Page 25 of Wrong Number, Right Gray Wolf

“What? Nothing.”

“You can’t tell me nothing’s wrong. You haven’t even eaten.”

“Oh, I was just distracted.” I picked up a chip and popped it in my mouth.

“Are you in trouble with Stephen?”

“No, I’m not.” Where did that come from?

“You’re not looking at him like you wanna kiss him anymore. Do you still like him?” She wasn’t going to let this go. If I asked her to, she’d drop it, but if we were going at her pace, that meant allowing her to feel free to discuss what she needed to talk about.

“I do still like him. I was just spacing out and thinking about how nice lunch was. I promise.” I was not going to talk about kissing now, and his cheeks were pink, so I didn’t think he wanted to either.

“And I like your daddy too.” Stephen reached over and took my hand. “Is that okay with you?”

“Depends. Do you like him like you want to be part of our family?”

“Yeah, I do,” Stephen assured her. “But part of the family includes you too.”

“I know. I was here first.” Childhood logic was fascinating. “But this is going to be a problem.”

My stomach sank.

“How so?” It was the first time I’d heard Stephen sound so unsure.

“Well, Daddy is Daddy, what do I call you? I can’t have two daddies. I mean, I can have two daddies, but I can’t call you both Daddy because I’ll say, ‘Hey, Daddy,’ and you’re both going to turn around.”

I’d been worried that we were going too fast, and she was worried about names.

“Well, Posy, I think we can come up with something that’s not Daddy.”

“And not Father either.”

“Why?” She had never had anyone called Father in her life.

“Father sounds like one of the stories in my reading book, and they’re so boring. I don’t want Stephen to become boring,”

“It’s a name in a reading book, honey. It won’t suddenly turn him boring.””

“I don’t know…” She squinted at him. “We can scratch that off the list just in case.”

“That works.” Stephen’s entire attention was on Posy.

“But you are going to be my other daddy no matter what I call you, right?”

“Yes, but in the way Clyde is your daddy.

“I know. Not my daddy like the daddies who had to leave soon to be with the goddess. They left me with Daddy and now with you.”

I had to blink back tears.

“Hey, I have an idea.” She ran to her room and came back and handed her Goldilocks book to Stephen. “And here it’s Papa Bear, and you’re not a bear, you’re a fox, but bears have dens, foxes have dens. Maybe you could be Papa.”

And I went from worrying about this lunch to knowing this was going to work.

She was going full speed ahead, taking Stephen and me with her for the ride.

Lunch was over and cleaned up, and Stephen said it was time to go. I didn’t want him to, but in the beginning, we’d said it would be only for lunch today and that we weren’t going to push too much.