Chapter 15 #2
She gives him a scathing look. “What, like pink and rainbows and unicorns?”
“Yeah. Sure.” Sensing danger, Micah turns to me for help. “Or, you know, whatever you like.”
“Nell’s more about the superheroes and less about the ballerinas,” I say while Micah bobs his head, as serious as if he’s taking notes for the biggest test of his life.
“I’m all about the action.” Nell peers up a staircase. “Is my bedroom up there?”
“My room’s down here on the first floor,” he points to a door off the kitchen, “but your room’s up—” Nell dashes off while he finishes his sentence.
“—stairs.” He turns to me. “She gets cooler the more I know her,” he says, before chasing after her, his feet thundering up the stairs while I’m left wondering what I got myself into.
Nell’s room is a barely decorated guest room with a gorgeous view of the ocean.
The walls are bare and the comforter’s white.
There’s a dresser and a nightstand and that’s it.
It’s miles better than where she’s been sleeping the last week, but nowhere near what she’s used to back in Seattle.
As I enter the room behind Micah, I brace for her special brand of honesty.
We find her happily plopped on a queen-sized bed, staring at the ceiling. “It’s like laying on a bed of clouds,” she says with a sigh.
“Yeah, but there’s nothing in here that says ‘Nell.’” Micah drops her bag onto the floor and crosses his arms, studying the bare walls like it’s the first time he’s seen them.
“What if you color some pictures?” I ask. “We can put them on the wall and then boom. Problem solved. It’ll be a Nell explosion.”
“Do the pictures hafta be pink?” Julian hated Nell’s love of bold colors and forced her into pastels, things he considered appropriate for a little girl.
“They can be whatever you want.” I fight the urge to double-check with Micah. It’s not up to him.
Nell’s grin grows and she leaps to her feet, punching her fists to the ceiling with an exuberant, “Yes!”
Micah turns to me, grinning from ear to ear, obviously falling in love with his daughter.
“I might have a better idea,” he says. “What if, and I’m just putting this out there, but what if we went shopping and you could pick out anything you wanted for your room?
Toys. Stuff to hang on the wall. Clothes.
Obviously, nothing pink or covered in something stupid like bows.
” While Nell giggles, he glances at me, actually checking if I’m okay with the idea, but continues before I can get a word in edgewise.
“We could even get some ice cream when we’re done. ”
I want to tell him it’s not necessary, that we’ve taken advantage of him enough as it is, but Nell is his daughter, and this is the first chance he’s had to take care of her. What right do I have to tell him no?
“Can we, Mama?” She bounces off the bed, doing a funny little dance as she clasps her hands under her chin. “The man did say ice cream.”
Micah turns to me with an almost identical look of wicked excitement. “I did say ice cream.”
Seeing the two of them together is almost more than I can take.
I always said Nell is just like her dad, but having it proved right in front of me brings tears to my eyes, warming my heart and making me regret every bad thing I’ve said about him.
Thank goodness I never said any of it for Nell to hear.
“I don’t have anything to contribute…”
“Consider it a housewarming gift.”
“Says the man basically giving us his house.”
“Yeah.” Nell hits Micah with a look that says I wasn’t wrong to brace for her special brand of honesty. “You’re not scary like I thought you were. You’re funny. And nice.”
“You thought I was scary?” Micah’s shoulders sag and he sounds so heartbroken I want to hug him. But, given everything that’s going on, that’s probably a bad idea.
“The day you two met,” I explain, “you were a little…um…overwhelmed when you stepped into Mr. Doughtry’s office to make your very generous offer.”
Understanding blossoms in Micah’s eyes and his shoulders sag even more.
“I thought maybe you didn’t like me because I talk too much. Some grownups think that’s really annoying.” Nell cups a hand to her mouth and whispers, “Nurse Weathers, cough cough,” then hops back onto the bed.
“You thought I didn’t…?” Micah sighs and crouches to meet Nell eye to eye.
“That couldn’t be farther from the truth, Miss Penelope Michaela Hut…
” His gaze locks on mine with a heavy dose of ‘oh shit,’ but he wipes it away and replaces it with a smile.
“I mean…Cole. Penelope Michaela Cole. I think you’re pretty freaking awesome. ”
Nell’s eyes go wide. “That’s a bad word!”
Dumbfounded, Micah turns to me. “Freaking?” he mouths, and I nod.
“That’ll take some getting used to,” he mutters, before returning his attention to Nell.
“You gotta help me settle something. When your mom was younger, she was all about butterscotch ice cream with extra chocolate chips and I, being the awesome person I am, am a strawberry fan. Where do you land on the ice cream scale?”
“Strawberry! Butterscotch is gis-dusting.” Nell hops off the bed and Micah holds out a hand for a high five, which she exuberantly gives, then pauses. “I didn’t know you knew my mommy when she was little.”
There’s a moment of charged eye contact between Micah and me.
He didn’t just know me; he was my life. He was my reason for being.
He gave me strength and encouraged me to chase my dream of becoming a psychologist while my dad tried to talk me out of it, listing all the reasons it wouldn’t work.
Nell not knowing that feels like a failure on my part.
“We did,” he says cautiously. “Which means your mom’s pretty awesome too, even if she does like butterscotch ice cream.” He grimaces over Nell’s head, sending a hearty SOS my way.
“Why don’t you go explore while Micah shows me my room. And stay inside!” I add as her feet hit the stairs. “Don’t go near that pool without an adult!”
“’Kay, Mama!” Nell calls and we deposit my bag and cot into an office as sterile as his guest room, like he’s never bothered to come upstairs.
There’s a desk. A laptop. Some bookshelves stocked with books he’s probably never read.
I wanted to laugh when he told me he had an office.
The Micah I knew would have preferred a weight set or a pool table or anything other than a place dedicated to quiet thought or studious work.
But, I don’t know him as well as I used to and didn’t want to offend him, so I stayed silent last night rather than risk making him mad with the joke that sat on the tip of my tongue.
“I don’t like you sleeping on that cot,” he says, scowling into the room like it’s the reason I don’t have a bed.
“It’s fine.” Sleeping on the cot is ten times worse than the couch, but a thousand times better than living with Julian. “I’ve gotten used to it.”
Micah sets his jaw, and we head downstairs, where Nell’s peering out the window at the pool. “What should I call you, anyway?” she asks, skipping over to take his hand.
He sucks in his lips, obviously not prepared for the question. We should have talked about this last night, but everything is happening so fast. These are the things he shouldn’t be hit with out of the blue.
Chaos, Ivy, whispers Julian’s voice. All you’re good at is chaos.
Micah chews his bottom lip, pretending to think really hard. “The guys at work call me Tower, because I’m tall. I think your mom has called me Asshole once or twice.”
Nell’s eyes go wide, and she covers her mouth. “That’s another bad word. A real bad one.”
“That’s a good point. You probably shouldn’t say it. Why don’t you call me Micah until we come up with something better.”