Page 93 of Pink

“Yeah?”

Arely shrugged. “But I like ‘em.”

“Me, too.”

His daughter tipped her head back, meeting his smile with her own when she asked, “Gigi is coming for supper?”

Ah, so she had heard him.

“She is, baby.”

“Okay!”

That was that.

Kids, man.

• • •

“Which color do you think would work?”

At Gigi’s question, Lev shot a peek over his shoulder to the girls currently huddled over the pile of items on the table. Or rather, Gigi’s things that Arely had managed to convince the woman to let her play with. Makeup, a bottle of nail polish, and a few other things that seemed foreign to Lev because he didn’t even know what they were called.

Women.

It wasn’t lost on him how comfortable his daughter was with Gigi, though. Or how easily they bonded over simple, pretty things. Not to mention, that he liked it.

“That one,” Arely said, pointing at something with glitter.

“Why?”

“It’s sparkly.”

“Guess I should have known that, huh?” Gigi asked, looking Lev’s way as though she knew he was watching them. “Somebody is all about the sparkles.”

“And yellow,” he added from his spot at the stove. “Loves yellow. You saw her room.”

The potatoes he had boiling would go well with the cheesy chicken currently baking in the oven, and it was one of a handful of things his kid didn’t complain too much about. Pickiness was a real thing with kids. A real thing he didn’t appreciate when he spent an hour or two cooking just to have Arely look at the food like he’d taken a dump on her plate.

But what could he do?

As he was told, it would pass.

“And pink, too,” Arely added, her tone offended. Likely because nobody had asked her. “I like pink!”

“Speaking of pink …” Gigi’s amused tone didn’t translate to Lev.

Lev cleared his throat, shoulders tensing as he put his attention back on the boiling potatoes. “As in the color or the … noun?”

Because in his life, pink was both.

A color.

And him.

To some people, anyway.

“What?” Arely asked.