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“Nuh-uh. They didn’t call in… I don’t ‘member.” Shrugging, she concentrates on her milkshake and not on the fact her world is entirely toxic. “I watchedDaniel Tiger’s Neighborhoodtoday. Free times!”
Three times.
“Really? What did you learn from the tiger?”
“To be kind to my friends,” she murmurs with a cheeky smile. “And to be kind to strangers, too.”
“Good. But don’t betookind to strangers.” My cop brain insists I pile on the dysfunction. “You have to make sure you don’t spend too much time with strangers.”
“But after I say hello, they’re not strangers anymore.” She boops my nose almost as though to call mesilly. Then her smile slowly flattens out. “Mommy was so sad last night when you didn’t come home.”
Take a fucking sword and shove it through my heart.
“I know, baby. Daddy was working and couldn’t get out on time. But I want to make it up to you, okay? I want to eat a meal with you, and go to the park with you. I wanna spend allll my time with you. Then we’ll go home and see how Mommy is feeling. Do you think we should take food back for her, too?”
“Uh-huh!” Her head bobs like a little toy, but at least her grin notches up again. “Mommy doesn’t hardly eat any time. But Ifinkshe’d like a hotdog on a stick.”
“I think so too.”
Leaning forward as the server sets down a plate with a steaming hot corndog, I press a kiss to Mia’s button nose. Then another to her cheekbones that already show definition and how she’ll look when she’s older.
I take her hands in mine and wrap them up safe. A promise, maybe. A declaration that, while I didn’t stick it out with her mom, I’ll forever stick to this little girl. “Eat up, beautiful. Then we’ll go play for a bit.”
“Okay.” Zooming forward and grabbing my face with her hands, she presses a noisy kiss to my forehead and laughs because she thinks she surprised me.
In my pocket, my phone buzzes, reminding me that it’s impossibleandinhumane to take my daughter from her mother. But because Mia makes herself busyhss-hss-hssing at her corndog, I sit back and fish the device out to find Arch’s name flashing on the screen.
Answering the call before it goes to voicemail, I bring it to my ear and murmur, “Yeah?”
“How’s it going?” The sounds of a noisy bullpen provide a constant buzzing on his end of the call. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah. No.” I look at Mia and smile as she happily picks her food apart. “It’s alright. I’m staring at my favorite girl in the whole wide world right now.”
Pleased, Arch chuckles under his breath. “Only a truly lucky man gets to experience that kinda love. How’s she doing?”
I can’t say a whole lot without adding to the emotional baggage my daughter already has to carry, so my only response is, “Okay.”
“Dirty?”
I shrug. “Little bit.”
“Sad?”
“Nah. Pretty smiley.”
“Jada?” His voice turns harder. “She with you?”
“Nope.”
“At her apartment?” he clarifies.
“Uh-huh. In bed.”
A sound in the back of his throat implies disappointment. “Strung out?”
“Looks that way. Moo and I are at the diner getting something to eat.”
“She starving?” he growls. “Did Jada make her go hungry all day?”
