Page 39 of Broken & Bossy
I glance out at it, the steel cover reflecting the sunlight. “Very fancy,” I say, nodding, as if Grayson hadn’t already shown me.
“I’m not allowed out there alone when the cover is off because I can’t swim,” she adds, bouncing on her feet. "But I get to take swimming classes next summer!"
“Ooh, are you excited for that?” I ask.
She nods emphatically. “I want to get really good. Daddy says water can be sneaky.”
“Mmm, he’s right. Your dad is smart.”
“He is.” She says it with total certainty, then lowers her voice. “But he says bad words when he drops things.”
I press my lips together. “A tragic flaw.”
She giggles and tugs me onward.
Her room gets its own second tour too, this one featuring a detailed introduction to every stuffed animal on the bed. I meet Mr. Pickles, who is a rabbit despite the name; Princess Banana, who is some kind of yellow plush cat; and a bear wearing a tiny football jersey.
“This one is Daddy Bear,” Penelope says, handing him to me. “Because he likes football.”
“Seems accurate.”
“And this one is Penelope.” She shoves the stuffed cat she’s named after herself into her own chest. “Because I sleep here!”
“You’resogood at naming stuffed animals.”
We end up on the floor coloring for a while at her little table in the playroom. She chatters. I draw a deeply mediocre dinosaur at her request. She informs me it looks like a lizard with lips. I tell her that’s hurtful but fair.
By the time the front door opens, I’ve almost managed not to think about the restaurant hallway for a full six minutes.
Penelope is off the floor and sprinting before I can even get up.
“Daddy!”
I hear his laugh before I see him.
It rolls down the hall and up the stairs, low and easy, stripped of all the tension he wears at work, and something in me betrays itself instantly by moving toward the sound, following Penny down to say hello.
Grayson loosens his tie with one hand as he walks in like he’s been holding himself together by sheer force and is only now allowing the first sign of wear to show. His hair is a little mussed from the day, his jaw shadowed darker than it was this morning, and the whole effect is so unfair it feels like an assault.
Penelope launches herself at him from the second step, and he catches her automatically, lifting her against his side with the kind of practiced ease that does stupid things to my insides.
“Hey, bug.” He presses a kiss to her cheek. “Good day?”
“The best day!” she chirps. “Carly picked me up and I showed her where we keep the cookies and, and, and, and Daddy Bear and the pool and she drew a lizard with lips.”
His eyes find mine over Penelope’s head.
For one second, the room narrows, and it’s just him staring at me after he kissed me yesterday. But then his attention drops back to his daughter, and whatever passed over his face is gone.
“A lizard with lips?” he queries.
“It was supposed to be a dinosaur,” I correct.
He smiles. Like,actuallysmiles, as if that’s amusing to him or touches him in some way, and I’m stuck on the stairs not knowing how to react to that.
“Do you, uh, want me to start dinner?” I offer, trying to sound normal despite feeling anything but.
He sets Penelope down and slips off his jacket, draping it over the back of a chair like even that somehow looks expensive. “No, but thank you. I’m ordering pizza.”
