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Chapter Seven
Everyone’s Sassy Today.
She grinned at me while she shovelled noodles into her mouth. I knew two-minute noodles weren’t an appropriate lunch for a five-year-old. But what was I? A chef? She was getting food, that had to be enough for today.
I leant on the kitchen bench as I waited for her to finish. It took me less time to eat packet noodles than it did to cook them, but Maddy had already taken what felt like six years to eat half of them.
My head dropped on the bench, and I sighed. “How’s it going, Mads?”
“Good,” she said. “Can we go outside after?”
I nodded against the bench and forced myself to keep my cool. I was not cut out for babysitting. The whole thing was a fucking joke.
“Sure, Mads,” I said with forced joviality and pulled myself off the bench. “Outside is great.”
Not that I could smoke around her. So…not that great after all. Ugh. Fucking hell.
She smiled, but at least seemed to start eating faster. The next thing I knew, she was sliding off the stool – her head disappearing enough my stomach tried plummeting out of my arse for a second – and then was running outside.
“Fu– Wait!” I called. “Shoes.”
She swooped around and beelined for her bedroom.
It was still weird to think she had a bedroom in my house. Not the spare room that she was staying in, but her room. One full of stuffed animals and kids’ books and small clothes all over the floor, with pale pink walls and unicorn decals facing off against dinosaur astronaut decals. I personally thought the unicorns were winning.
“Shoes!” she yelled happily as she reappeared and burst out the back door.
“Shoes,” I half-heartedly mimicked to myself then dropped out the door after her.
She was already running around madly. I didn’t even think she had a plan. She just played. I couldn’t remember being that…free. I couldn’t remember playing like that in my childhood. Our house was always supposed to be quiet. Then, when quiet wasn’t a requirement anymore, sadness filled the place where happiness had once floundered.
I watched Maddy running around the lawn, getting perilously close to the tree line that marked where the woody scrub started. It was still our property, but I did not feel like tending to wounds because she fell on fuck knew what.
“Try to catch me, Uncie Roman!” she yelled as she ran past me.
I was pretty sure that the trying was the point here, not the succeeding. Even so, the next time she ran by, I failed to catch her even though I was trying.
“Mads! Come on!” I called as she veered a little too close to the trees again.
I stretched, but it did nothing to ease the extreme discomfort in every single piece of my being. As I rolled my head, I saw Piper hanging out her window, watching us with a soft smile on her face.
Seeing her suddenly made being in charge of a small human ever so less taxing than it had just felt. I gave her a small smile in return, pointed at Maddy so she knew why I was just standing around uselessly in my yard, and shrugged.
Piper bit her lip like she was trying not to laugh and shook her head with shrug like she was sorry. Whether she was sorry she couldn’t help or didn’t know what was going on, I wasn’t sure and it honestly didn’t really matter. But my return look implied she wasn’t very helpful at all. A smile bloomed to life across her face and something in me kicked. She closed the window and I shrugged again in a ‘what the fuck?’ but she held a hand to me like she wanted me to wait.
The next thing, she was jogging out her back door. She wore jeans and a long cardigan that I was sure was more fashionable than I’d be able to make it sound. Her hair was up in a ponytail with whisps framing her face that she brushed back as she strode over to me. She wore that warm smile as though she was actually pleased to see me. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had looked at me like that.
“Is she a plane or a fairy?” Piper asked and I realised she was talking about Maddy.
I turned to look at my niece and saw her running around with her arms spread to either side of her. “No fucking clue.”
“And you…?”
I guessed Piper had seen me fail to catch her. “She’s fast, okay?”
Her smile widened. “I’m not judging.”
“You so were. I saw you up there.”
