“Not yet.” I slide my hand out from between her legs before placing my fingers in my mouth and tasting her. Her eyes go molten as if she’s already primed and ready for round two. “But give me five more of those, and I will be.”
Chapter
Forty-Four
Decker
* * *
“Okay, today is just to make sure you remember it.” I sit on the porch steps of Pen’s backyard. She’s one step up, and my fingers graze along her smooth legs as Hazel gets set up. “Ready?”
She nods, and I play the music on my phone.
Hazel runs through the routine from the top. Waist, chest, then the neck roll hits, and the hoop wobbles and drops. She groans. One thing I’ve discovered is that Hazel isn’t a crier. I waited for the tears many times during all these practices, but she’ll just grunt and groan and make frustrated noises that make me laugh.
I climb off the stairs and crouch down to her level. “Relax. It’s okay, we have all night.”
She nods, her determination similar to her mom’s, and picks up the hoop.
I feel Penelope’s eyes on me from the steps behind me. She’s been staying out of it, which I appreciate. I started this as someone else in Hazel’s life, and now I want to be a helluva lot more to her. I’ll never get there without Penelope giving us space, which I’m sure is difficult for her. But I’ll never let her regret trusting me with the most precious person in her life.
Hazel tries again. Gets the hoop to her neck and does two full rotations before it drops.
“Better,” I tell her. “But you’re fighting it. When it gets to your neck, you tense up, expecting it to drop. Let’s close our eyes.”
She tips her chin down and glares.
“Come on, humor me.”
Penelope laughs lightly behind us.
Hazel reluctantly closes her eyes.
“Visualize the routine all the way through to the very end. Do you see it? All the moves you’ve mastered, how well you’re doing. Do you see how great you finish? The neck roll four times and then everyone claps.”
She nods, and her small chest rises and falls. “I do.”
“Okay, then let’s do it again.”
I step back, not going back to the stairs since the temptation is too much with Penelope there.
Hazel runs through the routine again, but it’s her worst yet.
“Okay, here.” I pick up the other hula hoop.
“I feel like I should take a video of you doing it.” Penelope stands and takes out her phone.
“No video evidence, thank you.”
“Hazel, would it help later to watch the video of Decker?” Penelope ignores me, her smile so wide and teasing that I know she’s going to use this against me someday.
“Yes, Mommy.”
Penelope sits down in the grass, and Hazel sits next to her. The two of them watch me with rapt attention, Penelope’s phone raised.
Now it’s me grunting. This is the part I’ve been dreading. I start the hoop at my waist, which goes fine, and work it up to my chest, which goes less fine, and by the time I get it to my neck, I’m sure I look like a grown man having a medical emergency. But I do what I told Hazel. I stop fighting it, and it holds.
Hazel and Penelope both clap.
