Chapter 14 #2
“My brother too,” Claire adds. “And can you quit making her call me Dr. Connelly? Bea and I are roommates now.” She bumps shoulders with her.
I squint at her from across the table. While I’d prefer if my daughter called Claire by her professional name, it is her name, after all, and I can’t very well argue with that.
“Fine,” I comply, then turn my attention back to Bea. “What are you making?”
“Claire’s teaching me how to draw a daisy.”
I stiffen at the sound of her mother’s name on her lips, even if she’s referring to the flower.
But I force my body to relax and plaster on a smile. “That’s so nice. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Surprisingly, the center of the flower is a fairly solid circle. The petals, though, could use some work.
“Ovals are hard, aren’t they?” Claire says sympathetically. “Wanna try again?”
Bea nods.
Claire extracts a plain piece of paper from the pile. “Here. Why don’t I draw the petals and you trace them? That way you can get the hang of it.” She very lightly draws a circle and adds several ovals fanning out around it, then passes it over to Bea.
With her little tongue sticking out the side of her mouth, Bea traces the shapes, then turns to me when she’s done.
“Wow. Look at that,” I praise. “You did it. What are you going to draw next?”
Nose scrunched, she tilts her head, giving it some thought.
“How about a bumblebee?” Claire suggests. “A daisy for your mom and a bee for—”
“Me!” she shouts like she’s solved a mystery.
My breath hitches and my hand automatically goes to my chest, rubbing at the ache behind my ribs.
Claire’s eyes bore into me, but I keep mine locked on the paper. I remain mostly silent while she walks through each step of drawing a bee. She’s so patient when my daughter aggressively scribbles across the paper after she messes up the wings and they’re forced to start from scratch.
In the end, both Claire and Bea have drawn their versions of a daisy and a bumblebee.
“Now we paint them.” My daughter reaches for a paintbrush.
“No, Dolly. I think that’s enough for today. I’m sure Claire would like to rest,” I say.
“Nonsense,” Claire interjects. “We came to paint, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”
I shoot her an Are you sure? look, and in return, she dips the bristles of her brush into the water.
Next, she instructs Bea to go easy on the water so she doesn’t saturate her paper and cause the colors to bleed together.
“When they dry,” Claire says, “I’ll help you trace over the lines in marker.”
“Thank you,” I mouth over my daughter’s head.
As they paint side by side, Claire whispering words of encouragement and tiny reminders, my chest tightens.
In addition to a doctor, she’d make an excellent art instructor.
She’s very talented. Even though she drew a simple flower and an insect, that single piece of paper looks like it should be framed and hung in an art museum.
Her steady hand and attention to detail are remarkable.
Eventually, Bea declares that she’s finished, sitting up straight and yawning. “Can we put them on the fridge?”
“Of course,” I tell her. “Why don’t we go home now and hang them up to dry?”
She doesn’t fight me when I say it’s time to leave; with any luck that means she’s tired enough to take a nap.
“Don’t forget to sign your name,” Claire interjects. “An artist always signs their work.”
I observe as Claire quickly scribbles her signature, and my daughter slowly writes out the letters b-e-a in lowercase.
I read a parenting book once that said to teach children lowercase first because it’s used most often.
My goal is to help her learn how to write all her letters—both upper and lowercase—this summer.
Bea falls asleep in the golf cart and thankfully doesn’t wake up when I carry her to bed. Now that she’s five, naps are hit or miss. It will be interesting to see how that goes when she attends kindergarten this fall.
After closing her door, I join Claire in the kitchen.
“Oh, you weren’t kidding when you said you were happy to leave the mess for me.” I chuckle, finding the table exactly as I left it this morning.
“A man told me to leave the cleaning to him. You think I’m going to pass up an offer like that?” She smirks, securing Bea’s artwork to the refrigerator with a letter B magnet, the piece of paper covering up Claire’s work.
I slip around her and slide her drawing out from behind Bea’s, then tack it to the fridge with the letter C magnet. “Yours deserves a spot too.”
She dips her chin, but I don’t miss the sheepish smile.
We clear the table and wash the dishes together in comfortable silence, though the comfortable part fades when I remember the text situation still looming over us.
“About this morning,” I begin, dropping the towel onto the now clean counter.
She closes the dishwasher and rotates to face me. “Are you talking about the text or the ‘hottest fucking kiss’?” She tosses up air quotes at that last bit.
“Both?” My cheeks heat. It’s pure luck that I didn’t have time to shave this morning, or else she’d notice. “Can we sit?” Without waiting for her to reply, I wander to the couch.
Dressed comfortably in khaki-colored linen pants and a white tank top, Claire settles next to me. Her hair is pulled up in a knot on the top of her head, but she pulls the elastic out and finger-combs the wavy strands that fall onto her shoulders.
I clear my throat and force myself to make eye contact. “Your brother and Ezra were never meant to see that text.”
Her eyes sparkle with curiosity. Or maybe mischief. “Who was?”
With a sigh, I admit, “My grief support group.”
She raises a brow, silently urging me on.
“After Daisy died, I connected with a group of other widowers. Raymond, Zion, and Benji. Ray and Zi live in Manhattan and Benji’s on Long Island.
We try to get together every few months, but we mostly keep in touch through text.
Fucking Zion and Benji think it’s hilarious to keep changing the name of our group chat.
Last night one of them changed it to The Grief Guys, while Millie named the chat Cam and Ezra and I use The Good Guys.
“In my, um, excitement… after our kiss”—I conveniently leave out the part where I jerked off—“I told them I kissed you, then I silenced my phone and went to bed. When I woke up this morning, Cam was yelling at me in all caps.”
Claire covers her face, her shoulders shaking.
“Are you laughing?”
She snorts. “Nope.”
“It’s not funny.” Despite my claim, I grin. “I still haven’t texted them back. I have no clue what to say. What did they say to you? What did you tell them?”
She straightens up. “I told them I can fuck whoever I want and it’s none of their goddamn business.”
My heart leaps into my throat. “Claire!”
“Kidding.” She giggles. “I haven’t replied either. Cam called earlier, but I was busy with Bea. I am serious about it not being their business, though.”
“We can’t ignore them forever,” I tell her, digging my phone out of my pocket.
She does the same.
I don’t know about her, but I have three more unread texts. Plus two missed calls.
Cam
Asher. Why the hell are you not answering?
Cam
Tell my sister to answer her damn phone
Ezra
Cam, STFU and leave the man alone. Asher, please put him out of his misery. He’s insufferable
Claire huffs out a laugh. “Now Joey’s involved.”
She holds her phone out, showing me a GIF of Desi Arnaz. The text reads: Lucy, you have some splainin’ to do.
I can’t help but chuckle. That is until a notification banner appears at the top of Claire’s screen, and my sister’s name appears.
Millie
Hey future sis-in-law! Heard about the kiss…
I stiffen, and Claire gives me a confused frown, then flips the phone around and taps on the screen. Her eyes go wide as she whispers “fuck” under her breath.
“Okay. Time for damage control,” she says.
“We kissed one time. It’s not like we’ve actually hooked up yet.
How do we even know if this,” she waves a hand between us, “is gonna work out, anyway? I know we agreed to do the roomies-with-bennies thing, but you could be really bad in bed and the whole thing would be over before it even really began. They’re blowing it way out of proportion. ”
“Hold up.” I cross my arms in front of me. “Why would you think I could be bad in bed?”
She shrugs.
“Do you make a habit of sleeping with men who are bad in bed?”
She shrugs again.
I haven’t the slightest clue what her sexual history is, and other than knowing if her tests are clear, it’s none of my business.
“I’m not bad in bed.” My intention is to reassure her, but my tone makes me sound like an ego-crushed college kid.
“Yeah, well, I’m sure that’s what the others thought too.”
Excitement flares in my veins. Claire’s had only a small taste of my competitive side. It’s a Greer family curse. Even Bea is competitive. I get off on proving people wrong, and I never back away from a challenge.
Leaning forward, I clasp Claire’s chin between my thumb and forefinger. “I can prove it.”