smile, because my girl was a witty little thing, but I kept my tone serious. “Harper.”
“Daddy,” she mimicked.
“Listen, you want to grow up and be real smart. You don’t want to have to work as hard as I do out there building things when you can be sitting at a desk in a fancy office. So stop talking and listen to Mrs. Wharton.”
“I was only talking because Cooper was upset. He didn’t understand the directions. No one would help him because they’re all afraid of Mrs. Wharton. But he started crying, and I felt bad.”
“Well, why didn’t he go ask Mrs. Wharton for directions?”
“He did. And she said he should have listened the first time, so she wouldn’t help him,” she said over a mouthful of pancake.
“I do believe you are supposed to wait until you finish chewing before you speak, Little Miss Manners.” I smirked. “And maybe Cooper should have listened the first time.”
“He couldn’t.” She set her fork down. “He got sent to the nurse’s office at recess ’cause his nose was bleeding. And Mrs. Wharton gave the directions when he wasn’t there. And that’s not fair, right, Daddy?”
She made a good point. She rarely got in trouble, and the few times her teacher had talked to me, my daughter had given me a reasonable explanation.
“Did he tell her that?” I asked as I sipped my coffee.
“Nope. Because she told him, ‘No talking.’ That’s the rules. But that’s not fair, and you told me if something isn’t fair, I should say something.”
I reached for both of our plates and headed to the sink.
“I did tell you that.”
“See? I’m following the rules. I just like your rules better than Mrs. Wharton’s,” she said as she polished off her glass of milk and walked it over to the sink.
I roared in laughter at her comment.
Mrs. Wharton had to be pushing eighty, as she was my teacher back in the day, and she was old as dirt back then. I’m sure she didn’t even remember that Cooper had left the room.
But Harper was an observer. She was always watching everyone around her and making sure they were okay.
I loaded the dishes in the dishwasher and dried off my hands. “All right. Well, you lost recess privileges. Was it worth it?”
“Cooper stopped crying. It was worth it.” She smiled up at me. “Plus, I got to sit on the bench and think about my birthday party. I want to have a Pinkalicious party.”
My daughter loved talking about her next birthday party. She’d start months in advance, but seeing as it was only six weeks away, it was a good time to start thinking about it.
I mean, what the fuck did I know about birthdays for little girls?
I’d never had a birthday party in my life. So, I let Harper call the shots about what she wanted.
“Come on, kiddo. Let’s get your coat on and get over to the jobsite, and you can tell me all about this Pinkalicious party on the way over.” I helped her slip her coat over her shoulders and zipped it up.
She ran down the hall to get her backpack with her coloring books and crayons. She knew the drill. This was how we spent our Saturdays. We worked for a few hours, and then she got to pick what we’d do in the afternoon and evening.
Once we were both in the truck and buckled, I pulled down the driveway and glanced out the windshield. The snow was falling pretty good this morning.
My daughter filled me in on her birthday party on the short drive to Violet’s house. She wanted to invite everyone in her class, along with some adults she’d known for most of her life. She wanted everything to be pink. The balloons, the cake, and the sandwiches.
How the fuck does one find pink sandwiches?
But I nodded and listened as I pulled in front of Violet’s house, then groaned when I saw her car parked in front of the two work trucks that were also there.
“You growl too much, Daddy,” Harper said as I helped her out of the car.
“I didn’t growl. I groaned.”
“Both make you sound grumpy.” She turned to see the car parked a few feet from us. “Yay. That’s Violet’s car!”
“Yep.” I tried to hide my irritation because the woman kept showing up at her house to check on things, which was distracting my guys. Why the fuck do you hire a general contractor if you’re going to be micromanaging everything?
“I like her,” Harper said as she started running toward the house.
That makes one of us.
Once we were inside, I rolled my eyes when I saw Violet making a design on the table out of some of the tile that she’d already approved for the kitchen backsplash.
Yet here she was changing the design.
Again.
“Hi, Violet!” Harper ran over to her, and Violet stopped what she was doing and smiled down at my daughter.
“How’s the cutest kid in the world doing today?” she asked.
“I’m good.” Harper beamed up at her.
“What do you think of this design, Harper?” Violet asked my daughter, the six-year-old who has no design experience.
My right-hand man, Will, just stood there smiling at her like a starstruck pussy. I shot him a warning look, and he cleared his throat.
“Uh, hey, boss. Violet had an idea about changing the pattern on the subway tile to give the wall more—what is it?” Will asked her, and I rolled my eyes.
“Depth and character. I sat up last night thinking about it. Why would I want to just have the tile laid the way everyone lays it on the wall, when I could make it stand out?”
“I like it a lot,” Harper said, staring at the ridiculously complicated pattern on the table.
“I’ll tell you why. Because that’s the whole point of subway tile.
And sure, you can make a unique design, but that design has to work on the entire wall.
Your kitchen backsplash area isn’t that large, so only half of this is going to fit in the space beneath the cabinets, and we’re going to have a ton of cuts and it’s going to look like crap. ” I crossed my arms over my chest.
The woman was wearing me out with her constant changes.
“I see Mr. Doom and Gloom has entered the building,” Violet said. “I like it. Will likes it. Harper likes it. But of course, you think it looks like crap.”
You also thought it was a wise idea to balance on a barstool in high heels.
Will is thinking with his dick.
Harper is six years old and wants pink sandwiches for her birthday.
“I didn’t say the design looks like crap. I said it would look like crap on the wall, because it will be cut off on every single side, and it will look like a half-done job. If you don’t like the subway tiles, there are other tiles you can use that have designs that are meant for the space.”
“I’m trying to avoid slowing down my timeline,” she said, holding her chin up defiantly.
“Then stop distracting the crew and stop changing everything that you’ve already approved.” I blew out a breath and told Will to get back to work on the bathroom.
“It’s my house, and I should love the design.”
“I couldn’t agree more. That was the point of you choosing the finishes. But now everything is ordered, and we’re trying to stay on track with the timeline. And you keep making changes.”
“Have you ever heard the term ‘It’s a woman’s right to change her mind’?”
“Have you ever heard the term ‘Make a decision and stick with it’?” I grumped.
“No, because that’s not a thing. Mine is actually a thing.”
“Daddy’s grumpy,” Harper said, and I wanted to tell her I’d serve brown sandwiches at her party for being a traitor, but I held my tongue.
“Go sit down at the card table over there, and get your crafts out.” I gave my daughter a stern look.
“Daddy is definitely grumpy,” Violet said sarcastically.
“Do you want to live in my guesthouse forever, or would you like to get this job done?” I asked, stepping closer to her, because I was done having this conversation day after day.
“Let’s see. The oven doesn’t work in the guesthouse. My landlord is a tyrant. And I have no space to entertain.”
What the fuck is she talking about?
“Well, if you’d like to throw a party in the next year, I suggest you let me do my job and you stick to wedding planning, yes?”
“Bite me, you broody bastard,” she huffed as she stormed past me and joined my daughter at the table where she was coloring.
I rubbed my face and walked to the bathroom to tell the guys to stick to the plan.
Even though I highly doubted Violet wouldn’t change her mind again tomorrow.