“Daddy! We’re home!” I sat up, clutching the sheets to my chest like that would help any, and Tom bolted up, hurrying to close the bedroom door.
“I’ll be right out, Libe, honey,” he called out, then turned to me. His face looked startled and confused, as he put on his pants. I was already up looking for my clothes.
“Who’s that?” There was no hiding the panic in my voice and the pause before Tom answered felt like it lasted for hours. When he finally spoke, his voice was crystal clear though.
“That’s my daughter, Libertad.”
chapter thirteen
tom
“Your daughter? You never mentioned a kid!” Camilo’s face went from surprise to panic in a surprisingly short time when I said the worddaughter.
I tried to speak calmly as I got dressed, because I knew I was on very thin ice right now. I didn’t want him to think I’d intentionally not told him about Libe. I’d thought about it, of course, but decided to wait on it until things were on more solid ground. For when he finally agreed to go out on an actual date with me. Except when he did, I’d immediately brought him to my house and fucked him, instead of having a conversation.
I looked up and saw him struggling into his tights and cursed Maxwell for totally destroying my evening.
“She’s four and I co-parent her with my ex-husband.” His eyes, which were already pretty big, got huge at the mention of an ex-husband.
I put my hands up in an attempt to de-escalate the situation, knowing I had about thirty seconds before Libe got fed up with waiting and barged into the room.
“We got divorced when Libe was just a baby. We’ve been sharing custody since. She’s with me most of the time, but he has her on Wednesday nights and every other weekend.” I sighed, trying to control my annoyance at the situation. “This was supposed to be my night to myself.”
Camilo looked frazzled and very close to running out of the house. I tried to get closer, to touch him. But in the same moment, he bent down to grab his tank top, which had ended up tossed over the back of a chair.
“I didn’t intentionally not tell you,” I pleaded, hoping he could see I was being sincere. “Telling someone I’m seeing about Libe is a big deal for me, and I was hoping we’d get to a place where it made sense to talk to you about her.”
He stood on the other end of the room, looking like he regretted every decision he’d made in the last hour.
“Please don’t think I was keeping things from you, Camilo. I wasn’t.” He seemed to soften at this and let me grab his hand. I pulled him closer for a kiss, but just as our mouths met, Libe yelled from the hallway again.
“Daddy, what are youdoingin there? Were you sleeping? It’s not evenmybedtime yet!”
At least Camilo found her funny. He shook his head, laughed, and pulled away.
“You should go to her. I’m just going to finish getting dressed.”
I was not okay with that idea at all, and spoke in a much whinier tone than I intended. “But I don’t want you to get dressed. I want you to get back in my bed. Naked.”
He just pointed at the door and whispered, “Go.”
I pulled on a t-shirt and stepped out into the hallway.
Libe had clearly dressed herself before the movies.
She was wearing her “The Future is Female” t-shirt under a My Little Pony hoodie and leggings with unicorns on them. Her curls were all over the place, too. Seeing her melted away all my annoyance. She had her little hands on her hips and looked like she was about to give me a piece of her mind for keeping her waiting.
“Hey, muchachita, what are you doing here?”
I knelt down in front of her after giving Maxwell a withering look. I knew he’d come over to see what I was up to. I hadn’t dated anyone seriously since the divorce, so managing a relationship hadn’t come up so far. I was not going to lose Camilo this early just because Maxwell couldn’t resist snooping around my life. “I thought you guys were going to the movies?” My tone was not exactly friendly and Maxwell knew me well enough to know this pop-in was not going to go over well.
Libertad on the other hand dished out one of her meme worthy eye rolls.
“We did! We came to the one close to this home. Papa said I could come and get my book if I wanted after.” Of course, it wasn’t like she didn’t have a bookshelf with a hundred books at Maxwell’s place. This was just a bullshit excuse to come and see what I was doing.
I sent another glare in his direction. “That’s a lot of running around on a school night.”
He lifted a shoulder like he had no clue why I was so annoyed. “We were close. I parked in the garage across the street. We’ll head out soon. Libe, honey, go get your book.”
