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“Aziel.”
She lifts her eyebrow.
“What?” I bark.Is she judging me?
She adjusts the baby again, and I figure the question has been hanging in the air long enough. “Is this your sister?”
She shakes her head and averts her eyes.
“She’s yours?”
She nods her head, keeping her eyes on the floor.
“Mommy, I’m tired.” She lifts her head and rubs her eyes.
Those words hit my stomach in a way I didn’t think they would.
“What’s your name, kid?” I ask the baby.
She looks at me then hides in her mom’s neck and starts crying. “Mommy.”
Super smooth.
“Hey, I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.” I step back and scratch my beard.Should I leave? Should I stay?I have no fucking clue how to act around children. I don’t think I’ve been around one a day in my life.
She pokes her head up and looks at me.
“Hey.” I smile at her. She’s cute. Tanned, curly dark brown hair. Warm blue eyes. Same blue eyes as her mom, completely different hair.
I wonder who the father is.
“Hi.” The kid says softly, still shy as she grabs onto her mom’s hair and pulls it in front of her face.
“I’m Aziel. What’s your name?”
“Lilah.”
“Cool name. Like the flower?” I lift my eyebrows, trying to sound excited.That’s what kids like, right? Excited things.
“I think you mean lilac.” Ivy cracks a smile in my direction. The first smile I’ve seen out of her, and it’s breathtaking. A dimple pops in one of her cheeks. Only one. Her lips plump up as she fixes them in a smirk. For just a moment, then it smooths out as her face straightens out.
“Yeah, yeah. My bad. Well, you’ve got a cool name anyway. I think it’s the coolest name I’ve ever heard.”
Lilah smiles at that,twodimples popping out in her cheeks.
A beat of silence stretches into two, and then I start to feel her discomfort. “Okay, well there’s a shower right through there.” I point to the bathroom off to the right. “Go ahead and take a shower… and, yeah. Do whatever you guys need to do. I’ll stop back in a while.”
I turn to leave.
“Wait.” Ivy’s urgency stops me.
“What?” I turn around, waiting for something.Waiting for what?
“Why am I staying here? I have a lot of questions… none that seem to be getting answered. Then you just shove me in this teenage boy room in this strange building and expect me to take a shower. Why? What’s going on?” Even as she says the words, I see her eyes spark with fear and hesitation, like she’s afraid of the own words coming out of my mouth.
But I can’t help the smirk that lifts my lips even with the look in her eyes. Maybe she does have a little spunk in her after all. She seemed so meek, quiet, and beaten. Her back and forth behaviors are starting to give me whiplash.
Crossing my arms across my chest, I ask, “What questions do you have?”
