29. Wyatt
WYATT
“He was black with little white boots and the cutest, tiniest stripe down his nose.”
I smiled down at a sleepy Penny. “He sounds cute.”
“The cutest.” She pouted as I tucked the covers around her shoulders. “And he was all alone, but when I read him The Wonky Donkey , he curled into my lap and purred so loud, Daddy.”
“I’m glad you had fun. I’m sure he was glad to have a friend for the day.”
“But Figaro wants a home .” Penny looked up at me with big round eyes. I knew exactly what she was getting at, and there was no fucking way we were getting a cat.
“His name was Figaro? Like in Pinocchio?”
“His name was Darryl, but I changed it because he totally looks like a Figaro.”
She named the cat. I was going to kill Tootie.
“So tell me about Cheeto’s adventure today?” I raised an eyebrow at her, and she looked sufficiently sheepish.
“He got out.”
I nodded and kissed her cheek. “I heard. And don’t cats eat rodents? We wouldn’t want to put Cheeto in danger.”
“Figaro would never !”
“I’m sure that’s true. How about this? It’s not a no forever, but a not right now. Can you work with that?”
Her sleepy frown deepened. “I guess so.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “You’re the greatest kid in the world, you know that, right?”
Penny rolled to her side to face me and nodded. “I love you, Dad.”
“Love you too, Pickle.”
“I wanted to talk to you about something, Pickle.” I pressed a kiss to her forehead and rubbed her back.
“Am I in trouble?”
I laughed. “No, not at all. I just wanted to talk to you about Lark. It’s nice having her around, don’t you think?”
“Usually, but I’m mad at her right now.”
Taken aback, I considered my words. “Mad at her? What happened?”
“She tattled on me about Cheeto getting out.”
“Oh, babe. She didn’t tattle—that’s when you tell on someone just to get them into trouble. She was sharing about the day, and your name didn’t come up once.”
“So she didn’t tell you that I was the one who left the door to his cage open?”
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“Now I feel bad. I was just having bad thoughts about her.”
“Oh, Pickle. You are a sweet girl. Maybe you can be extra kind to her tomorrow, since we both like having her around.”
“Are you going to get married?”
My mouth dropped. “Um, no. I like Lark, and she likes me. I want to take her out to eat and hold her hand sometimes. That’s all.”
For now .
I pushed away the errant thought.
“With me too?”
I nodded. “Sometimes. But sometimes I would like to take her out just the two of us. Like a date.”
“Could I hang out with Uncle Lee when you do that?”
I laughed. Penny was so smitten with her fun-loving uncle. “I’m sure he would love that.”
“Lark likes it when you leave the flowers for her.”
I paused the back scratches. “Oh yeah?”
“She always puts them in a little cup of water and smiles a lot when you do that.”
I kissed her on the top of her head as I stood. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“One more, Dad.” She was nearly asleep, and love for her rushed through me. Our lives were finally feeling settled. Lark had had a huge part in that.
When I clicked the door to Penny’s bedroom closed, I walked down the hallway. Whispers coming from the kitchen caught my attention, so I headed that way.
Lark was pacing the floor. Sitting at the table, Michael was shirtless and icing his side, while Kevin looked down at his hands and Joey scrolled on his phone.
When I walked into the room, the hushed whispers stopped, and they all stared at me.
“What the hell is going on?”
Lark stepped forward when Kevin spoke up. “I got into a fight and was arrested.”
The roar of blood rushing to my head was deafening.
“Me too.” Michael lifted the bag of frozen vegetables from his side to inspect a fresh bruise blooming across his ribs.
“Arrested?” My voice rose, and I looked over my shoulder toward Penny’s room. My eyes sliced back to them and landed on Lark, who stood behind Michael with her hand protectively on his shoulder. “Did you know about this?”
“I was at book club when I found out. I took care of it. The charges were dropped.”
“Charges? Took care of it? What do you—” I started stomping back and forth across the kitchen as thoughts of the university board finding out about this hounded me.
The boys could get kicked off the team, and there wouldn’t be anything I could do about it.
Their scholarships. Their futures. Key players in my starting lineup.
Not to mention how bad it would look that they had been arrested when it was my job to keep them out of trouble.
“Look, Coach, they were talking shit and—”
“I don’t want to hear it. You don’t understand how bad this is! For all of us!” My voice boomed in the small kitchen, and Lark took another step in my direction.
“You don’t have to raise your voice!” Hers was pitching higher as she came to their defense.
I sighed in defeat.
Lark put her hands out. “I’m sorry. We’re all on the same team here.”
“Team? I’m just finding out about this now.”
“It happened really fast, and when Joey called me, I took care of it. I’m sorry I didn’t call you, but they were in trouble, and I fixed it.”
I was unsure of exactly how she’d managed to fix this shit show, but the way she wasn’t revealing exactly how she’d managed to fix it made me uneasy. In my gut, I knew there was something more to it.
My eyes moved over my players. “This is unacceptable.” They nodded in solemn understanding. “There need to be consequences, but for now... I don’t know. Just go to bed.”
Looking more like twelve than twenty, the three boys quietly left the kitchen and headed to their room in the loft. As he passed Lark, Kevin reached out and hugged her. My heart felt tight in my chest, and a thousand emotions rolled through me.
Alone in the kitchen, I looked at her. “What the hell, Lark?”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
I shook my head. Deep down I knew it wasn’t her fault and that I’d let my temper get the best of me. I had so many questions, and the anger was still just below the surface. “Tell me what happened. Everything.”