Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 110113 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 551(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 367(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110113 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 551(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 367(@300wpm)
Heartbeat throbbing in my ears, I pick up my daughter. “So, Ava, now that you know I’m really not a serial killer, I’d love to get your n—”
“Daddy.” Ella starts to cry. “My bottom hurts, so very bad.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. It’s like this kid knows just when to lose her shit, right when I’m about to say—do—something important.
“All right, Boo,” I manage. “I think it’s time for us to go.”
Ava wipes her backside as she rises to her feet. “I totally get it. Great seeing you, Sawyer. And great meeting you, sweet girl.”
Ella, however, is anything but sweet. She starts howling, the kind of sobs that have people looking at us.
“Let’s run into each other again, yeah?” I say. “A playdate. How about that?”
“Yes!” Junie yells. “Please, Mommy, please please please can we do a playdate? And a sleepover?”
Ava laughs. Am I imagining the flush in her cheeks at the mention of a sleepover? Wonder if her mind immediately went into the gutter the way mine has.
“We’d love to meet y’all for a playdate,” she replies.
“We’re wide open tomorrow.” I don’t think about the words, I just say them in the wild hope I get to see Ava twice in twenty-four hours. “Maybe meet at the park downtown?”
Ava blinks. “Well—tomorrow—yeah, okay. We could swing that. Ten o’clock?”
Holy shit, this is happening. She’s saying yes.
“Ten o’clock,” I say, my stomach swooping.
“Great.”
“Awesome.”
Ask for her number. Just do it.
Only I can’t, because Ella’s literally kicking and screaming now.
Lord save us.
“See ya then, Ava. Looking forward to it.”
She smiles. “I am too. I mean we—we’re, um, we can’t wait.”
Holding on to my daughter as best as I can, I turn, grab the diaper bag, and stalk toward my truck that’s parked in a nearby field.
I’m finally able to calm down Ella after I change her and get her buckled into her car seat. Climbing into my own seat, I start the ignition and crank the heat. Then I crank up some Johnny Cash.
I think about Ava the whole way home.
“Please. Please, Ella, put on your shirt.” I hold up a sweatshirt dotted with sequined unicorns, the gathered collar pulled open in my hands. “I’ve already asked you three times to get dressed. We’re gonna be late for our playdate at the park with June!”
Pouting, Ella rolls onto her stomach on the floor. She’s naked, save for a pair of Peppa Pig underwear. “But I don’t wanna go to the playdate.”
I grit my teeth, taking a sharp inhale through my nose. She’s just feeling her feelings. You lose your shit, she’s going to eventually learn to hide those feelings from you. “You had the best time ever with Junie yesterday.”
“I don’t remember.”
Mule, my dog, gives me eyes from his spot in the sunny hallway outside Ella’s room.
“Care to help?” I ask him.
He turns his head and sighs in reply.
I don’t know who’s more traumatized by mornings, him or me. Ella fights me on every damn thing. She asks for oatmeal for breakfast, so I make it from scratch and hide some ground chia and flax seeds in it for extra protein. I also add a good bit of butter and brown sugar. It’s fucking delicious. But when I set a bowl in front of her, she refuses to eat.
She says she loves unicorns, but when it’s time to put on the unicorn shirt we picked out together, she whines about not wanting to get dressed.
Don’t get me started on going potty or putting on her shoes. You’d think I was pulling out the kid’s fingernails judging by how she thrashes when I so much as attempt to make her pee before we leave. And brushing her teeth?
I shudder just thinking about it.
The only thing getting me through is the fact that I get to see Ava. I leaped out of bed like a spring fucking chicken earlier, more excited—more nervous—than I’d been in a while. Yeah, I’ve already downed several cups of coffee. But I have a pep in my step that wasn’t there yesterday.
Still, when Ella picks up a purple Magna-Tile piece and chucks it across the room, it’s all I can do not to yell.
“No throwing, please,” I manage through gritted teeth. “I understand you don’t want to get dressed, but your new friend is waiting for you. I promise you’ll be glad you put your shirt on.”
“Noooo! I’m not going, Daddy. Please let me stay with you today.”
“You are staying with me. We’re going to the park together.”
My phone vibrates in my pocket. I know without looking it’s one of my brothers. Probably Wyatt, because he’s the new foreman and he’s always looking for help with a task somewhere on the ranch.
I feel a potent stab of guilt. While I know my brothers don’t expect me to answer on a weekend, it still kills me not to be the one to ride to the rescue.