Page 49 of Falling For You

I nodded. "Good night."

She turned the knob, gave me a small wave, and shut the door behind her. I let out a long breath and walked back across the street.

After that day, Birdie wanted her hair done before school, and she wanted Andy to do it. Within a week, it was routine. I'd started picking up on Andy's schedule by then. I knew when she was working and when she wasn't. On Andy mornings, Birdie pulled me out the door before I'd finished making her lunch, and Andy was already waiting on the porch with a hair tie around her wrist.

Andy never complained. But it was a lot to ask of someone, even someone who made it look effortless.

"Can you teach me?"

I asked her on a morning when we were both off. Birdie was in the living room with her coloring book and the TV on low. Andy was standing in front of the fridge, studying Birdie's drawings like they were evidence.

"Teach you what?"

"How to braid her hair. Like you do."

Andy looked at me.

"You want to learn how to braid?"

"I want to be able to do it myself. I can't keep asking you to do it."

"I don't mind, Wyatt."

"I know you don't. But she's my daughter." I looked at my hands on the table. Too big. Too rough. Not exactly built for this. "I should know how to do this."

Andy nodded. "Okay."

She pulled her own braid over her shoulder and unwound it, shaking her hair loose. Then she sectioned it into three parts and held them up so I could see.

"Three sections. Left over center, right over center. That's it. The trick is tension. Firm enough to hold, loose enough that it doesn't pull."

She braided it once, slowly, so I could watch. Then she undid it and handed me the sections.

I moved behind her. Her hair was in my hands. Dark, smooth, still warm from where the braid had held it. Softer than I expected. So soft it made my fingers slow down without permission, running through the sections longer than I needed to before I started to cross one section over another.

Her neck was right there. Bare, close, the skin pale where the braid usually covered it. I could see the curve where it met her shoulder. I could see the faint line of a vein under the surface. I thought about pressing my mouth to that spot and had to close my eyes for a second to get my head right.

I crossed the left section over the center. My fingers were clumsy, fumbling.

"Looser," Andy said. "You're gripping too hard."

I adjusted. Her hair smelled like vanilla. That didn't help. Warm, sweet, close enough to make me lose my train of thought. I persevered. Crossed the right section over. Left, right, left, right. My hands started to find it. But every time I sectioned the hair through my fingers, the silk of it pulled my attention somewhere it didn't belong.

"Pull here." Her hand came up and covered mine, guiding my fingers to the right spot. Her palm was warm against my knuckles. She pressed gently, adjusting the tension, and held it there for a second longer than she needed to.

I finished the braid. Wrapped the elastic around the end. It wasn't perfect. Slightly uneven, a little looser on one side, but it held. It looked like a braid. A real one. Close enough that practice would close the gap.

"Not bad," Andy said. She reached back and touched it, testing the tension with her fingertips. "Better than I expected, actually."

"I'm a fast learner."

"Don't let it go to your head."

She stood up, gathered her hair over one shoulder, and started rebraiding it. Her arms went up and her shirt lifted at the hem, showing a strip of bare skin above her waistband. The stretch pulled the fabric tight across her chest and traced the full curve of her waist narrowing above her hips. She tilted her head to one side, exposing the length of her neck, and I stopped breathing for a second.

I should have looked away. I didn't.

She finished in fifteen seconds. Wrapped the elastic, dropped the braid over her shoulder, and turned back to me like nothing had happened.