She glances away, not meeting my eyes for the first time today. “A long time ago, but yeah.”
If I wasn’t pissed off before, I sure as hell am now. “Who hurt you, sweetheart?” I ask without thinking, because it’s none of my business.
She finally brings her gaze back to mine. “It’s not important. I knew what to do, and I protected myself. You won’t have to worry about how low her top is if she can break a guy’s jaw or immobilize a predator.”
“You’re making my blood boil, Tate.”
“If men weren’t such shitheads, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“Why do you think I don’t want her tits showing?”
“It’s not a her problem. It’s a dude problem.”
I repeat that statement in my head a few times as we stare at each other. She’s not wrong. I haven’t thought about it that way before. It doesn’t matter what a woman wears or what they do. There is always an asshole out there who will hassle them.
“I’ll get them enrolled in some self-defense classes after school.”
Tate finally smiles again. “Good. And you’ll need to practice with them too. My dad spent hours with us, teaching us what to do, until we had that shit down pat. And thank goodness he did, or else we’d be having a very different conversation.”
“Will you tell me about it someday? What happened, I mean?”
She shrugs. “Maybe someday, but you’re going to be even more pissed off.”
“Fuck,” I hiss.
Tate turns around toward the dressing room. “Hazel, baby, you okay in there?”
I’ve been so wrapped up in my feelings about Maddy’s outfit that I didn’t even realize Hazel has gone MIA.
“I’m good. I’m getting everything so far.”
“Don’t you want to show us, honey?” Tate calls out.
It strikes me in this moment how nice this is. Having someone else around to knock some sense into me about the girls, and life in general, is something I’ve missed for years. I haven’t really let myself dwell on that for too long because it stirs up too many feelings about Katie’s bullshit.
But even when she was around, Katie didn’t talk to me like Tate does about the girls. When I look back, Katie never really gave two shits about the girls or what was best for them and us in the future.
“No.”
Tate glances at me, and I shrug. Hazel’s always been independent. The kid didn’t even want help when she was learning to walk. She would have rather fallen flat on her behind than hold someone’s hand.
“I’m going to go check on her.”
“Okay,” I tell her, needing a few minutes to cool off from my interaction with Maddy.
Being a dad is hard, but being a girl dad is harder, especially on my own. I want to do the best possible job for Hazel and Maddox, and I worry that I am failing and will continue to do so for years to come if I don’t get my head out of my ass, like Tate said.
“Oh my goodness, you look so cute,” Tate says inside the dressing room as I take a seat in the chair placed near the entrance.
“You like it?” Hazel asks her.
“Your dad is going to love it.”
“Are Daddy and Maddy fighting?” Hazel asks Tate as I lean over, placing my elbows on top of my knees.
“No, baby. They’re okay. They were just having a discussion.”
“A loud one,” Hazel says flatly.
