Chapter Twelve
· Brooks ·
“This way, please!” Skye tugged on her grandmother’s sleeve when we weren’t moving fast enough for her liking.
“All right, all right, darling. Calm down. We’ll get there.
” Theresa Green sighed as she followed Skye toward the entrance of the Haunted Mines, the park’s ghost ride.
Lewis, her husband, harrumphed and curled his upper lip at the sight.
The front of the coaster was designed to resemble a huge rock formation shaped like a skull, its gaping mouth the way inside.
Children’s screeches and laughter echoed from the opening, while hidden speakers nearby played some ominous creaking and howling sounds.
It was the first day of the harvest festival in the park—ringing in the last two weeks of summer season—and all the pumpkins and scarecrows didn’t make the skull rock look any less menacing.
It was a great ride in and of itself.
However, it wasn’t the most traditional environment for Skye to grow up in, considering the custody case.
We were cordial enough not to have needed a lawyer to arrange this meeting for us.
Despite the tensions, I believed part of them wanted what was best for Skye.
We just didn’t see eye to eye on what that was.
They’d agreed to come to Wild Fields, to Bravetown, to see what had made us move here.
While they knew of my official capacity as the new part owner of this theme park, I hadn’t told them that I wasn’t really involved in the business.
I was on email threads and got invited to Zoom calls, but it seemed pretty clear to everyone that I had no actual clue about running a place like this, so my input and attendance were very optional.
As far as I knew, they were using my investment money for some repairs, and to hire a business consultant that could help them make the park profitable, and that all sounded A-okay to me.
“Can I ride with Grandma and Grandpa?” Skye bobbed up and down on the heels of her feet, anticipation beating through her nervous system. Even after weeks in the park, she still got so excited. It was adorable.
“Of course you can, honey,” I said.
Theresa placed a hand on my daughter’s shoulder, pushing her down to her soles. “A little patience never hurt anyone.”
Blood rushed through my ears, alarm bells ringing at that one small move that may have looked insignificant to anyone else. “Don’t do that,” I hissed through gritted teeth.
“Excuse me?” Theresa’s eyes widened.
“Get your hand off her.”
“Watch how you talk to my wife, boy,” Lewis spat out.
A small hand curled around mine, fingers sliding into my tight fist and carefully loosening the muscles.
“Mrs. Green, Skye is being patient,” Addie said.
She’d been friendly with the Greens all afternoon, had perfectly played along and taken her cues from me.
“She’s just excited and that excitement needs to go somewhere. She’s not doing anything wrong.”
Skye looked back and forth between all of us, trying to figure out what exactly was transpiring.
I’d never told her about her grandparents’ plan to ship her off to that boarding school.
And I had done my best to never discourage her from stimming over the last few years.
I knew that having to keep all that chaotic energy inside felt like ants crawling all over your body.
My eyes dropped to the hand intertwined with mine. Addie was holding my hand. She had initiated physical touch for my comfort. And that little bit of physical contact was currently keeping me from screaming at the top of my lungs at these two people who had no idea what my daughter needed.
“There’s other people in line,” Theresa tried to argue.
“Yes, and if none of them are complaining about the screaming toddlers, or your heavy perfume, I doubt they’ll be bothered by Skye bobbing up and down in place.” Addie shot her a look so indignant, the woman’s hand immediately dropped from Skye’s shoulder.
“Excuse me?” Lewis gasped.
“No, I won’t,” Addie said with a saccharine smile and slid past the Greens.
Her hand left mine, and I didn’t try to hold on only because she sidled in between Skye and her grandma and started tapping her fingers against each other.
Thumb to thumb once. Index to index twice.
Middle to middle three times and so on. “Can you do this? That’s something my guitar teacher made me practice. ”
Skye was adequately distracted by a new fidget technique, but her grandparents shot me stares that let me know exactly what they thought of being put in their place. By a petite blond who was a third of their age, too.
I didn’t even try to hide the stupid grin unfolding on my face.
They could try to twist this situation later, but I had to hope that any judge worth their salt would understand what had transpired.
That Addie had stood up for my daughter when her grandparents expected her to mask.
And for once, I hoped that one of the people who tried very hard to pretend they weren’t staring our way had caught us on camera.
Even just for myself. I would have loved to replay the moment Theresa’s face fell when Addie told her she smelled.
Despite that moment, Skye still wanted to ride with them when we got to the front of the line, and I didn’t deny her that.
For what it was worth, they were her grandparents, and she had known them her whole life.
They were her last real link to her mother.
As long as they were playing nice enough, I wouldn’t ever stand between her and them.
“How are you feeling?” Addie asked when a ride employee dressed like a vintage coal miner closed the cart’s door on us and the two of us rode into a dark tunnel. We sat side by side on a little bench, a rounded cage locking us into the buggy.
“I’m awestruck by you,” I whispered.
She laughed. “I meant about today.”
“Can I?” I brushed my fingertips over her arm.
“Of course.” She offered her hand to me, and I clasped it in both of mine. The smooth warmth of her skin set off an immediate ease in my chest. She let me play with her bangles and rings, let me run my fingertips along her knuckles and the pads of her palm. “That bad?”
The Haunted Mines ride was really a children’s ghost ride. We didn’t go up or down any steep curves and unless you were afraid of spiders, it wasn’t particularly scary either. Which allowed me to voice my thoughts without much distraction.
“When we talk, not just with our lawyers present or about the custody agreement, but even just on the phone to arrange visits for Skye, I can rationalize it. I can make plans. There’s process and procedure that I can follow.”
“But then you see them try to discipline Skye and rationale goes out the window?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, new game plan. You keep your cool, and I stick by Skye’s side. And if either of them even tries to pull something, I’ll give them my most murderous look.”
“Threatening looks? That’s your plan?”
“What are they going to tell people? They don’t think I’ll be a good stepmom because I have resting bitch face?”
I stilled, her hand in mine, and turned to her.
Addie’s eyes were on the giant spider lowering itself from the ceiling, colorful lights turning her hair into a kaleidoscope of pinks and purples.
For some reason, it hadn’t clicked until now.
Stepmom. I’d thought of her as my fake fiancée, as the woman by my side who would make me look capable of having stable relationships.
But of course she’d be seen as more than my future wife. She’d be seen as Skye’s mother figure.
Stepmom.
She’d be good at that.
“You okay there, Brooksy?” she asked, raising a brow at me as we turned toward the exit and she caught me still staring.
“Skye is lucky to have you in her life.”
“So corny.” She giggled but gave my hand a quick double squeeze before our little cage opened and we had to quickly duck out and into the exit line.
“Oh my god, Dad! Addie! Dad!” Skye came running from the cart in front of us, hands shaking, eyes wide.
“Someone rattled our cage. Did someone rattle your cage? It was really cool. They tried to make it look like it was really haunted. Like the ghost in that book about the golden treasure in the mines.”
“Ooooh, maybe it was a real ghost,” I said and earned myself the side-eye equivalent of a two-syllable Da-ad.
“No, we didn’t,” Addie said, “but we got dozens of little spiders creeping all over us.”
My daughter’s eyes grew to the size of cymbals. “Really?”
“No, not really, but it would have been cool.”
“No, it wouldn’t have.” Skye grimaced.
“Sure, just imagine hundreds of hairy little legs, all creeping and crawling over your skin like a tiny soft massage.” Addie wiggled her fingers like spider legs crawling toward Skye, who shriek-laughed and ran to the ride’s exit.
Addie shot me a wicked grin. “Be right back. Gotta teach a girl about a spider massage.” Then she ran off after my daughter.
A few minutes later, the girls had chased each other all the way to the coffee cart and were arguing over whether hot chocolate or chai latte was the better way to ring in the harvest festival.
“Brooks.” Theresa touched my elbow and nodded her head for me to follow. Once we were out of earshot of the others, or any park guests, a tired smile quivered on her lips. “She reminds me of Candace.”
“Skye’s amazing.”
“No. I mean, yes, Skye is in some ways very much like her momma, but I’m talking about Adriana.”
“Oh.” I wasn’t sure what to say to that. It hadn’t escaped my notice that Addie had blond hair and light eyes, just like my daughter—and her mother. But I’d dated my way through the entire color wheel of hair-and-eye-color combinations, so I hadn’t lost sleep over it.
“They are very different people. Candace was less impulsive. Less expressive. But Adriana loves fiercely and generously, I can tell. Candace loved Skye in the same way.”