Chapter 20 #2
“I just mean it’s great that she’s living with us now, keeping us company, but it won’t be like this forever.
You know that.” I clean up our dishes, pour more coffee, and then flop down on the sofa and pat the space beside me.
“She’s going to leave and get on with her life. That was always the plan.”
“But maybe she won’t! Maybe she’ll stay longer than you think,” Kit says brightly, grabbing a throw pillow off the sofa and hugging it.
“Maybe,” I counter.
“Dad, you don’t need to be so negative all the time.”
Dammit, I do.
I should know better than anyone how stupid it is to keep thinking we’ll just keep living like this forever. Even if a mad, desperate part of me wants to.
Kit sighs, a heavy look in her eyes.
“What? What did I do?”
“You know.”
No one ever tells you having a daughter this age is like trying to talk to the wall.
“Kit, if I knew, we wouldn’t be having this talk.” I nudge her shoulder. “Help your old man out.”
“Fine.” She rolls her eyes. In a couple more years, she’ll be in peak door-slamming, ‘Dad, I hate you’ form. “It’s okay to have a girlfriend, you know. You’re old enough.”
I almost choke on my coffee.
“I know you guys are dating. That’s why she’s living here,” Kit says without a doubt. “I can handle it. I’m not gonna get mad because you’ve got a love life. I barely knew Mom, so I don’t care.”
Gut punch.
I set my coffee down and reach for her.
“Who are you and what have you done with my daughter? The real Kit knows we don’t talk about my love life.”
Or lack thereof. Just saying those words heats my face.
I pretend to inspect her ear for an alien parasite. She giggles and tries to swat my hand away. In my blood, I feel fire ants on the march.
“I’m being serious. Come on, I’m not dumb. You guys hold hands when you think I’m not looking. You even kiss her. You used to wait until you’d get a room or whatever, but now… eh.”
The girl has no filter.
Can’t deny it either when Kit’s probably hit the age where she knows we do a hell of a lot more than trade kisses. At least she knows better than to call us out on that.
Small mercies.
“It’s complicated,” I admit.
“But why?” She pouts. “It’s easy. You just need to stop being a grumpy McScruff Face and tell her you want her to stay. She’ll be pumped the minute you say it. That’s what she’s waiting for, Dad. Just tell her.”
I go quiet, taking the world’s slowest sip of coffee.
“That simple, huh?”
“Yes,” she insists. “Just like when you’re working and you tell me going to Grammy and Gramps’ place doesn’t mean you don’t want me around.”
I wrap an arm around her shoulders and pull her against my side. She hasn’t lost her childish innocence yet, not completely, but it’s fading by inches.
I dread the day it’s gone.
Hell, I wish it was as simple as she makes it sound.
Just me telling Cleo we could build a brand-new life. Magically ignoring the barbed wire fence between us, without getting cut up by our differences.
If we were young like Kit, this little reality we’ve carved could last forever, if we didn’t have grown-up problems and personalities and lives a million miles apart.
Fuck, maybe it could work for three months. Six months. A year or two.
Then it implodes, and walking away becomes even more hellishly complicated.
“Dad,” Kit whispers, looking up at me. “Why didn’t you just tell me about you and Cleo? Why act like it’s some big secret?”
“I guess it shouldn’t be. Cut me some slack, kid. It’s pretty new and we don’t know what’s going to happen in the future.” I wish that wasn’t a lie when we know it has to end.
“Can’t you just decide?”
“Not quite, munchkin. One of these days, you’ll get it.” I lean over and kiss her forehead. “Okay, enough with the love advice, or I’ll have to start asking about your boyfriends, and you’re not old enough for that.”
“You wish! I already have one,” she says matter-of-factly. “His name is Daniel and we have lunch together every day. He said I’m the smartest girl in his class.”
“He did, did he?” I stare through her, wondering if it’s more than an innocent crush and I’ll have to plan his murder.
“We even held hands the other day outside. But his hand was kinda sweaty so I might just break up with him.” She shakes her head.
I snort and chuckle.
Ten-year-olds. Gotta love ’em.
“Don’t you like him?” I ask, keeping my face perfectly straight.
“I liked that he likes me,” she says. “But I saw him picking his nose in the library when we were doing research for an English paper. Gross.”
“You’re right, that is a deal-breaker. Plenty of other fish in the sea.”
“Does Cleo pick her nose?”
“That’s the end of this conversation.” I pick her up and carry her back to the kitchen as she laughs and punches me. “Help me clean up, and we’ll head over to the library for that book sale like you asked.”
“Oh, yeah! There’s supposed to be a poet too,” she says, still fighting me. “You’re going to take me to see him?”
Unfortunately.
It’s guaranteed to be boring as hell, some pretentious guy in a sweater with owl spectacles who thinks he’s God’s gift to American literature just because he’s in his twenties and took a couple of road trips.
But Kit saw him advertised and she hasn’t let me forget it.
“He does a lot of cool stuff with sea turtles. He worked at a turtle sanctuary for a while,” she says.
Fucking riveting.
I should just shut up and welcome the distraction. There’s plenty of time to fuss over Black Talon and the best way to get Cleo out of my life gently later.
“Dad, don’t look so glum. It’ll be great.”
“I made a promise, didn’t I?” I mutter. “You’re very lucky I keep my word.”