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“She won’t leave.”
I realize she has a way to my soul when she huffs so loud that steam billows out of her ears. “You need to make it better. You have to fix it like you did my rollerblades.”
“Fix what? Nothing is broken.”
“Her butt! You need to fix Henley’s butt.”
My denial is fast and direct. “I can’t do that, Lucy-Lou.”
“Why not?”
She cocks her hip and taps her foot, impatiently waiting for the answer she will dismiss within an instant of it being given. She has no intention of backing down.
It is times like this I hate that she got my stubbornness.
“Because—”
She thrusts the aloe vera gel into my chest before I get out half a reply. “That’s not an acceptable answer.” For once, she mimics my voice instead of Henley’s. “That was the worst excuse I’ve ever heard.” I realize she listens in on my conversations with Thane more than believed when she hits me with another one of the lines I regularly use on him. “You’re a man, so you need to act like one.”
The floorboards creak under my weight when she pushes me out of the bathroom. I wouldn’t budge if I didn’t want to, but I won’t ever make her feel like she can’t defend herself, especially in her home.
“I’ll help Henley,” I announce, slowing her barges, “on one condition.”
She waits for me to spin and face her before replying. “Name your terms.”
I said one condition, but I refuse to give up an opportunity of parenting her on the unfairness of life. “One, you have to go back to bed. The last time you woke up at 4 a.m. resulted in you and Thane having a tantrum in the middle of the grocery store.”
She giggles but doesn’t refute my claims Thane’s tantrum was on par with hers.
I wait for her to enter her room and climb onto her bed before I continue our negotiation. “Two, you need to hang up your baker’s hat.” The tears springing in her eyes have me backtracking in an instant on what I was certain was a good idea. “For a week. Henley loves baking with you, but she has so many more things she wants to teach you.” I pull down her blanket and gesture for her to slip beneath. “She can’t do that if she’s spending half the day cleaning the mess in the kitchen.”
“That’s true,” she murmurs through a yawn, her eyes fluttering as her head lands on her pillow. “So I guess I could save my creations for next week.” My stomach flips for the wrong reason when she smiles and says, “That will give me heaps of time to come up with some new recipes.”
“Yay…” I hide my grimace with a smile.
Lucy giggles as if aware of the reason for the grumble of my stomach before rolling onto her side and tucking her hands under her cheek. “What’s the final term, Daddy? You say they always come in threes.”
With my stomach being saved for a week and the possibility of an imminent tantrum almost eradicated, I shift my focus to an earlier anguish. “Can we schedule your butt-hungry swimwear’s return for after graduation?”
“High school or college?” she asks, her words groggy.
“Coll—” Her glare cuts me off. “High school?”
She thrusts out her hand in offering. “Deal!” Once we shake hands, she confesses, “I’m happy to skip the butt chafe for a few more years.” Through another big yawn, she murmurs, “Wet material and walking aren’t a good com-bin-ation.” She stumbles over her last word. “I got a sore tooshie.”
Trying not to laugh, I ask, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” She nods. “’Cause Henley took care of me. She put talcy powder on my butt.” Her smile grows, which reduces the width of her eyes more than her tiredness. “It makes my tooties smell fresh.” A small toot leaves her backside. “See? No stinkies.”
“Lucy?”
“Yes, Daddy?” she answers, blinking as she struggles to keep her eyes open.
“I’m going to write down everything you just said and share it during your twenty-first birthday celebration.”
She appears disgusted for barely half a second. “That’s okay. You can.” The reason for her carefree attitude is exposed when she murmurs, “You said I can’t have a boyfriend until I’m thirty, so I’ll have another”—she quickly calculates—“nine years from then before he finds out that bubbles turn into puff clouds when you’re not in the bath.”
13
HENLEY
My hunt for the aloe vera gel I could have sworn I left on the shelf above the vanity stops when “Are you looking for this?” rumbles through the bathroom.
I twist to face the voice, my legs shaky due to the huskiness of Brodie’s question. He sounds like he spent the last thirty minutes sleeping, so I tiptoed up the stairs instead of galloping. I didn’t want to wake him if he finally gave in to the exhaustion on his face.
