“Thanks, Dad!” She runs off just as quickly as she ran in.
A few hours later, I’m watching her get more peanut butter on her hands than on the bread.
We spoke some about Lou. I already knew my daughter liked her, but it’s a different thing from having a friend next door than it is when that friend is dating your dad. I want her to be comfortable with the idea.
Regardless of how in love I am with Lou, I won’t take it further until Paige is just as in love. My daughter comes first. Being a dad comes before being a boyfriend.
“I want Lulu around all the time,” she’d told me. “She’s fun and likes to help me learn things.”
When I asked what she thought about Lou being my girlfriend, she swooned and said, “Oh yes, please.”
I suppose I can’t get more approval than that. So, my heart is easy when I have to walk my daughter next door to ask if Lou can watch her for a little while.
“Sam called,” I explain, when she answers the door. “He had a small kitchen fire and wants me to make sure everything is all right. I shouldn’t be there for more than an hour.”
“Take your time,” she says, sending a bright smile to my daughter. “I was just making a batch of thumbprint cookies and could use an extra thumb.”
“I have two!” Paige holds up both of hers.
“Perfect,” Lou exclaims. “Come on in, then.”
Pressing a kiss on each of their heads, I say goodbye.
Twenty-Four
Lou
“Expect the unexpected, and whenever possible, be the unexpected.”
Lynda Berry
We’re singing “Pink Pony Club” together and filling the cookies with strawberry jam when I hear something hit the living room window.
Grady’s been gone about twenty minutes, and we’ve been having a ball dancing around the kitchen while we shape the cookies. Paige and I share a taste in music, upbeat and catchy. Songs that call you to move. Happy songs for happy people.
Paige makes me happy. She’s a perfectionist. There were a few cookie balls that weren’t uniform in size. Immediately, she redid them, as if it was the most important thing she had to accomplish today. I couldn’t help but wonder if that’s something she’s picked up from her mother.
Her anxiety flees quickly, though. She doesn’t take it too seriously, and I know she’s inherited that trait from her father.
“You take over. I’ll be right back,” I tell her.
“Okay,” she says, poking her tongue out while she dabs the jam onto the next cookie.
There’s movement in the corner of my eye when I walk into the living room. When I turn my head to look out the window, there’s nothing there but the rays of afternoon sunshine. And a photo stuck to the outside of the window.
As I step closer, I see it’s a picture of Grady and me. Naked and having sex on the floor. Last night. It’s grainy and dark, but even his stalker photos are artistically created.
Pierre.
My fingers shake and the pounding of blood rush sounds in my ears. Panic roars.
I run back to the kitchen for Paige, who looks up with a smile, until she sees whatever expression I wear.
“Lulu?”
“I need you to listen very carefully, okay?” I pull my cell out of my back pocket as she nods. Pulling up the keypad, I hand it to her. “You know where we put the big bags of dirt in the greenhouse? I want you to go crawl behind those. Call your dad and tell him he needs to come home, right now, and that he needs to call 911, because someone is here who isn’t supposed to be. If he doesn’t answer, you call 911. And you don’t come out of the greenhouse for anyone but him. Okay?”
“Okay,” she says with a trembling bottom lip.
