Page 44 of Pink

TEN

“WELL, YOU look like shit.”

Lev sighed and seriously considered closing the apartment door right in Nessa’s face. Except he couldn’t because the girl was really helping him out on the weekends by coming over to babysit Arely when he got one of those calls. The random calls from Andino that simply offered a time, address, and that was that. He was expected to show up, dressed appropriately, remain quiet unless told otherwise, and look like he was ready to kill someone.

All things he could do.

And did.

Despite his concern about the teenager having some personal issues to handle, he swore this kid loved his daughter as much as he did. Whenever the two girls were in the same room together, the smiles and laughter didn’t stop. Even Nessa’s grandmother mentioned the baby was doing something good for the girl.

If she kept showing up and doing the right things, then Lev didn’t see the issue with letting her babysit unattended when her grandmother couldn’t be there to supervise. Especially if it was only supposed to be for a couple of hours.

Like today.

“Thanks,” he grumbled.

Nessa shrugged. “Long night?”

Well …

Yes and no.

Single fatherhood was not for the faint of heart or the weak. Frankly, though … babies were a hell of a thing. Just when he thought he had everything down pat, like there was nothing he couldn’t handle when it came to his six-month-old daughter, she seemed to take that as a challenge.

God, he loved his kid.

He was still tired.

So fucking tired.

“Don’t worry about me,” Lev said, stepping back from the door to let Nessa enter his new apartment. The place was bigger, cleaner, and brighter than the old one. Two bedrooms plus a nice little veranda that the social worker just had to bitch about because she apparently thought he planned to let his kid play out there unattended.

Even though Arely couldn’t even pull herself up to stand yet.

The place also had a rather large closet that could act as a small office or for something else. He planned to use it as a toy room for Arely when she started showing interest in literally anything other than colorful blocks and the pots she could pull out of the cupboard.

“Where’s Arely?”

“Finally down for a nap. Let her sleep for at least an hour before you wake her up. I swear to God,” he muttered at the teenager’s back when she headed down the hallway with a wave over her shoulder. As though she wasn’t hearing him at all. She probably wasn’t. “She’s grumpy when she doesn’t have her afternoon nap, Nessa!”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Knowing he was already running behind and couldn’t afford to be late when Andino called him in with lots of time to be early, Lev decided this was one of those battles he just didn’t want to pick today. Besides, a grumpy Arely wasn’t really so bad.

Just … moody.

He’d let her pull out the pots again. That would make her happy.

“You good?” he asked.

“Yep,” came the reply.

Perfect.

It was time to move his ass, then.

Stepping out of the apartment, he headed down the hall to the laundry room at the end. It just so happened that this building had a laundry room on each floor which made shit so much easier for him. Something else he hadn’t realized about babies? They made a lot of laundry. It was basically constant. He found himself doing a load a day, at the least. Usually of clothing that smelled like baby puke or formula or … another diaper blowout. Those happened way more than he wanted to admit.