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16
Dane
Three tapsin the middle of my forehead rouse me from a peaceful sleep. My new alarm clock stands at eye level at the side of the bed. Ophelia’s mouth puckers to the side, and her eyebrows scrunch together.
“You sick or someting?”
I roll to my side and boop her on the nose. She giggles and grabs the end of my finger. “I’m not sick.”
“Den why are you in Mommy’s bed?”
“Daddies sleep next to Mommies sometimes.” There. That sounds like an age-appropriate answer. I never considered how this conversation might happen since Ophelia’s used to finding me on the couch on the mornings I sleep in.
She cocks her head. “Is that where babies come from?”
This conversation is sinking me faster than quicksand. “Um, well—”
“Babies come from Mommy’s tummy, Ophelia.” Saved by the mother herself.
“Up! Up!” Two little hands reach for my face.
Who could ever deny her what she wants? With a grunt, I hoist her onto the king-sized bed. As soon as she clears the edge, she crawls into the space between her parents.
Not wanting to miss a minute now that we’re all awake, I roll to lie on my other side. Caiti faces me, a soft smile on her sleepy face. I’m relieved we’ve retained the ability to maintain eye contact after last night. As I held her in my arms in the dark, I dreaded the morning, not knowing if I’d wake once again to an empty bed and her obvious regret.
Ophelia climbs recklessly over her mother, eliciting playful grunts until she settles on her knees by her head. She grabs Caiti by the nose and chin, yanking her mouth open and peering inside.
“What are you doing?” I ask around a laugh.
Ophelia looks at me with her serious face back in place. “I’m wooking for a baby.”
Caiti coughs so hard that she dislodges Ophelia from her face. “There are no babies in there, honey,” she gasps.
“Oh. Okay!” Ophelia scoots backward to the foot of the bed and rolls herself over the edge. “See ya!” She disappears from the room with a rapid tap of little feet.
I scrub my face with a groan, the grin still firmly in place. “How old does she need to be before we can officially lock her out in the morning?”
Caiti’s giggle is musical as she rises from the bed. It’s her turn to overthrow the tiny person in power and wrangle her for breakfast. “At least six. Then she can find something to watch on the TV by herself and maybe even pour her own cereal.” She stops near the door to flip her hair into a messy bun on her head.
The words she says zip right passed my ears. I sit slowly and kick my legs over the edge of the bed, planting my feet on the floor. “Caiti, come here.” The command scrapes up a throat rough with early morning gravel and emotion.
“What’s wrong?”
Once she’s close enough to touch, I snag her wrist and pull her between my spread thighs. Her puzzled expression remains fixed on her face, but she moves easily into my hold, resting her petite hands on my shoulders.
I fist the material of the very familiar oversized tee she’s currently wearing.
“How often do you wear this to bed?”
She glances down at the material covering her naked body, her face stark with guilt. She tries to back out of my space, but my hold on the material keeps her between my legs.
She shakes her head. “I-I don’t know. I don’t even know how it got in my bag.”
“Caiti.” My voice holds a warning tone. “Three years ago, you left me after the most memorable night of my life, and my shirt—this shirt—was nowhere to be found. You mean to tell me it just happened to turn up in your bag after all this time?”
Her eyes glisten.
“And that the night you decide to get yourself off in my bed, thinking of me, you slip on my tee?”
“How do you know I was thinking of you?” she spouts stubbornly, already retreating from me. Not physically. She couldn’t be closer unless she straddled my lap. It’s the emotional guard she slammed down the second I called her out that separates us.
“I heard you moaning my name.” I shake my fist holding the shirt. “Why else do you think I ended up in the room?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Just tell me how often you slip into nothing but this shirt and fall asleep?”
She bites her lip and studies the blank canvas of the painted wall behind me. “Whenever I needed to feel safe.” Her thick, watery voice is my undoing.
Fuck.
For years, I’ve known she took the shirt. That was obvious when it wasn’t lying on the floor when I woke up alone the next morning. But I always assumed she ditched it at the first opportunity or, more accurately, based on her hurried departure, burned the damn thing. Never in a million years would I have guessed she not only held on to it all this time but also wore it to sleep when she didn’t want to feel alone.
I feel as if she reached into my chest and tore out my heart with her bare fucking hands, and she holds the beating organ in her palms. The worst part about it is I can tell this is a conversation too far. She’s not ready to give anything more to me than she did last night.
Releasing the shirt, I wrap one hand around the back of her bare thigh and stroke a crooked finger beneath her chin. “I believe you have something that belongs to me.”
“You can have it back. I’m sorry.”
