Chapter 7
The girl went to bed early, which gave Apple time to talk to Thario. The police were still looking for Amelia, and they might have a lead. He was glad to hear the cops were doing something. His hands were tied, leaving him feeling useless.
He’d fallen asleep on the couch and woke when he felt like something was off. When he opened his eyes, he saw the little girl staring down at him. She narrowed her gaze and pursed her lips before she spoke.
“You have a mark on your neck like mine.”
He nodded and sat up. “I do.”
“Where did you get it?”
He shrugged. “It’s just part of who I am.”
“Mommy said the same thing about mine. I like it.”
“I’m glad you do.”
“I want cereal.”
He wiped his hand over his face and stood. Lainey was much smaller than he was, not even coming up to his waist. He didn’t think she was too small, but what did he know?
“Okay, what cereal do you eat in the morning?” It had been a few years since he’d had cereal.
If he got hold of a box, he would eat almost the whole thing.
He could demolish a box of Quaker Oat Squares.
Same with Honey Nut Cheerios. Anything with marshmallows in the cereal would be consumed in large handfuls.
Fruity Pebbles were easy to take down the whole box, and that was why he didn’t keep boxes of cereal at home.
“I like Cocoa Puffs, but we don’t have any.”
He nodded. “Let’s see what you have.” He moved to the pantry and found a box of Lucky Charms and Fruit Loops. He held them both up. “Which one?”
“Lucky Charms!” Lainey punched the air with her fist and then danced around.
“Okay, so Lucky charms it is.” He poured a small amount into a plastic bowl and added some milk.
She’d perched herself on a chair and was kicking her legs, dancing in her seat as he set the bowl down in front of her. She dug in, smiling as she ate.
He checked the coffee maker, seeing that it was ready to go. He pushed the button as Dena opened her bedroom door. She stepped out and frowned when she saw Lainey eating cereal.
“Lainey, you tricked him.”
He met Dena’s gaze, his eyebrows raised. “How did she trick me?”
“Cereal is only a Saturday treat. She’s supposed to eat something healthier on weekdays.”
Lainey shrugged. “I thought it was Saturday.”
Dena's lips thinned, and she shook her head. “I know you are not telling the truth. I'll let it go this time, but your mother wants you to only eat cereal on Saturdays. If you want something sweet on a weekday, you eat fruit.”
Lainey shrugged and took another big bite of her Lucky Charms as she held Dena’s gaze. Apple poured himself some coffee and sat across from the girl who he suspected to be his daughter. She was a wily one, just like he’d been as a kid.
Her gaze landed on him, and she smiled. He narrowed his gaze. “So, you only get cereal on Saturday.”
She shrugged. “I thought it was Saturday.” She didn't look away. Instead, she held his gaze as she continued to eat. She slurped in a big bite and wiped her mouth. “What am I doing today?”
He had no clue what she was doing or what he would do with her. Dena snorted and shook her head.
“You’re going to daycare,” Dena said.
Lainey frowned. “Do I have to?”
“I’m sure Mr. Avery has something to do.”
He nodded. “I’ll drop you at daycare.”
Dena shot him a withering look. “I'll go with you both so I can make sure Mr. Avery is on the list of approved people to pick you up. I won't return until Thursday. That should give you two plenty of time to get to know each other.”
Lainey slurped more cereal into her mouth and then frowned. “It's gone,” she said around the mouthful of food.
“You need an egg and some toast if you’re still hungry,” Dena said. “I’ll fixed you a scrambled egg with mine.”
Lainey sank down in her seat, rolling her eyes. “I like cereal.”
“I know you do, but you need to eat some protein. I can put grape jelly with your eggs.”
Lainey let go a long sigh. “I guess.”
Apple wanted to laugh but held it in. He got up to grab more coffee but realized the pot was empty. He found a can of coffee and a filter in the pantry. “I'll buy more coffee when I go to the store,” he said as he started making more coffee.
Dena nodded approvingly. She fixed the eggs and put some in a bowl with jelly for Lainey before sitting at the table across from the girl.
After she finished eating, Dena stood and washed her plate before turning to him.
“Amelia expects Lainey to eat healthy. That means she has to eat at least one vegetable a day. She hates broccoli, so don’t expect her to eat any. ”
He turned to Lainey. “Okay, no broccoli.”
“I like carrots and potatoes,” Lainey said.
“You have to either cook the carrots until they are mushy or cut them small. Choking hazard. Bedtime is around eight. Do not be late for daycare pickup. They charge for each ten-minute period, and they round up.”
He nodded at Dena, taking notes on his phone. “Okay. I’ll be on time at daycare.”
“Don’t do anything stupid.” With that, Dena turned and walked back into her room.
Apple had no clue what to do. He'd never been responsible for a child. He could plan a takeover of a foreign country, and he was responsible for the lives of the people on his team when they were operating, but a child was different.
He turned to Lainey and smiled. “We should brush your teeth and get you ready to go.”
Lainey crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t want to.”
“Well, today is one of those days you need to go so I can get things done around here.”
Lainey narrowed her eyes. “What will you do?”
“I’ll—” Telling this girl he would start looking for her mother seemed unwise. “I have some work I need to do.”
Lainey rolled her eyes. When did kids learn to roll their eyes? Was Lainey smart or just a normal kid? His knowledge of children was amazingly scarce.
“Come on, let’s get moving. Dena needs to head out, and she has to give them the okay for me to pick you up.”
Lainey slowly stood and headed to her room, dragging her feet as she went. The girl was good at acting. He brushed his own teeth while Lainey got dressed, and then he moved into her room to check on her progress. She was playing on a tablet.
“Hey, Lainey, let’s get you moving.” He took the tablet and ignored her groan as he ushered her into the bathroom. First, he checked her toothbrush and found it dry. “Brush your teeth, now. I’ll help you.”
After they brushed her teeth, he found clothes for her to wear and helped her get dressed, having her use the bathroom before they switched her pants and underwear. He left the bedroom door open while he helped Lainey get dressed because all of this felt a little uncomfortable.
He had been a child at one point, and both his mother and father had gotten him dressed, helping him shower until he was five, maybe six.
His mom might have kept washing his hair until he was around eight, he wasn't sure, but how would he deal with Lainey?
She wasn't—actually, she was his child. He could get a DNA test done, but no question this child was his.
The DNA test would only be for legal documentation.
Dena stepped into the room and raised her eyebrows. He was about to defend himself when she started talking. “Did you let her pick out her clothes?”
He nodded. “I did.”
Dena shook her head. “Whatever. Stripes and plaid don’t usually go together.”
“I like it,” Lainey said.
Dena’s lips pressed together before she spoke. “Well if you like it, I guess it’s okay.” She checked her watch and shook her head. “We have to go. I have a plane to catch, and you need to get to daycare.”
“Fine.” Lainey grabbed a bag and threw it over her shoulder.
Dena stopped her. “You have to check for contraband.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Contraband?”
“Tablets, toys, anything with peanut butter. There’s a list on the side of the refrigerator.”
He shook his head. “There’s a lot to this.”
Dena threw back her head, laughter spilling out. “So much to it. You may think your job is hard and you have rules you have to follow, but parenting is a whole other ball game. Come on, we have to go.”
Apple followed Dena to the daycare and filled out all the paperwork they requested.
He set an alarm, giving him plenty of time to get back and pick up Lainey before he would get charged for being late.
Dena gave him the car seat and told him to figure it out.
He had no idea what to do, so he headed to a fire station because he'd heard they would help him get it in place correctly.
He didn't know what he was doing, and it showed.
None of the firemen laughed at him, and one of them quizzed him about child safety when he told them it would be his first time taking care of his kid alone. Saying those words made all his muscles squeeze. He had a kid, and right now, he was the person responsible.
After he finished at the fire station, he went to the grocery store and bought food for himself and Lainey.
He wasn’t sure what she liked other than Lucky Charms and ended up asking a mom with a little kid what he could get that was like peanut butter but not peanut butter.
He ended up picking up a jar of sunflower butter, which seemed very odd to him.
How did someone come up with sunflower butter as an alternative to peanut butter?
He had pizza for tonight. That had tomatoes on it and tomatoes would count as her vegetable today. He also picked up macaroni and cheese because the woman who helped him with the sunflower butter told him to buy some mac and cheese.
By the time he finished shopping, it was close to noon. The paperwork at the daycare, along with shopping, had taken way too long. He called Thario, hoping the police had found a lead on Amelia.
“Hey, man, what’s up?” Thario asked him.
“Have the police made any progress?”
“Um, no. Not yet.”
“Damn. I need them to find Amelia so she can get home to her kid.”
“Is the kid yours?” Thario asked.
Apple let go a long sigh. “I think so.”
“I’ll tell you what, if that kid is yours, you’re going to have to step it up.”
He grunted. “Yeah, I know. She has the same birthmark as I do. She looks and acts like me.”
“Maybe you should do a DNA test. Just to get it confirmed.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s so difficult.”
“What is difficult?”
“I don't know what I'm doing. I had to ask some random mom at the store about non-peanut butter spread. I haven't felt like a failure in a long time, but this is making me wonder how competent I am.”
Thario was quiet for a moment. “You know you have the skills to do this. Learning you have a kid is probably a shock to your system.”
“You can say that again.”
“You’ve dealt with situations way worse than this.”
Apple nodded, then reached up and squeezed the top of his head. “I know. It's just I care about this kid. I didn't know her at all before yesterday, didn't know she existed, but the second I saw her…”
“I get it. You had intense feelings. I don't have kids and probably never will, but I get that you're having an intense emotional reaction to seeing her. You can get it together and figure this out.”
Thario's words helped. Getting through this wasn't too hard. He could look up information and figure out how to take care of Lainey. He would do everything necessary to keep her alive. It was the emotional part that was foreign to him.
“I just don’t want to fuck up this relationship.”
“I get that. Kids are hard. You're used to dealing with people in desperate situations, and though Amelia's situation is desperate, you don't want Lainey's situation to be that way.”
He let go a heavy sigh. “What am I going to do if she’s never found?”
“Do you want custody?”
“I can’t walk away now that I know she exists.”
“You’ll figure it out. Maybe it means you take a different job in the Navy, or maybe it means you leave and do something else.”
“Everything is difficult.”
“Yeah, but you’re smart. You’ll figure it out.”
Apple wasn’t sure he would. He had food, the dishes from this morning had been taken care of, and he was ready, or so he thought, for Lainey to come home.
He just needed to figure out where Amelia was.
The bastards who’d taken her had disappeared.
There had to be some type of lead. He just needed to find it.
Picking up Lainey wasn’t hard, but there were a lot of moms who gave him strange looks. Once home, Lainey complained about being hungry. He fixed her a sandwich, and she sat at the table, wolfing it down. After she finished, she looked up at him, her eyes narrowing.
“Mr. Avery, my friend April said she heard you talking to the desk lady and that you’re my daddy.”
He hadn’t expected this already. “Um, I am.”
Her lips thinned. “Then why weren’t you here before today?”
“I didn’t know.”
“Didn’t know what?”
“About you. Now I do, and I want to know you.”
“So you’ll take care of me until Mommy gets back.”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
“And you should call me Apple.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s the name my friends call me. It’s what I’m used to.”
“Apple, because your name starts with A, and A is for Apple.”
He nodded, glad he didn’t have to explain more about why he was called Apple. “That’s exactly right. A is for Apple.”
He liked Lainey. Maybe Amelia would be angry he’d told her that he was her father, but it was the truth. He would be a part of this child’s life, even if Amelia came back. For that to happen, he had to find her. And that was proving more difficult than he’d anticipated.