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Chapter Sixteen
It had beenyears since Chris had watched cartoons with a kid, not since he was a child himself. And never had he watched them with anyone as sarcastic as Violet. She back-talked the entire show. Then she’d criticize the colors and the graphics, pointing out flaws for two entire shows.
Agatha, for her part, sat on the other couch and encouraged the kid. She saw these flaws also. It was like they watched the shows to catch the flaws, not to watch cartoons. He wondered if that was how he was when he watched a football game. It was super annoying.
One load of laundry was done and folded on the chair in the corner. The other load had about a half an hour left. Then he could leave the sisters to nitpick the shows on their own.
After a few minutes into the new cartoon, the front door opened, and a tall dark-haired guy in a suit walked into the house without knocking. Chris wondered who he was for only a moment until he realized that the little girl looked just like him.
“Daddy!” she yelled and jumped off the couch, running to him. She hugged him tight. “Agatha, Chris, and I were watching cartoons. Chris didn’t realize that there were mistakes.”
“Christopher Lowell.” Chris got up to shake the man’s hand. “I guess I always just watched them for entertainment, not to analyze them,” Chris admitted. It seemed the man didn’t even blink at having a strange man spending time with his stepdaughter and daughter in the middle of the afternoon.
“Harrison Dean. I still don’t see it,” Harrison Dean said with a smile. “But Violet is an artist, and she notices it.”
“I do, Harrison. Is Mommy home?” Violet grabbed her backpack from where she had thrown it when she came in earlier.
“Yes, she is. Just too tired to come and get you. So I get to,” Harrison told his daughter, then turned to Agatha. “Thanks, Agatha. See you tomorrow probably.”
“See you tomorrow, Harrison.” Agatha stayed on the couch.
When the door had shut, Chris turned to her as she shut the TV off. “Is he her dad? She called him Harrison.”
“He is her dad, but he’s only known about her for about a year. Long story,” Agatha said, leaning back in the couch cushions.
Chris sat back down on the couch next to Agatha. Her eyes didn’t open. “Tired?”
“Yes, I had to save a man from his house again in the middle of the night.” Her eyes remained closed. “Is your laundry done?”
“Close, but not yet,” he replied, watching her. He reached over the back of couch, needing to touch her hair again, to feel the silky strands on his fingers. There was something about her that captivated him, that drew him in.
Since the first day he had met her, he had the odd sensation that he had known her his entire life but had no idea who she was. When he had hugged her on the steps earlier, his body had immediately said, “Her, I want her. This is her.” Never had he had that feeling before.
Touching the black hair, he realized she was probably asleep when she didn’t move away from his hand. Tucking her hair behind her ears, he noticed that she used to have more earrings in her ears than the four she currently wore. Way more.
Her last name was Lovely, the same name as the Chris Lovely from high school. He’d have asked if she was related to her or not. Or even if she knew her. But part of him didn’t want to ask because then he would have to admit how awful he had been to the other woman. He didn’t want Agatha to see who he had been. A part of him never wanted to run into Chris again, because whenever he did, it always ended with him acting like an ass. He was tired of being an ass around that woman.
He was starting to feel like an idiot, so he stopped touching her and went to get his laundry from her basement. Earlier, Violet had showed him the way to the laundry room and had showed him the totes of shirts in the basement. She also informed him that she didn’t think anyone had sex in the basement, but that every other room someone had probably had sex in it. He knew from her words that she had no idea what the adults were saying or doing but heard everything they said.
Up the stairs with his clothes, he saw Agatha was gone from the couch, and he didn’t find her on the main floor either. Deciding not to look for her further, he left his clean clothes, hoping to sleep in Maby’s bed again, and headed to his place to see what work he could do.
Once inside his house, he knew there was nothing for him to fix. He had destroyed as much as he could. All that was left was trying to figure out how to get it back to what it was. Making it better wasn’t even an option anymore without actual help. A lot of actual help.
