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“What smile?” I ran my hand over Brayleigh’s back as her breath puffed in and out of her slackened mouth as she lay relaxed against my chest. I buried my nose in the blond tornado that appeared on her head every morning and breathed her in. So pure. So sweet. So beautiful.
“You have a different sort of smile, one that is only meant for you, like you’re smiling at something internal. What is it that makes you smile?”
Meeting his eyes, I easily read the confusion in his as he voiced his thoughts. “It doesn’t seem like a happy smile. I can’t read it.”
I shrugged though my heartbeat skittered in my chest like a butterfly trapped in a glass. “It’s my OCD.” I paused to work out my thoughts before speaking. “I get intrusive thoughts. They are not pleasant.” I grimaced at the understatement. “With OCD, if you fight it or resist it, if you argue with it, you’re sunk. You can’t win an argument with OCD. So, I smile to accept that I’ve had an OCD thought and let it go.”
“I thought you said it was like white noise?” he questioned.
I smiled wryly. “Thatisthe white noise.”
He studied my face, his eyes serious, then touched a finger to my cheek. “You’re strong as fuck, you know that?”
I gave him a genuine smile, and his entire countenance warmed. “Yes. I do know that.”
Moving closer, he lay his arm over my waist beneath Brayleigh’s bum, stared into my eyes and whispered, “Proud of you, baby.”
I looked away for a moment to collect myself and adjust my eyes to his light, before meeting his sober, stormy gaze. “Means the world to me, darling.”
I cupped my hand around the back of Brayleigh’s little head.
Lucky’s lips twisted and he reached behind him for his phone.
“You going to take a picture of my bedhead?” I teased.
“It’s just for me, baby. No one else.”
I closed my eyes, and he captured the shot.
Brayleigh pushed herself up and reached for Lucky’s phone. “Me do it!”
“No!” He laughed. “The last time I gave you my phone there were three hundred pictures of your forehead.”
“Peas, Da!” she demanded, shifting to sit on Lucky’s chest.
I watched them for a moment, wanting a picture of my own.
I held out my hand for his phone and he passed it over. I took the shot and sent it to myself, then slipped out of bed to begin my morning routine.
A couple of hours later, Brayleigh squealed as Lucky sent the swing soaring into the air.
“It’s too high, darling,” I warned.
Brayleigh leaning over the bar, toppling forward, neck bent at an odd angle, stillness on the ground, stillness all around as the world stops spinning, leaving us locked forever in that horrible moment.
He looked at me in surprise. “You think so?”
I nodded firmly even as I moved closer, hovering nearby in case she fell.
His lips quirked. “You’re a mother hen,” he accused.
“I beg your pardon?” I demanded, but he only laughed.
“Cluck, cluck, cluck,” he teased, and I couldn’t help but laugh.
“I am not a mother hen. I am prudent.”
“You mean how you prudently latched her into the car seat three times before you were happy with the fit?”
