Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 76203 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76203 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
He’d been doing some research. That was unexpectedly sweet.
“Denny would love any of those things.”
“Maybe the fun center first,” he suggested.
“Sure.”
“You busy this week?”
“No.”
“Day after tomorrow?”
“Sounds good. We can do the same time. Better to do things early so she doesn’t get tired. Unless you have to work.”
“Nah. I have all the time I need. My… boss wants me to spend as much time as I can with Denali.”
“That’s really sweet.” I’d never had a boss who cared about my personal life. I once got fired when I had to call out because Denny had such a high fever that I needed to take her to the hospital.
“Yeah, he’s a good guy,” he said as we walked through the parking lot.
“Um. So, I don’t know if she heard what the cashier said, but if she did, and if she asks, where do you stand on this? Do you want her to know? Not to know?”
His gaze cut to mine, the look he gave me heavy. “I want her to know. If that’s okay with you.”
“Of course, it is. She is yours too.”
“She is,” he agreed. “But I understand that it’s different. She’s not mine the same way she’s yours. At least not yet.”
Some of the tension in my neck loosened. That had been a small worry of mine in seeking him out—that he might want to take her from me. Before she was even ready for such a thing.
“Do you plan to be in the area for long?”
“I’d like to. I don’t really have a lot of plans right now. Just that we needed to come see you.”
“Unlock!” Denali called, making us both jump.
I bleeped the locks and she opened her door to arrange her stuffed animals next to her seat, then came back out.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“I want more,” she said, pointing to the bags York was holding. “The motel is far away.”
It wasn’t.
But she was excited about her toys.
“Motel?” York asked as he handed me the bags he held so I could shove them into the seat next to our daughter.
My stomach clenched.
“Yeah, we’re new in town,” I reminded him. “So we’re staying at a motel.”
“With the alligator sign!” Denny explained. “But Mama says we can’t go in the pool.”
“In my defense, the pool is a shade of green I’ve never witnessed before outside of a bottle of Hawaiian Punch.”
He grimaced at that.
“Do you want to ask her if she wants to go to the fun center?” I asked. “I’m sure she’s going to be thrilled.”
He nodded at that, going around to her side as she buckled herself in.
“Hey, Denny. I was wondering if you maybe wanted to go to the fun center with me,” he said. “They have arcade games and bumper cars. And pizza.”
Her eyes went round.
“Mommy too?” she asked, tone worried.
“Of course, Mommy too.”
“Okay!” Her smile was huge. York looked blinded by it.
“Okay. Then we will go the day after tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” she said, making my mommy heart swell at her manners. “And thank you for my toys.”
“Anything for you,” he said. “Buckle up, okay?” he asked before closing her door.
I stabbed the key in the ignition and turned the car over so she had some air conditioning before meeting York at the back of the trunk.
“Thanks for letting me do this,” York said.
“Thanks for spoiling her. She deserves it.”
“Yeah, I think she does too. Do you want to meet at the fun center?”
“Yeah. Sounds good.”
“I’ll… see you then,” he said, both of us awkwardly turning away at the same time.
“Mama,” Denny called as I sat in my seat, trying to decompress.
I needed him to love her.
Because then he would help us.
So far, so good.
“Yeah?”
“I like your friend.”
“I like him too, munchkin.”
CHAPTER SIX
York
“Oh, absolutely-fucking-not,” I said as I clicked through the pictures on my laptop at the kitchen table later that night.
Eddie was at the stove, mixing taco spices into the ground beef. Mackie was perched on the door of his cage, flapping his wings to draw attention to himself so someone would slip him a treat. Velle was standing a few feet away, looking up from his phone at my exclamation.
“What’s up?” he asked, tucking his phone away.
Not sure what the hell to do with myself once I got home from the zoo, I’d gone on my laptop to research, well, five-year-olds. What they were like developmentally, what things they might be into, how to parent one.
But after a while, both Runa and Denali’s words came back to me. About the motel.
I mean, there were some perfectly reasonable motels in Florida. Ones that might not have been the nicest places to stay, but were clean and safe enough.
But the green pool stuck in my head.
Sure, pools could be weird. I knew that from having to help maintain the one at the club. Sometimes, too many people or spilled drinks in the water, or a lot of rain, could fuck with the chemical balance of the pool and make it go cloudy or green. So it could have been a fluke.