Lindsey
THE PINGING OF MY phone makes my heart rate spike. I put the spatula I’m holding on the counter and pluck my cell out of the back pocket of my jeans, finding a response from DomInTheWoods. That was fast.
A smile lifts my lips as I open it up and read over the email. Sir. He wants me to call him Sir. I think I can do that.
My eyes scan the rest of the email, and my body heat rises.
He sent me his questionnaire? The urge to open it is strong—I want to see how we match up. But I can’t open it now.
“Who’s the text from?”
My eyes find Nathan, who’s on the couch with a book, some paranormal wolf shifter series Morgan got him into. It’s now face down on his lap as he stares at me with curiosity.
My brother is exactly why I can’t open it now, and I’m thankful that Kas is in her room playing video games. Every once in a while, Nathan and I will hear her yelling about something or another.
I’m in the kitchen making grilled cheese for the three of us before I go to work.
My neighbor cancelled, so Nathan came over to watch Kas.
He deserves a Brother of the Year Award at this point for how often he saves my butt.
He’s also continued to bug me about setting up the calendar with times he can help with Kas, which I still haven’t done.
“Oh.” I shove my phone back in my pocket and pick the spatula back up. “Just a spam email.”
I study the grilled cheeses, but I know Nathan hasn’t stopped staring at me. I can feel his eyes burning into me.
“Why are you lying?”
I swallow the lump in my throat and look up at him. “I’m not.”
“Linds.” He chuckles. “You look like you’re about to jump out of your skin.”
I place a hand on my hip and stare at him. “It was nothing.”
Nathan puts the book on the coffee table and walks to the kitchen. I flip the grilled cheeses again as he stands near me, hip against the red granite counter. “Who was it?”
“Nobody.” I scoop one of the sandwiches onto a paper plate and hold it out to Nathan. “Will you take that to Kas?”
Nathan takes the plate, but instead of walking toward Kas’s room, he moves to the dining table and puts it down. “She can eat at the table with us.”
My skin flushes. “She’s not going to like that. You heard how into her game she is.”
“Too bad; she can pause it. We always eat at the table together.”
I want to say not recently. Especially since Mom moved away. But I bet Kas eats with Fox, Morgan, and Nathan at the table when she’s with them. So why shouldn’t she do it here? I’ve just been too tired to fight her on it, so I let her eat in her room.
Nathan walks back to me, and I hand him another plate. Once all the plates are on the table and I’ve added some store-bought tomato soup to some bowls, I make a move toward Kas’s room to convince her to join us, praying she won’t fight me.
Nathan steps in front of me before I get too far. “Before you get Kas, I have to say…” He places his hands on my shoulders. “You don’t have to tell me who messaged you, but I don’t think I’ve seen you excited like that in a long time. Whoever it is, I hope it goes well for you.”
I smile softly at Nathan and almost tell him what the email was, but this is too personal to share.
It’s not exactly something you tell your brother.
It’s also something I want to keep private.
It’s for me and nobody else. Not to mention, I never saw myself doing this.
It’s a new side of me that I’m only now just learning about, and I don’t want to share it.
I don’t think I need to share it, either, even if Nathan is dying for me to.
“Nathan—”
He leans in and hugs me, which takes me off guard. When my brain catches up to what’s happening, I put my arms around his waist and inhale his woodsy scent.
Nathan pulls back a moment later. “Just promise me that if it’s a man, you’ll let me know if I need to kick his ass.”
I shove him playfully. “I told you, it was a spam email.”
He chuckles and steps away. “Must have been a good spam email, then.”
“Sure was,” I say, even though I don’t know the entire contents of the email.
Gosh, I’m going to be thinking about his damn questionnaire for my entire shift.
I could read it on my breaks, but I don’t know if that’s a good idea.
Dom—Sir—wasn’t lying when he said that some of the optional questions were sexual in nature.
My body once again started getting turned on just answering them, so I can only guess what reading his answers will do to me. It’s going to be a long night.
Nathan opens his mouth to say more but then closes it. “I’ll go get Kas. Food is getting cold.”
I shake my head. “No, you sit and start. I’ll grab her.”
Nathan nods. “I’ll wait for you two.”
I consider arguing and telling him I don’t know how long this will take before I nod back.
Kas’s room is on the bottom floor next to what’s now the guest room—or Nathan’s when he stays over. The door to her room is ajar, and when I enter, you’d never guess I cleaned it on Saturday.
It’s only Monday afternoon, and it looks like a bomb went off. Her books and toys are everywhere, articles of clothes thrown on the floor. I know they’re clean because some of them are still folded. I told her to put them away for me, but clearly that didn’t happen.
I step up next to Kas, her Critter Cove game on the screen, one where she’s a critter of her choosing tasked with building a village.
On the screen, Kas’s critter, a badger with a backward cap, is trading with another villager, a fox.
She’s got her big pink headphones on, and she’s sitting in the pink-and-white gaming chair Nathan gave her for her eighth birthday this past January.
Candy wrappers are on the ground next to her with a juice box.
While I let Kas have whatever kind of food she wants and never shame her for anything she eats, I try to limit sugar intake since she’s growing.
I don’t even remember her grabbing those from the kitchen, which means she did it while I was upstairs.
I walk closer to her massive computer screen, a gift from her dad. Same thing with the new game console.
“Kas,” I say loudly. “Time to eat.”
She doesn’t look up from her game; instead, her eyes remain on the screen. I know she sees me; I’m standing right next to her. But this isn’t the first time I’ve asked Kas to leave a game and eat with me. It’s why I told Nathan she wouldn’t like it.
We’ve duked it out a few times in the last couple of months, and instead of taking away privileges, I let her do what she wanted.
I didn’t want to fight, didn’t want to make things between us tense.
I wanted things to be smooth and easy. Especially since I know she took not seeing her dad more than once a month hard.
Sometimes I wonder if she blames me for that.
She’s too young to understand why she needs to stay here as often as possible despite my hardships with childcare.
It’s not like I’m going to tell her that her dad’s a cheating dick who makes me feel like gum on his shoe, that he’s late for his child support payments because he’s always fighting the courts on how much to give me.
It’s not like he doesn’t have the cash—he’s a partner at the sports agency where he works.
He’s just a cheap asshole who loves to stick it to me for divorcing him even though he cheated.
“Kas!” I pull away one of her earphones, and she glares at me. “I said, time to eat.”
She looks back at her game. “I’ll eat here.”
“No, Uncle Nathan is here. Come eat with us before I leave for work.”
I swear Kas’s shoulders fall, but it’s so minuscule I wonder if I imagined it. Is she mad I’m working so much? I thought she didn’t care. She’s always happy to play her games and spend time with Nathan or JoJo. At least I thought so.
“I want to eat here.”
She goes to put her earphone back in place, but I stop her, stepping in front of her game at the same time.
“Mom!” she whines. “Not cool.”
“Your critter is fine.”
“I’m in the middle of an important negotiation.”
The way she says it is so serious, I want to either laugh or scream. Maybe both. “You can negotiate after lunch.”
“Mom.” She groans. “I’m not hungry.”
“I’m not asking now, Kas. You need more than sugar for food. Come eat with me and your uncle. I miss seeing you.”
She groans. “You’re seeing me right now. Now move, Mom! I’m gonna lose out on this sale.”
Her reaction makes the bridge of my nose sting. Is this rock bottom? My kid choosing a critter video game over spending time with me? Yes, I’ve asked her to come eat with me before and she’s declined, but I’ve never told her I missed her and been rejected outright.
“Kasandra Rose Wilson, you can play games in ten minutes.”
“Mom!” she yells, standing from the chair. “The fox left!”
I cross my arms over my chest and glance at the screen. Sure enough, the fox that was there before is now gone, leaving only Kas’s badger.
“He’ll come back later.”
She throws her controller and headphones on her chair and stomps out of the room.
I blink away the tears in my eyes and collect myself.
I know I shouldn’t feel bad, but I do anyway.
She’s gonna be pissed at me for at least a day, which is what I was trying to avoid by coming in here. God, how did things get this bad?
You know how, Lindsey.
I rub my stinging eyes and pull air into my lungs. Yep, I think this is rock bottom.
I walk back to the dining room to find Kas shoveling soup into her mouth like it hurt her personally.
“Slow down, kid, or you’ll turn into a tomato.”
Kas slurps her soup and smirks up at Nathan. “Yeah, right, Uncle Nate. That’s impossible.”
“I don’t know, is it?”
Kas successfully holds her laugh in, but now she’s grinning toothily at him. “You tell me; you’re the adult.”
Nathan laughs. “You’re too smart for your own good.”
“You can say that again,” I add.
Nathan turns in his chair to smile at me, but Kas keeps her eyes on her plate, her smile now a frown.
“Come, eat,” Nathan says. “Your cheese isn’t gonna cheese-pull anymore.”
“That’s the best part of the grilled cheese,” I respond. Thankfully, my voice sounds calmer than I expected it to.
I sit across from Kas and pick up my sandwich. My daughter won’t look at me, but Nathan does. When we make eye contact, he mouths, I’ll talk to her.
I guess he heard what happened in Kas’s room.
That’s not surprising, since her room isn’t far from the dining table.
I nearly flush with embarrassment but manage to keep it at bay, shaking my head and mouthing leave it.
Nathan doesn’t need to play dad. I know he doesn’t mind it, but it’s not his responsibility.
He should be the fun uncle. Kas deserves that in her life.
I take a bite of my grilled cheese, which has indeed gone cold. I shrug at Nathan, and he smiles sadly from the lack of cheese-pull.
“Next time,” I say.
He nods. “Next time.”