“Who’s watching Everly?” She smiles at me, and it’s so fucking fake, it makes me feel ill inside.
I sigh heavily. “She’ll stay the night with my parents.”
“Great,” she replies crisply. “I can cover the rest of the time if you want to make a weekend out of it. It’s no problem.”
She moves to get up and stumbles, so I stand and brace my hands on her waist, feeling her body shudder at my touch. And not the good kind of shudder. “Cassandra, what are you doing?”
“Nothing, Max,” she peals in a saccharinely sweet tone, squirming out of my embrace. “I’m just going home…er…back to the tiny house. I shouldn’t be in here anymore anyway. It’s the weekend.”
My chest puffs out as I stare down at her. “Don’t do that.”
“I’m not doing anything.” She laughs, hobbling away from me. “We banged it out, and we’re good to get back to our lives. I’m going out with Dakota tonight anyway, so this works out just fine.”
My hands turn to fists at my sides. “You’re going out?”
“I made plans with her earlier this week.” She shrugs dismissively.
My teeth crack inside my mouth. This is the first time that Cassandra acting her age has irritated me this much. Haven’t we moved past that point by now? My voice is gravelly when I ask, “Seriously? That’s how it’s going to be?”
She stops at the sliding glass door and turns to look at me with an annoying shrug. “Max…we both knew what this was. I don’t know why we’re acting like this wasn’t a part of the plan.” She opens the door and heads outside, and for the first time, I don’t stare at her ass as she walks away.
I stare at the floor.
Pissed the fuck off.
“Dad, what’s the matter?” Everly says, flopping down on the sofa beside me. I shake my head and turn to look at my kid whose blue eyes are wide and worried about me.
It’s Sunday night, and she’s fresh out of the shower. Her blond hair is still damp and soaking the top of her summer vibes night shirt.
My daughter just caught me staring out the back slider like a stalker, looking for any sign of life from Cassandra instead of reading the damn book that’s open in my hands. I’ve been unstealthily staring at her tiny house since she left yesterday and never returned.
Her lights are on, so she came home at some point this evening, but I don’t know when. A part of me wants to march down there after Everly goes to bed and demand to talk about what happened yesterday. But another part of me, the louder part, has been trying to figure out what the hell to do about this situation.
The situation of not wanting to be done with whatever the hell it is we’re doing with each other. We certainly aren’t just banging it out anymore, that’s for damn sure.
I steel myself to give my kid an easy smile that I know doesn’t reach my eyes. “Nothing is wrong, kid. Why would you say that?”
Everly’s head tilts as she watches me curiously. “Because you look sad.”
“Why would I be sad?” I ask, my voice rising in pitch a bit too much.
“Because last night you didn’t talk much at dinner, and you always talk a lot to me at dinner time.”
My jaw clenches when I realize that I let my fight with Cassandra affect my time with Everly. This is exactly why I shouldn’t do relationships. This shit right here. This should be all the sign I need to be done with all of that. Clean break. The end.
“I’m sorry, Everly,” I reply, tucking a damp strand of hair behind her head. “I was distracted, but I won’t let it happen again.”
Everly’s face looks bothered by my response instead of comforted. “Dad, you don’t have to be perfect for me, you know.”
“What are you talking about?” I inquire, frowning curiously at her.
“It’s okay for you to be sad sometimes.” She shrugs her tiny shoulders. “I get sad sometimes, and you still love me, right?”
“Of course I do,” I answer instantly.
“So it’s okay to be sad,” she confirms. “Cozy says crying cleanses the soul. I think it would be good for you to cry.”
My knee-jerk reaction is to ask her if Cassandra has been crying, but I pause that train of thought because my kid is talking about me. “Do you think my soul needs cleansing?” I ask, half horrified I repeated those crazy words, half desperate to know the answer from my eleven-year-old.
Everly looks down and murmurs, “Kind of.”
“Why?” I lift her chin to see her face when she answers me.
“Because you’re so lonely, Dad,” she says, her voice soft and sensitive. “I think you’ve been so lonely for so long that you don’t know how to be un-lonely anymore, and that’s why you can’t find a nice girl.”
I laugh at her sweet concern. “What if you’re the only nice girl I want to care about?”
“Dad.” Everly sighs heavily and rests her head on the couch as she looks at me. “I don’t want to be the only one to worry about you.”
Fucking hell, my daughter just cut right through my heart. I stare back at her grave face and find her completely serious right now. “You worry about me?” I ask, bracing myself for the answer.
“I worry about you all the time,” Everly replies simply. “I hate when I leave you to go to Mom’s and have to leave you here all by yourself.”
“Hey…you don’t need to worry about me,” I assure her and reach out to hold the back of her hand. “I’m a grown-up. I’m okay. Plus, I have friends. Your crazy uncles. Grandma and Grandpa.”
“But you don’t have a Kailey,” Everly says, referring to Jessica’s wife. “Or someone to give you a hug…like this.”
Everly crawls over to me and wraps her bony arms around my neck and squeezes me. My body sags in her tiny frame as I wrap around her and press a hand onto her damp hair and inhale the scent of her shampoo. She used to smell like a baby. Now she smells like strawberries, and I hate it. I wish I could rewind time and make her a toddler again, not an almost teenager sitting on the couch having a mature conversation about emotions with her father.
Dammit, how did time fly by so quick?
She pulls away, and my eyes sting when I ask, “Why do you think I need someone to hug?”
She lifts her shoulders. “Hugging is probably better for the soul than crying. But I’d have to ask Cozy about that to be sure.”
Her face is the picture of innocence as she looks up at me with those baby-blue eyes that aren’t so babyish anymore. They hold empathy and intelligence in them. A maturity that I don’t think I give her enough credit for.
I chuck her chin gently. “Is it so bad that I spent the past few years just focusing on hugging you? Our time together hasn’t been so bad, has it?”
She sighs and leans her head on my arm. “No, but I’m getting older now, Dad. I don’t need so many hugs.”
“Don’t say that,” I croak, my voice catching in my throat as I wrap my arm around her and hug her to my chest. “Please, kid…promise me you’ll always need a hug from your dad. I’m not ready to be done with the hugging.”