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“It does smell funny, doesn’t it?” Alex said. “Don’t worry. I’m fixing it up so it’ll smell good again. Nobody’s lived here in a while.”
“Why?” Kadie asked. “Did they die?”
I facepalmed. The best and worst part of dealing with a young kid is how brutally honest they could be.
“No,” Alex said. “They stopped working and moved away to a place that was warmer.”
“Oh. I’m happy they didn’t die.”
Alex and I both shared a chuckle.
A quick glance around the kitchen showed that Alex had a lot of cleaning to do. Not to mention he’d have to replace almost all the appliances. The McMillians might have only moved out a few years before, but it looked like they’d bought their appliances in the ‘90s.
“Oh, I got something I want to show you, Kadie,” he said. “I found it in a closet. Want to see?”
She bobbed her head up and down eagerly.
Alex wiped his hands on a towel before heading back into the living room and then to a side den. A musty wooden box sat on the floor, a pile of wooden blocks inside.
Kadie squealed and rushed to the blocks. She started digging into them and tossing them on the floor.
“I don’t know if she should be playing in some box that’s been sitting in some closet for a few years,” I said. “There could be spiders in there or something.”
Alex laughed. “Oh, don’t worry so much.”
I almost snorted. I didn’t like Alex coming in all of a sudden and telling me what was okay to be worried about. He didn’t know what it was like to deal with a young kid and all the ways they could hurt themselves.
Still, it was hard to argue when my daughter happily started stacking the blocks. After a few, she clapped her hands together and squealed.
Alex grabbed my hand and dragged me out of the room.
“What’re you doing?” I demanded.
“I want to show you something.”
“What about Kadie?”
“She’ll be fine with the blocks for a few minutes.”
I didn’t resist as he pulled me upstairs and into a corner room.
Three huge windows allowed the sun to stream into the room, bathing it in natural light. Though the rays of light highlighted all the thick dust floating in the air, I could see the potential in the room for the future. It’d be a great place to sit and relax, both in the sunlight during the day and to watch the stars at night.
“It’s going to be Kadie’s room,” Alex said.
Warmth spread through my body. I hadn’t realized how serious he was about all of this. It showed how much he cared for Kadie, but it also made things more complicated between us.
Having sex with him on Monday had been a big mistake. I realized that now. We couldn’t sleep together and play it off like a fun time like Carl and Perri. We already had a child together.
I needed to be more careful before I screwed everything up.
Chapter 22
Alex
Most normal people didn’t find excitement weird. Not exciting things or situations, but the actual feeling itself. After all, it was something they felt all the time. It was what I thought most well-adjusted people would experience all the time.
Unlike most people, I’d spent years lost in darkness with only the smallest specks of light cutting through that shadow. Excitement? I could barely remember what regular, sustained happiness felt like. So regular, old-fashioned excitement was almost a foreign emotion. Like something you might read about in a book but never really feel.
