Chapter 4 Dex #2
I washed my hands and came over to look inside the box. There were four cupcakes left, all different, and one of them had bacon crumbled on top of caramel-colored frosting. “Maybe I will.”
The girls laughed as I took the wrapper off and opened my mouth wide enough to bite the thing in half.
“Mmmm,” I moaned, and I wasn’t pretending—the thing was fucking delicious.
I ate the entire cupcake standing right there at the counter.
The girls couldn’t quite finish theirs and left me to clean up the mess while they went upstairs to choose party outfits.
“I’ll be up in a minute to turn the shower on,” I yelled, hunting around for a roll of paper towels. I really wished Chip’s party wasn’t tonight—I hadn’t unpacked half my shit yet. I’d be lucky to find a comb and some deodorant.
But I wanted to see my old friend, and he’d already texted me that bringing the kids was no problem at all.
He said he was looking forward to meeting them, and so was Mariah, his fiancée.
I’d never met her, but judging by how fast Chip had proposed, I figured she must be pretty cool.
Chip wasn’t the kind of guy to make a rash decision.
As I stuck the cupcake box in the fridge, my phone vibrated in my back pocket. I pulled it out.
“Speaking of rash decisions,” I muttered.
Naomi and I had been high school sweethearts who’d broken up after graduation, but we’d hooked up again a few years later when I’d been home between tours. Getting married had been an impulsive move fueled mostly by nostalgia and beer.
I debated letting her go to voicemail, but since I had the girls, I took the call. When she had them, she was pretty good about letting me call and say goodnight.
“Hello.”
“Hey. How was the move?” she asked breezily.
“Fine.”
“You’re all settled in?”
“Yep.”
“Because if there’s nowhere for them to sleep tonight, you can always bring them back here. I’m sure you have a lot to do.”
“Their beds are all put together, Naomi. They even have clean sheets on them.”
“Look at you.” She laughed. “What are you doing for dinner? Do you have a kitchen together yet?”
“Actually, we have Chip’s engagement party tonight.”
“You’re taking them to a party?” The pitch of her voice rose dramatically, as if I’d said I was taking them to a strip club. “You don’t want to do that. Why not bring them here?”
“Because it’s my time with them, Naomi. And they want to go.”
“Will they have dinner there?”
My headache returned with a vengeance, and I started hunting around a kitchen box for the ibuprofen. “I’m sure there will be food. It’s a party.”
“Make sure Luna doesn’t eat anything with nuts.”
“She won’t. They won’t be hungry for a while anyway, they just ate cupcakes.”
“Before dinner?”
“Is there something you want, Naomi?” I asked through clenched teeth. “Otherwise, I need to go up and get them in the shower. I don’t want to be late.”
“Are you okay? You sound stressed.”
“I have a fucking headache, and I can’t find the ibuprofen. Now what do you want?”
“I was going to ask to talk to them, but never mind,” she said. “I can tell you’re overwhelmed, and I know how you get when you can’t handle things.”
“I’m not overwhelmed, I have a headache!
” I barked. “And I can fucking handle anything right now except you trying to barge in on my time with the girls! I’ll bring them back to you tomorrow, and don’t fucking call me before then!
” I ended the call and shoved my phone into my back pocket as I stormed toward the stairs.
“Um, excuse me?”
Startled, I glanced to my left, and through the screen door, I saw Winnie on the porch.
Fuck. She’d probably just heard me yelling at Naomi. Exhaling, I moved toward the door and opened it.
“Can I help you?” I asked, more tersely than intended.
She looked a little nervous, not that I blamed her, as she held out a small pink box of Band-Aids. “I had these lying around and thought Luna might want them for her knee. Band-Aids sometimes come off in the shower, so . . .”
I reached out and took them from her, noticing she was careful not to let our fingers touch this time. “Thanks.”
“That’s it—I just wanted to—um, okay, have a good night.” She turned to leave, and I probably should have let her.
“Wait a second.”
She faced me again, her expression still wary.
“I’m sorry about that.” I gestured over my shoulder with the pink box. “My ex-wife—the girls’ mom—knows how to get a rise out of me.”
“Oh, that’s okay. It’s none of my business, and I didn’t really hear anything.” It was obvious she’d heard everything.
I nodded slowly. “Well, thanks for the Band-Aids. Luna will appreciate it.”
Her smile was back, along with that stutter in my chest. “Good. Enjoy your night.”
“You too.”
She turned around and went down the steps, cutting across the lawn to her place with that same youthful bounce in her step. Glancing down at the box, I shook my head—of course she had a whole thing of pink princess Band-Aids. I shut the door and trudged up the stairs to get the kids cleaned up.
Hallie went first, after a brief attempt to get me to let her wear socks in the shower. As usual, I refused, explaining again that the entire house had been thoroughly cleaned before we moved in, and I’d been here yesterday to make sure of it.
While she was getting dressed, I made sure Luna washed her hair and used soap, then helped her get dried off. After hanging up their towels, I double-checked that they’d chosen appropriate clothing and was just about to get in my own shower when I heard a series of high-pitched beeps.
“What’s that?” Hallie said, scrunching up her face.
Instantly on high alert, I put my hand up. “Shh.”
I heard it again, and recognized it as a smoke detector going off, but not in our house—we were hearing it through the walls. “Stay here.”
I raced out of their room and took the stairs down three at a time, jumping to the bottom with five to go.
Barreling out my front door, I ran over to Winnie’s and knocked.
The alarm was clearly coming from inside her unit, and when she didn’t answer the door, I made a split-second decision to bust in.
Fortunately, the door wasn’t locked.
I shouldered it open, relieved when I didn’t see or smell smoke right away.
Winnie’s townhouse was laid out exactly like mine, and I immediately realized the detector going off was upstairs.
Racing up the steps three at a time, I reached the master bedroom doorway just in time to see Winnie climbing onto a suitcase, one hand reaching toward the ceiling to disconnect the unit.
My jaw dropped.
She was totally naked and dripping wet.
One hand was clutching a small towel to her chest that didn’t fucking hide anything.
Behind her, steam from her shower billowed from her bathroom, which must have been what set off the alarm—some detectors are that sensitive.
Behind me, I heard clamoring on the stairs, and a second later both Hallie and Luna rushed into the bedroom.
Startled, Winnie looked over and saw us. Her eyes went wide as she screamed, lost her footing, and toppled backward off the suitcase. She landed hard on her ass, arms and legs flailing like a rag doll.
Averting my eyes, I strode over and disconnected the unit while she scrambled toward the bathroom on her hands and knees, presumably in search of a bigger towel.
But then she slammed the door . . . and didn’t come out.
The eighty-five decibel alarm had ceased, but the sirens in my head continued.
I looked at the girls. Luna had her hands over her mouth. Hallie’s eyes were wide, and she pointed to the bathroom door. “Winnie was naked,” she whispered. “We saw her bum.”
“Quiet,” I scolded angrily. “You two were supposed to stay at our house. You didn’t follow my orders.”
“But Daddy, we were scared,” Luna said. Her hair was still wet and tangled. “We came to find you.”
“We’ll talk about it later, but when I tell you to stay put, you stay put—especially in an emergency. Understand?”
They nodded.
“Now go back to our house, both of you.”
“But what about Winnie? Is she okay?”
I went over to the bathroom door and knocked, trying not to picture her naked. The shower wasn’t running anymore. “Winnie? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine!”
“Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine!” she repeated in the same false, bright tone.
A tiny smile inched onto my lips. “Are you sure?”
“Uh huh!”
“It must have been the steam that set off your smoke detector.”
“Yes, it happens sometimes when I forget to open the windows in here.”
“It’s good that it’s sensitive, but open them now, okay? I should hook this back up.”
“I will.”
I hesitated, then spoke again. “Sorry to barge in on you like that. I’m a firefighter and a dad, so I take smoke detectors seriously. They’re kind of my thing.”
“Haha, it’s okay!” She was still trying to sound brave and cheerful, but her voice cracked, making me smile again.
Clearly, she was not going to risk looking me in the eye after I’d seen her naked, and I couldn’t really blame her.
After making sure both windows in her bedroom were open, I reconnected the battery in the detector.
Then I went over to the door and spoke through it once more.
“I reconnected it. I’ll lock the door on my way out. ”
“Thank you!”
“Okay, girls. Let’s go.” I glanced around quickly before herding the girls from her room—walls painted a soft gray, neatly made bed with a white comforter, ten thousand pillows in every shade of pink, fuzzy white rug on the wooden floor.
Would have been nice if she’d landed on that rug when she hit the ground, but she’d gone down just beyond it.
As we went down the stairs, I couldn’t help chuckling as I recalled her mad dash for the bathroom on her hands and knees.
I’d never seen anyone crawl that fast—not even the kindergartners during the home escape and exit drills when they came to the station for a fire-rescue visit.
But I felt bad for her—she was going to have a hell of a bruise on that hip.
Shoving the memory of her bare ass from my mind, I hurried out the door, making sure it locked behind me.
“Was the noise from her smoke alarm?” Luna asked as we walked back to our place.
“Yes.”
“How come the alarm went off if there was no fire?” Hallie asked. “Was it like a drill?”
“No, it was the steam from her shower. But it’s good that the alarm went off, because that means it’s working. That reminds me—first thing tomorrow, we make our emergency plan and set a meeting spot, okay?”
“Okay.”
I opened the screen door to our place—they hadn’t even bothered to shut the big door—and shooed them inside. “We will also talk about what the consequences will be for not doing what I say.”
They nodded solemnly as we went up the stairs.
“I still can’t believe we saw her bum,” Hallie whispered to Luna.
“That’s enough.” I swatted her backside lightly before ushering them into their bedroom. “I have to get cleaned up, so comb your hair, find your shoes, and be ready to go in ten minutes.”
“But I need help, Daddy,” said Luna. “I can’t get the tangles out by myself.”
“Baby,” snickered Hallie, grabbing her brush and easily pulling it through her smooth, damp hair.
“Shut up! Yours is just easier because it’s straight!”
“Stop,” I ordered, dropping onto the foot of Hallie’s bed. “Bring me the comb, Loony Toon. I’ll do it. I’m awesome at getting tangles out of hair.”
“But not gum,” Hallie said.
I picked up a stuffed animal—a penguin she called Rupert—and threw it at her. When it hit the floor, I heard a coin go rolling beneath the dresser.
“My lucky penny!” Hallie dove for it, reaching under the dresser where it had rolled. “I forgot I put it in the hole in Rupert’s belly last night!”
“I get a point back for finding it.” I took the comb from Luna’s hand and started working through the tangles from the bottom.
“I don’t know if that counts as finding it,” said Hallie, “but okay.”
“So ten out of ten for today?”
“I guess,” she said, like she was doing me a favor.
I pumped my fist. “Fuck yeah.”
“That’s another dollar, Daddy,” Luna said. “Remember the swear jar.”
“There’s no way I’m having a swear jar in this house, girls. I’ll go broke.”
“Or maybe you’ll stop swearing,” Hallie said.
I leveled her with a look. “Not. Fucking. Likely.”
But later on, when I went into the kitchen to grab my keys, I noticed one of the girls—or maybe both of them—had taken the cupcake box out of the fridge while I was in the shower and written on top of it DADDYS SWAIR BOX (MONEY FOR FUCHUR CAT).
I peeked inside and saw that at least they’d left the cupcakes in the fridge. Shaking my head, I closed it up again.
I could say one thing for them—when they got an idea in their head, they did not let it go.