Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
LUCA
Luca wrapped AB in her unicorn towel as she chattered about her day. She still liked being carried to bed, and he probably could count on one hand the number of months he had left before she was way too cool for him. He bundled her up in the oversized towel and carried her to bed.
She’d been chattering about the festival nonstop. It was only a few weeks away. “Today we learned rell-a-vay for our dance routine. And then ’Livia and I—”
“Get your pj’s on.” He set her down, and she ran to pick out her pajamas. She was adamant that she should choose her own clothes now.
“When we got home we practiced our ballet moves and then played Ballet Princesses.”
Luca picked up in AB’s room as she wrestled herself into her pj’s and tried not to think too much about Olivia. How sweet she was with AB, how sexy she’d been yesterday on his couch. How her eyes had sparkled when he’d come home. Shit, now I’m thinking too much about her.
“Our princesses did ballet, but we had to escape the bad guys who wanted our magic ballet shoes. We scattered bad guy juice so they’d slip on it.”
“Some smart princesses,” he said, untucking her covers.
AB looked exasperated, hands on her hips. “Dad, all princesses need to be smart. They run countries, for crappin’ out loud.”
He swallowed a smile and almost lost his battle to keep from bursting out laughing. “Sounds like you had fun with Olivia.”
“Can she live here?” AB said nonchalantly, climbing into bed.
Well, fuck.
I feel you, kid.
He’d explained this to her at least three times, but AB was as stubborn as he was.
He grabbed Platypus and tucked it under the covers next to her. She couldn’t sleep without it.
“What book do you want to read tonight? Want to try a big kid book? Maybe Little Women or Anne of Green Gables?” Pearl and Reed had made him swear on his life to read them to Annabelle this year.
“They’re boring. They don’t have any pictures,” she said, snuggling and pouting back into her bed. “Ballet Bunnies.”
Shocker, he could probably recite it by now.
“She can stay in AP’s old room, or we can get bunk beds,” AB offered.
“Remember, goob, it’s just temporary. She has to leave after Christmas for her new job.” He rifled through the stack of books on the floor beside her bed.
“Why does Olivia have to leave?”
He’d explained it already. More redirection, perhaps? Maybe it was finally time to share his plans with her. They hadn’t been secret, but he’d wanted to wait until everything was locked down.
“I have some good news—”
Her face lit up.
“—about my shop.”
Her face fell back into a pout.
“I’m moving it down the street. No more long drives.”
Her brow furrowed in confusion. Maybe she doesn’t understand.
“I can go to all your school stuff soon, take you to Girl Scouts. Once I get everything moved, I’ll be around a lot more and it’ll just be you and me.”
His exciting announcement was met with less fanfare than he’d hoped.
AB stared at Platypus. It had a missing eyeball and only half of its tail. She picked at the other eyeball silently.
“Hey,” he said, pushing her wet hair out of her face. “What’s going on in there?” He bent down to catch her eyes, which were welling up with tears.
“I don’t want it to change again.” Her voice broke.
It always broke a piece of his heart off when that happened. “You don’t want it to just be the two of us?”
She shrugged her shoulders up to her ears, still fiddling with Platypus. Finally: “I want a mom story,” she whined.
Ah. It was one of those nights.
Every few weeks, AB would get mom-sick. That’s what he called it. Usually after she spent time with her friends and saw their moms do mom stuff.
Despite reading family blogs and every feminist Instagram account Pearl sent him, it always felt like he was playing catch-up on how to do “girl stuff.”
He settled against her headboard and pulled her into his lap. She needed some cuddling tonight.
“Your mom had the prettiest hair.” He decided to trot out an old favorite because he knew it comforted her. “I decided that I would be a jerk as a kid. Her hair—”
“Looked like spilled sunshine,” she said quietly, finishing his sentence against his chest.
“That’s right.” He cuddled her close and she snuggled in, holding the platypus like he held her.
He told the familiar story of how he’d teased her mom for her long, bright blonde hair in high school because he didn’t know how else to say he liked her.
She’d shown up one day with her hair chopped short and dyed bright pink.
He’d felt terrible that she thought she needed to change anything about her.
He’d admitted she was absolutely perfect just the way she was.
And much to his surprise—that part always made AB giggle because she knew it was coming—Marcy had pulled off the pink bob wig on her head, and her golden hair cascaded down her shoulders.
“She was sassy like—”
“—like me,” AB finished quietly with a smile.
He kissed the top of her head and just nodded. AB had only been a year old when Marcy had died in a car accident. He wanted to give her as many memories as possible of the funny, sassy woman she’d never know. “And she loved you so much. Every second of every day.”
“The other Girl Scouts do cool stuff with their hair,” AB said, getting sleepy against his chest. “Sophie’s mom had a whale tail.”
Luca startled. That was slang for something that had nothing to do with hair when he was a kid.
I’ll figure it out. “Want me to do your hair like, uh, a whale tail on Saturday?” She had a big Girl Scout event at a campsite nearby.
“I just wanna be like them.” She sighed.
He understood. She wanted what she’d never had.
Frankly, he could sympathize. He wanted a partner in all this perfect chaos. He also wanted a mom who cared about him. Hell, any dad.
Without further comment, he pulled up the ballet book and read it front to back. Her little breaths were heavy and even against him by the time he got to the end of the book.
He gently tucked AB under the covers with Platypus and turned on her night light.
He closed the door and pulled up his phone to google “hair whale tale.”
Oh fuck. He almost threw his phone down at the images that popped up. They were not about braids.
The warm glow of Olivia’s house called to him, and he decided not to fight what felt so good. He’d ask her for guidance.
He’d been so caught up in her body, her smell, finally being able to be a man around her and not a dad or business owner. They could just be two horny people who needed to scratch an itch.
But…his itch still needed to be scratched. He’d hoped that his instincts had been wrong when he first saw her and that their overwhelming attraction would fade.
It seemed to be backfiring as he sighed at a scrunchie she’d left on the kitchen table. He picked it up, inhaled the scent of it like a caveman, and wrapped the silk around his wrist as he texted her.
LUCA
Do you know how to do a whale tail?
OLIVIA
….Exqueeze me?
LUCA
The braid
OLIVIA
So, not wearing a thong above my low rise jeans like it’s 2005?
LUCA
Oh, god. No. It’s a braid. AB talked about it.
OLIVIA
Ummmmm. Never heard of it.
Whale tail??
OH
FISH TAIL!
She sent him a photo of a braid that looked incredibly complicated, like if two braids had a baby.
LUCA
Yeah, that, probably.
Could you teach me? AB said that she wants to have it for Girl Scouts.
OLIVIA
I will happily show you how to make a whale tail.
Not going to think about that right now. What Olivia’s perfect round ass would look like in the thong she’d left for him.
…That was now in an undisclosed hidden location away from nosy eyes in the house.
Something else weighed on him. AB missing the mom experience was normal, but it seemed to come up more often in the last month or two.
LUCA
Thx
Has AB talked to you about her mom?
OLIVIA
No, it hasn’t come up.
Is something wrong?
He thought about telling her that AB had asked if she could stay, but he would never want her to feel guilty about living her dreams. Or like he was using his kid to get what he wanted.
LUCA
She misses her. It comes up sometimes. Especially around Marcy’s birthday.
I never want her to forget her, you know?
OLIVIA
Of course not.
AB is the sweetest girl.
Olivia’s curtains were open in her dining room, and she walked through in her oversized pajamas with a bowl of something.
A guttural aching at seeing her so cozy hit his stomach.
What kind of mom would Olivia be someday? Did she even want kids? She was great with AB and seemed to have fun with other kids at dance class.
Do you have plans to be a mom someday? he typed out.
Oh, fuck, no, that’s a terrible idea—and erased it. Too much, too soon. Especially because things are in a weird limbo state with us.
Do you want kids? he typed out.
Shit. Erased.
He stared at his phone, trying to figure out how to phrase: If by the slim chance of a possibility we end up together in a more permanent situationship, would you want more kids? Would you be okay being a stepmom?
Olivia’s contact filled his screen with an incoming phone call.
He answered it immediately and saw her staring at him from the dining room.
“Creeper,” he said with a slow rumble of laughter.
“Seemed faster than waiting four to five business days for you to write whatever you were going to write.”
He laughed and bit his lip.
“Everything okay with you?” she said, her pretty eyes clearly filled with worry, visible even from fifteen feet away.
“I like your pajamas,” he said.
She was in an oversized sweatshirt and flannel pajamas that looked about three sizes too big for her.
She struck a silly pose. “My lingerie that lures men into my boudoir?”
He laughed. So fucking cute.
“So what did you try to ask me four times?” she said, quirking a smile.
I could stare at her lips all. Day. Long.
“What?” she said, looking behind her.
“I just like the way your mouth moves when you talk.”
“Lucky for you I talk a lot. Are you wearing my scrunchie on your wrist?” She squinted at him through the windows.
Fuck. He pulled it off and tossed it. “I…thought it was AB’s.”
“Everything okay with her?”
He nodded. “It just made me realize I don’t know what you want in the future.”
She leaned on the window frame across from him, smiling wistfully. “Hmm…a pony. World peace. Universal healthcare.”
“Okay, good. Simple.” He smiled.
“Oh, and nine more leaf costumes made by tomorrow. If you could be so kind.”
“That seems like a hard ask,” he said, leaning against the windowsill too. They smiled like goofballs at one another, giggling.
“What I want…?” she asked, like she needed more information.
“Like, in the future. Your dreams with somebody. Not me, I mean,” he added quickly. “But just…someday. When you’ve achieved everything you want, or when the time seems right, or when you find the right person.”
“I’m gonna need a grocery cart for all those caveats.
” She sighed, staring at him. “I never pictured a specific life for myself. Being in survival mode for fifteen years made it hard to think beyond the end of the month. I just wanted security, and I figured it would all work out once I was successful. You?”
Well, shit. He hadn’t expected her to turn the question around on him.
“Liv,” he sighed, locking eyes with her and fighting himself. “I can’t answer that.”
That was as close to the truth as he could get.
“You know,” she said with enough sass in her voice to make him smile, “people think it’s the short women who are cowards.
With the way people talk about women needing protection and ‘women and children first’ thing on lifeboats, but nooooo.
” She swiped a hand in the air, emphasizing her point.
“It’s the big strong men when asked a hard question who just turn into giant pus—”
“Fine,” he laughed at her pushing, and she laughed with him.
Yes, made her laugh today.
“I can answer.” His heart hammered in his throat. “But you’re not gonna like it.”
Her eyes locked with his, already looking like she knew his answer with her scrunched eyebrows full of concern.
“I want a future where I come home and see...”—you—“…my favorite person. Wearing her comfy clothes. Safe and warm in my house where there’s no yelling.
” His voice caught. He’d never said it out loud before.
“Where she loves my family as much as I do, and can catch some things I drop. Because I’m only human. ”
He worried his lip as he pictured her on his couch, in his kitchen, in his bed.
How she made everything brighter, happier, because she was there just being herself.
The miraculous thought of waking up to her beautiful face every morning.
“Where all the simple things seem…magnificent. Because I’m with her. ”
His eyes misted over thinking of the heart-aching beauty of doing dishes with her. Cleaning up after he’d have cooked her favorite meal, washing pretty dishes they’d have bought together. Lights and water on without worry they’d be shut off.
Soapy dishes as the final result of a hundred happy memories.
“We’d scrub plates from her favorite home goods store.
She’d wear those yellow rubber gloves to protect her pretty nails.
I’d tease her for it but deep down, I’d love it.
” His lip trembled but he kept going. “She’d make me laugh ten times.
I’d make her laugh once and that would be enough, hopefully.
Going to sleep would be the best part of every day because I could hold her against me, safe, all night.
My cheek against her silky, long hair. And then in the morning?
” He shrugged, fighting tears. “We’d get to do it all over again.
” His voice caught as a tear track shone on her cheek.
“Best day ever,” he whispered through the longing clogging his throat.
“She’d need to be pretty special,” Olivia said, wiping a tear away quickly.
He nodded, a lump in his throat as he stared at her. “She is.”
Her lips twisted with emotion as she blinked fast, looking away and sucking in a breath. “I can, um, come over on Saturday,” she said in a too-bright voice, hiding her emotions. “For the hair thing.”
“Right.” He nodded, wiping a hand down his face and swiping at his eyes. “The whale tail.”
Her laugh was watery. “Yeah. I’ll see you in the morning.”
He waved. “Night.”
She flipped off her lights in her dining room, and he did the same.
But he found himself still standing there in the dark thirty minutes later, staring at a picture of dish gloves on his phone with teary eyes for reasons he still didn’t understand.