Micah rolls onto his back and scoops Hailey up, nuzzling her head of messy curls. I forgot to braid them again after we got home last night. “Yep. I missed you guys.”
“I’m gonna be on TV, Daddy!”
“You told me that, honey. Are you happy for that?”
Hailey nods. “Yep. I get to play pretend and wear pretty clothes and they even said there’s gonna be a puppy!”
God, to have her enthusiasm about life! I don’t even remember a time when I got that excited about something.
Micah’s face gets serious. “You know you don’t get to keep the puppy, right?”
Hailey rolls her eyes, like Micah just asked her the most ridiculous question. “Duh, Daddy. It’s only make-believe.”
After a few more giggly minutes, we all get up and head downstairs. Hailey takes my hand and drags me to her little worktable in the living room, where I had left her papers from my office. “Miss Iris, let’s draw!”
I settle on the floor, tucking my legs under me as Hailey opens the little desk and pulls out fresh paper and crayons. They’ve got drawing implements stashed all over the place; Hailey must really love it. She’s not a bad artist for a four-year-old, if I’m being honest. I can make out vague shapes of people in her drawings from yesterday, the same trio of figures on every page. There’s a small person with yellow highlighter ringlets for hair, who I assume is Hailey, a taller person in a dress with straight yellow hair—me?—and finally an even taller person with dark black streaks for hair and black scribbles on the arms. That’s gotta be Micah and his tattoos.
“Is this us?” I ask her as she slams another piece of paper on the desk.
“Uh huh.” She picks out a handful of crayons, then hands me my own sheet of paper. “C’mon. We’re gonna draw Daddy some pictures for the fridge.”
“Okay. What should I draw?”
Hailey considers this for a moment, her face contorting as she contemplates all the possibilities. Finally, she lights up and tosses away the bright crayon colors she had chosen, opting instead for a light grey. “Let’s draw Cleo!”
“Okay.” I pick up a similar grey crayon and do my level best to draw a catlike picture.
Micah brings us some plates of food, and Hailey proudly shows off our work.
Hailey’s collection of circles and lines looks more like a cat than my attempt. An artist I am not.
“That’s great, honey! Can Daddy put this on the fridge?”
“Uh huh. And Miss Iris’s picture! She drew Cleo, too.”
He casts a sideways smirk in my direction. “Oh, she did? That’s great. They’re both going up on the fridge right now.”
I check my watch as I eat my eggs. Not quite seven; still time to get changed and log in, though I’ll have to do it from Micah’s office. There’s no way I’d get all my stuff moved back next door and set up in my own office in time. “Hey, Micah, is it okay if I start work over here today? I can lug my stuff back home at lunch so I’m not in your way.”
“You can stay all day for all I care. I’m still technically at the conference for two more days, so I don’t need to do more than check my email and remote in for a few meetings. I can do that from the living room.”
“Thanks.”
After a quick shower and a change of clothes, I sit at Micah’s desk and get started. Most of my morning is consumed with emails and setting up studio time for the campaign shoot. Hailey comes in around nine and climbs up on my lap while I work. She doesn’t bother anything on the desk, so I let her sit and watch me.
I get so lost in what I’m doing that I forget about lunch again. Thankfully, Micah doesn’t. I catch him out of the corner of my eye, sandwiches in hand, right about noon.
“Take a break,” he says. “The computer’s not going anywhere.”
Hailey hops down and grabs her food, but I stay put. “Just set it down on the desk. I’ll eat it in a minute.”
“Iris …” Micah’s got the “Dad tone” going. I suddenly feel like I’m about to be grounded.
I scoot back from the desk and stretch with a sigh. “Okay, okay! I’ll stop. For a little bit. Then it’s back to it.”
I take the paper plate from Micah, and he rewards me with a neck rub while I eat. I swear, this man’s hands are magic! The tension bleeds away from my shoulders, and I relax into the massage.
“Are you going home to check on Cleo after work?”
