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“Are you ready to leave me already?” I ask as I tickle their sides. “You wake up and you’re ready to run off to Gigi’s and leave me here alone.”
“You can come wiff us,” Regan laughs before she snorts in laughter.
“Or you can play with Jayson,” Riley tosses in and I freeze at the mention of Jay from my daughter’s lips. “He’ll push you on the swings.” She adds and I smile remembering him taking turns doing just that with them just yesterday.
“Can I ask you guys something?” They both stop wiggling and look up at me. Their hair is a mess, knotting from their sleep, and their eyes still filled with the sweet sleepy look that takes an hour or so to clear. They are both so tiny and sweet and impressionable. Their happy hearts amaze me, the ugliness of the past not touching the dreamy look in their eyes. I love that they aren’t tarnished at all by the hate of the man who helped create them. I say man lightly, but the creating part I can’t change. The fact they are so far from being anything like him I am truly thankful for.
“Do you guys like Jay?” I find myself holding my breath as if I am actually scared of their responses. I already know the answer but I guess this is somehow my way of asking my four-year-old daughter permission to like him too. Or love him, which I do.
“Him’s a prince,” Riley says with a nod as she shares a glance with her sister. The two of them giggle which never gets old. It’s the best kind of music.
“I love hims pamcakes,” Regan adds making Riley widen her eyes in agreement.
“So you like spending time with him?”
They both look at me nodding with big smiles on their faces. “He makes you smile.”
“Him makes you smile too,” Regan tells me and her words hit me hard. Had they picked up on my sadness? I’d always tried to be so careful.
“He does,” I admit, feeling my chest burn. “What do you say we get up and make breakfast, then we can get your bags ready for Gigi’s?”
They are up and off the bed, rushing from the room, laughing the entire way. I lie there for a few minutes longer listening to the sounds of the laughter and their sweet little voices echoing down the hall.
I’ve looked at the clock for the hundredth time in less than thirty minutes. The girls are gone, the sun is beginning to set and my mind hasn’t stopped racing.
Biting at my nail, again I look at the clock and groan in frustration.
Standing up I walk to the kitchen grabbing a bottle of wine from the refrigerator and placing it on the countertop.
Again I look at the clock.
“What are you doing?” I ask myself out loud before grabbing my phone and dialing the one person I know will pull me out of my own head. I get lost there so easily and that is the very place where things get foggy. I’m my own worst enemy, self-doubt is a bitch.
“What’s up?” Emma sounds a little out of breath, but I’ve learned the hard way to never and I do mean ever ask her why she is winded.
So instead I pretend to be oblivious to the fact she may or may not be naked and getting busy with Mattie.
“Can you do me a favor?”
“As if you really have to ask,” I can almost imagine her rolling her eyes at me. “Whatcha need?”
I may very well regret this favor. “Can you discreetly ask Mattie if he knows if Jay is staying at his new house?”
“I can’t do anything discreetly you should already know this.” Before I have the chance to try and tame her, Emma hollers out for Mattie.
“Emma,” I try to gain her attention but it doesn’t penetrate.
“Do you know when your brother intends to start staying at his new house?”
“None of his new furniture arrives until next week why?” He sounds so close and again I ignore the fact I’ve most likely interrupted some alone time.
"I think Zoey was going to do a drive by.” Immediately I place my hand against my forehead, shaking my head at her choice of wording. But it only gets worse. “Maybe sneak into his bedroom wearing only a pair of silk panties and a smile.”
“Emma,” I complain but both Mattie and Emma carry on like I’m not overhearing them at all.
“She shouldn’t let the fact that he’s not yet living there stop her. I’m pretty sure he’d accept her showing up on the front steps of the office just the same. In fact I’m thinking if he knows that chance slipped by, he’d be a little pissed.” Mattie chuckles. “She could show up in a snow suit and the guy’d be smiling from ear to ear. But she should for sure go with option one. I know my brother and option one, yeah silk, go with that one.”
“You heard the man.” Emma says apparently now talking to me again after ignoring me for the last five minutes. "Show up at the office, offer a little peek show. Some show and tell, good choice.”
