20. Braiding Lesson
Braiding Lesson
WYATT
I left The Lantern after lunch and picked Knox up at the station.
He circled the bike twice before he even touched it. Checked the tires, the brakes, ran his hand along the exhaust. He signed the paperwork, took it around the block, and came back smiling like a kid on Christmas.
We stopped for gas and water a few miles from home.
"You want anything to eat?" I asked.
Knox didn't answer. Two women in scrubs were at the register. Knox's eyes found them before his feet stopped moving. He watched them through the register, out the door, across the parking lot to their car. He didn't say anything.
"You know, you could just go talk to her." I handed him a water bottle.
He took it. "Who?"
"Any nurse. Every time we're near a hospital or anyone in scrubs, you do this."
"I don't do anything."
"You just tracked those two women across the entire store."
Knox unscrewed his bottle and took a long drink. "Look who's talking. When are you going to ask Andy out?"
"We're not talking about me."
"We are now."
Knox finished his water and tossed the bottle. He put his hand on my shoulder on the way past.
"Don't sit on it too long, brother."
The smell of coffee came through the front door before I opened it. The house felt warmer than usual, and I could hear laughter coming from the kitchen. Barb's low chuckle, Birdie's squeal, and a third voice I recognized but wasn't expecting.
"Daddy!" Birdie looked up from her coloring.
Barb and Andy were at the kitchen table with their coffee, talking like they'd been doing it for years.
"Look, Daddy!" Birdie scrambled off her chair and ran to me. "Andy did my hair! Look!"
She turned her head so I could see the back. A single braid ran straight down between her shoulder blades, tight and even, every section folded into the next without a single flyaway. It looked nothing like anything I'd ever managed.
"I see that." I crouched down and pulled her into a hug. "It looks beautiful, Birdie."
Andy glanced at me over her coffee. Her eyes searched my face, like she was checking whether she'd overstepped. She hadn't.
Barb set her mug down and gave me a look over her reading glasses. "You've had this woman living across the street for how long and you didn't think to introduce us? I needed someone to talk to about my books, Wyatt. Andy is a very well-read woman."
I bit the inside of my cheek.
I knew what books Barb was talking about. No wonder Andy was so protective of what she was reading that first night at The Lantern.
Andy caught my eye. She saw the grin before I could stop it. Her jaw tightened and her eyes narrowed into a look that said, don't you dare.
"What?" Barb looked between us.
"Nothing." I turned to the counter and poured myself a cup of coffee. "I'm just glad you two are getting along."
I walked Andy across the street. Twenty feet of sidewalk she didn't need help crossing, and she let me do it anyway.
We were halfway across when she turned to me.
"Don't you ever tell anyone I read romance novels or I'm going to kill you."
"That's police brutality."
She gave me a look. "You know what I mean."
"I held onto the lingerie thing for weeks. I think I can handle this."
She shoved my shoulder. "I'm serious, Brooks."
"So am I."
She held my eyes for a second. The space between our front doors felt shorter than twenty feet.
"Thanks for the coffee."
"Any time."
Andy smiled. "Good night, Brooks."
"Good night."
She turned and walked up her steps. I watched her go. She was pulling out her keys when Knox's voice drifted through my head. Don't sit on it too long, brother.
"Andy?"
She turned around. "Yeah?"
I looked at her. Standing on her porch with her keys in her hand and that half-smile still on her face.
"Thanks for doing Birdie's hair."
"It's nothing."
I nodded. "Good night."
She turned the knob, gave me a small wave, and shut the door behind her. I let out a long breath and walked back across the street.
After that day, Birdie wanted her hair done before school, and she wanted Andy to do it.
Within a week, it was routine. I'd started picking up on Andy's schedule by then.
I knew when she was working and when she wasn't. On Andy mornings, Birdie pulled me out the door before I'd finished making her lunch, and Andy was already waiting on the porch with a hair tie around her wrist.
Andy never complained. But it was a lot to ask of someone, even someone who made it look effortless.
"Can you teach me?"
I asked her on a morning when we were both off. Birdie was in the living room with her coloring book and the TV on low. Andy was standing in front of the fridge, studying Birdie's drawings like they were evidence.
"Teach you what?"
"How to braid her hair. Like you do."
Andy looked at me.
"You want to learn how to braid?"
"I want to be able to do it myself. I can't keep asking you to do it."
"I don't mind, Wyatt."
"I know you don't. But she's my daughter." I looked at my hands on the table. Too big. Too rough. Not exactly built for this. "I should know how to do this."
Andy nodded. "Okay."
She pulled her own braid over her shoulder and unwound it, shaking her hair loose. Then she sectioned it into three parts and held them up so I could see.
"Three sections. Left over center, right over center. That's it. The trick is tension. Firm enough to hold, loose enough that it doesn't pull."
She braided it once, slowly, so I could watch. Then she undid it and handed me the sections.
I moved behind her. Her hair was in my hands. Dark, smooth, still warm from where the braid had held it. Softer than I expected. So soft it made my fingers slow down without permission, running through the sections longer than I needed to before I started to cross one section over another.
Her neck was right there. Bare, close, the skin pale where the braid usually covered it.
I could see the curve where it met her shoulder.
I could see the faint line of a vein under the surface.
I thought about pressing my mouth to that spot and had to close my eyes for a second to get my head right.
I crossed the left section over the center. My fingers were clumsy, fumbling.
"Looser," Andy said. "You're gripping too hard."
I adjusted. Her hair smelled like vanilla.
That didn't help. Warm, sweet, close enough to make me lose my train of thought.
I persevered. Crossed the right section over.
Left, right, left, right. My hands started to find it.
But every time I sectioned the hair through my fingers, the silk of it pulled my attention somewhere it didn't belong.
"Pull here." Her hand came up and covered mine, guiding my fingers to the right spot. Her palm was warm against my knuckles. She pressed gently, adjusting the tension, and held it there for a second longer than she needed to.
I finished the braid. Wrapped the elastic around the end. It wasn't perfect. Slightly uneven, a little looser on one side, but it held. It looked like a braid. A real one. Close enough that practice would close the gap.
"Not bad," Andy said. She reached back and touched it, testing the tension with her fingertips. "Better than I expected, actually."
"I'm a fast learner."
"Don't let it go to your head."
She stood up, gathered her hair over one shoulder, and started rebraiding it.
Her arms went up and her shirt lifted at the hem, showing a strip of bare skin above her waistband.
The stretch pulled the fabric tight across her chest and traced the full curve of her waist narrowing above her hips.
She tilted her head to one side, exposing the length of her neck, and I stopped breathing for a second.
I should have looked away. I didn't.
She finished in fifteen seconds. Wrapped the elastic, dropped the braid over her shoulder, and turned back to me like nothing had happened.
After dinner, Andy squeezed Birdie on her way out, told her she'd see her tomorrow, and crossed the street. I closed the door behind her.
"Daddy?"
Birdie was standing at the edge of the kitchen in her socks, one of the Nancy Drew books tucked under her arm.
"Yeah, sweetheart?"
"Can Andy come camping with us?"
I took a breath.
"Yeah. Let's ask her."