Chapter 26
OBSESSION, ACTUALLY
Heath
Despite sleeping like shit—I swear I hear Lav every fifteen minutes—I’m up half an hour early.
I rush through a shower, planning to get downstairs to ask Cricket to have coffee with me before my daughter’s awake, but instead, when I open my bedroom door, I hear both of their voices and smell coffee.
“So then I dreamed that Fluffy was a dragon, but she was a bad dragon, so I had to slay her with a magical toaster that turned her back into a cat, except then she was someone else’s cat,” Lav’s saying.
Her imagination is boundless, and while her stories about her dreams can go on and on and on, I’m frequently in awe that she can think up crazy things like this and also remember her dreams in such vivid detail.
She makes me feel like I have the imagination of a brick.
“Did you get her back?” Cricket asks.
“No, but I got a better cat named Snickersticks. He could talk. And fly. He flew me to see my mommy.”
I freeze in the doorway of the kitchen.
“That sounds lovely,” Cricket says, completely normal, like it’s not weird or uncomfortable when Lav talks about Ava. “Do you dream about your mommy often?”
“No. And it wasn’t really my mommy. It was some lady with an extra ponytail growing out of her nose. I just thought she was my mommy in the dream.”
“Dreams are like that sometimes.” She glances my way over her coffee mug, and her face melts into a happy smile. “Morning.”
My cheeks get hot as I feel myself smiling back.
How is she so pretty?
Truly, how?
She’s in a black tank top and pink satin pajama shorts, and her hair’s a little wild, one eyebrow too, no makeup, not even lip gloss, and she’s the very definition of gorgeous.
Plus, those pajama shorts are making my dick wake up like I didn’t jerk off after getting Lav back to bed last night and then again in the shower five minutes ago.
“Morning,” I say gruffly.
She bites her lower lip and smiles wider, then drops her eyes to her mug as she takes a sip of coffee.
I pause to kiss Lav on the head as I stroll into the kitchen. She’s eating scrambled eggs with a side of grapes and toast while perched on a stool at the high counter between the kitchen and living room. “Sleep okay?” I ask my daughter.
“I hate sleep. I want to be awake all the time and have more fun.”
“That’d be nice, but then your body wouldn’t function very well, and fun wouldn’t be as much fun.”
“Ugh. You’re such a grown-up.”
I don’t feel like one when I look at Cricket.
I feel young and carefree and impatient to get her to myself again.
For sex.
Not for anything like what this might look like with her making Lav breakfast in my kitchen this morning.
Daylight has brought the fear roaring back.
The memories of how hard relationships are.
The way life can rip the rug out from under you at any minute.
“I made the beans from Elizabeth today,” Cricket tells me. “Want a cup?”
It’s just coffee. “Yes, please.”
“Since I had to sleep, I had a dream that Fluffy ate a magical tree and turned into a dragon,” Lav says.
“Did you have to slay Fluffy?”
Shit. Where’s the cat?
Oh.
There she is.
Eating her breakfast.
I glance at Cricket again.
“Fast learner,” she says with a smile. “I saw how much you gave her. And I texted you that I did it so you wouldn’t do it too.”
Two things off my plate this morning.
It’s not just that she’s fucking gorgeous and that I like her brand of mess.
She sees things. Sees things that need to be done.
And she does them.
Without asking for anything in return beyond belonging.
The ideal version of a relationship.
While we’re both on our best behavior with this change in our status still so new.
I can’t turn off the wariness.
Just can’t.
“I want to wear braids today,” Lav says. “Two of them, please. And Cricket’s hair needs to match, so you have to do hers too.”
Doing Cricket’s hair.
When I can’t kiss her or strip her and fuck her on the countertop because my daughter’s here.
And I don’t know who I am that that’s my first thought, but I don’t hate it.
I feel—alive.
Like I’ve finally gotten enough sleep to function again.
If it can last.
Day by day.
That’s what my parents would say.
Take it day by day.
“Only if Cricket wants me to do her hair,” I tell Lav.
“Oh, absolutely,” Cricket says. She hands me a cup of coffee. “Lav and I have to match, and we can’t match if we don’t have the same hair stylist.”
“You have an evil side,” I murmur to her.
“I can do your hair in return.”
“Daddy needs his hair dyed pink,” Lavender announces.
“Today?” Cricket asks.
“Today,” Lav says.
“I’m helping Mabel finish the mother-in-law house today since we have guests coming next weekend,” I tell my daughter.
“That’s okay. Cricket and me have to find the hair dye.” Lav slides off the stool. “I’m ready. Torture me, please.”
Cricket covers a snort of laughter with a cough. “Torture you?”
“That’s what we call hair brushing time,” I tell her.
“When I was little, I hated having my hair brushed, so my parents cut it super short,” Cricket says.
Lav makes a face. “My hair shoots laser beams to help kill the dragons. I can’t cut it short or the laser beams won’t work.”
Cricket nods. “We all have priorities.”
My priority is finishing the mother-in-law house as fast as I can and finding a reason for Lav to stay at the main house while I get Cricket back here to pick up where we left off last night.
That’s what I can do today.
That’s what I’ll enjoy today.
“My priatitties are slaying dragons,” Lav says.
Priatitties.
I store that one away to write down later in the Lav Pronunciation Hall of Fame.
“You’re lucky you have family that supports you in your purpose this young in life,” Cricket says.
Lav nods. “I know. Don’t do anything fun without me.” She turns and dashes toward the bedrooms.
“Eggs?” Cricket says to me. “I cooked breakfast for Lav and me without burning or glittering anything today, so I think I can scramble up some eggs again.”
“I want something for breakfast.” I take two steps toward her while she bites her lip and smiles at me, but Lav rushes back into the kitchen with her hairbrush like she never left.
Dammit.
Soon.
Sometime.
Eventually.
Eventually, I’ll have an hour alone with Cricket again.
Her cheeks have turned a soft, rosy color, and she turns back to the eggs on the counter beside the skillet. “Scrambled?” she asks me.
“Obviously.”
The look she shoots me—she knows.
She knows I mean she scrambles my brains.
“Your job, Daddy,” Lav says, holding the brush out to me.
I work out the mess on her head while Cricket scrambles more eggs.
Like we’re a family.
The three of us.
The thought sends a chill down my spine at the same time it sends fireworks through my heart.
I’m the disaster today.
I finish braiding Lav’s hair as Cricket finishes with the eggs, and Lav orders us both to sit and eat.
Next to each other.
While she sings eighties pop hits to us.
“Where did you hear those songs?” I ask her between bites when she pauses for a breath.
“From Dori.”
“Dori?” I repeat.
Dori’s maybe twenty-four. How does she know eighties pop hits?
“All the kids are getting into retro eighties jams,” Cricket tells me. “I did a lifestyle piece on the re-rise of hair bands about three months ago.”
“You should do a lifestyle piece on me,” Lav says. “I have a lot of life and a lot of style.”
She punctuates her sentence by flexing an arm muscle, which makes me cough until I nearly get egg up my nose.
“Dragon slayers have to work out,” Cricket says to me.
“Clearly,” I manage to force out.
“Daddy, do Cricket’s hair. I’m getting dressed.”
My daughter scampers back down the hallway.
Cricket and I look at each other.
My gaze drops to her mouth.
I swallow hard.
The way I want to kiss her—but the way I’m getting worried she’ll think it’s more than I can offer.
Her gaze drops to my mouth, and she licks her lips.
Fuck it.
Fuck it.
I hook a hand behind her neck and pull her in for a hard, desperate kiss.
“Good morning,” she murmurs as I pause, listening for Lav, who’s quit singing.
Cricket strokes my short beard, a smile seeming to make her glow.
“I got up extra early to get alone time with you,” I murmur back.
“Kids have a sixth sense.”
Lav’s voice drifts down the hall. She’s wailing an old Half-Cocked Heroes song now, so I take advantage of knowing where she is to kiss Cricket again.
Feel her lips on mine.
Her hand on my neck too, thumb brushing the base of my hairline.
Yeah.
Yeah, I could do this more mornings.
As long as it’s casual.
No expectations.
“Evvvvvvery boddeeeee,” Lav croons louder, “has a beeeeesssssst friend named Tater…”
I break the kiss with a soft snort. “What song is that?” I murmur to Cricket.
“Has to be a Lav original.”
Her bedroom door creaks, and I pull back from Cricket.
The last thing I need is my daughter catching me kissing her.
“So I’m doing your hair,” I say quietly, tensing in anticipation of Lav barreling back in.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
“I want to.” I swallow again. “It’ll be fucking torture, but I want to.”
She smiles. “I like when you say fuck,” she whispers.
“Come live in my head. You’ll hear it more.”
Lav runs out in just her pajama pants. “Does pink go with green?”
“Beautifully,” Cricket says. “Like flowers.”
“Good. Daddy. You’re done eating. Do Cricket’s hair.” She disappears down the hallway again.
“Is she setting us up?” Cricket asks. “Or is this innocence?”
“I wish I knew.”
I clear our plates, then grab Lav’s brush and move behind Cricket to brush her hair out.
She visibly shivers.
“Bad?” I ask.
“Good,” she murmurs. “Please continue.”
I take my time, brushing her hair far longer than I need to, enjoying the silky feel of the strands between my fingers, lifting it away from her neck and watching the goosebumps rise on her skin more than necessary to get any knots out of her hair.
Lav’s taking too long.
I should check on her.