Page 36 of Vandal Unbound

Sunny:What did I miss?

Knox:For fuck’s sake.

“We should go,” I say. “We shouldn’t be here. It was a bad?—”

“I wanna talk to you, but let’s go hang out with Elsie for a little while first. Just so you can see she’s settled.”

Vandal tries to take my hand, but I snatch it away. “Not with Elsie watching. I don’t want her confused by?—”

“This?” Vandal gestures between the two of us.

“There is nothis,” I say, quickly.

Vandal huffs. “I keep trying to tell myself that too.”

“Vandal,” Elsie shouts. “Come sit next to me. I saved you a place.”

“Thanks for looking out for me, Elsie,” he says as we walk side-by-side. His fingers brush mine, and I swear it’s intentional.

Maren stands to raise a hand to the driver of the airboat that skims across the marsh, sending ripples through the sawgrass. Golden blades bow beneath the water’s surface before springing upright again.

The sun’s rays ice the ripples, and it strikes me how beautiful this spot is. When Maren sits, she switches sides to settle next to Havoc then winks at me.

Vandal lifts one leg over the bench seat followed by the other, and my daughter shifts to her knees so she can face him. Thebreeze lifts her hair, and she messily shoves it back from her face.

“How’s the Coke float?” Vandal asks Elsie as she tries to lick ice cream from her lips.

“It’s good. Do you want some? I can share.”

“Nah, I’m good. How was camp?”

Elsie puts her hand on the crook of his arm, and I wince when I realize her hand is sticky from whatever she was doing with the floating ice cream before I arrive. There’s a spoon sitting in a melted puddle, and I can’t help but reach into my purse and pull out a wet wipe to clean both her hand, and the gloop on the table.

Vandal chuckles. “You can leave it, Daze. It gets a lot messier than this when we have a party back here.”

“Can I come to your party?” Elsie asks hopefully.

“Not sure they’re the right kind of parties for little girls,” Havoc says.

Elsie glares his way. “I didn’t ask you, I asked Vandal.”

“Elsie Marie,” I say firmly. “That was rude. Say sorry to Havoc or I’ll take you home.”

Elsie now glares at me.

“Say sorry, Elsie,” Vandal says calmly. “Because I don’t want you and your momma to go just yet.”

That gets her attention, and she turns to Havoc. “Sorry.”

“Apology accepted, Els,” Havoc says. “And we do have some parties that kids can come too.”

Vandal’s hand sneaks beneath the table and gently massages my thigh. I put my hand over his to encourage him to stop, but he simply grips my fingers between his.

Elsie clutches her hands to her chest. “Maybe I can get a new dress with sparkles.”

The very look of joyful, childish, whimsy is like a kick in the chest. I haven’t bought her a dress for fun since we left. Instead,I’ve focused on the practical. It embarrasses me that I haven’t done better.

Even as I watch the way Elsie establishes her friendship with Vandal, I realize I couldn’t even pick her a decent father. From the short interactions I’ve seen of Vandal and Elsie together, it’s crystal clear how useless her father was.