And it just… it just made me so happy. Just like every other part of my life with Daddy. It was all so perfect I kept waiting to wake up from a dream.
But so far, I hadn’t.
Jason held the door for me, but no one was at the front desk.
“Whatareyou doing here?” I asked him, looking around for Sam or my mom or the new guy whose name I kept messing up. Then a thought occurred to me. “Oh,” I said, whirling to face Jason. “Are you meeting Daddy for lunchhere?”
My heart leaped in my chest at the thought. I didn’t care that I got to wake up every morning in Daddy’s arms and fall asleep there every night, me and Teddy both. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t spent a single day without him, all the way back to when we’d first met right here in this lobby. My heart still,stilldid that. Each and every time I got to see him, and I was pretty sure it always would.
“For lunch?” Jason repeated with a smile. Then he winked. Then he took another drink of his soda. Then,finally, “Nope.”
“Um, okay,” I said. He was being weird, but I didn’t want to say so since that would have been rude.
I went over to the front desk and leaned over it, trying to see into the staff room.
Also empty.
“I wonder where everyone is?” I said, turning to Jason.
Who… wasn’t there anymore either. I was all alone in the lobby.
“Um,” I said out loud, my eyebrows crinkling as I looked all around. Why had he disappeared without saying anything? That wasn’t just weird. That was definitely rude. And Jason was never rude.
For a second, my stomach started to knot up with the kind of anxiety I almost never felt anymore and my fingers twitched toward my pocket, the desire to call Daddy and… and have him make things better so strong I almost gave in to it. But then I remembered he was busy with a lunch meeting with—
Wait a dang minute.
My heart started to thump for no specific reason. Because that was… that wasalsoweird, wasn’t it? Daddy had definitely said he was meeting Jason. And Jason was here, but said hewasn’tmeeting Daddy. And now Jason wasn’t here either. And Daddyneverlied to me. And I…
I wanted Teddy.
And just like a miracle or something, I suddenlysawhim.
Teddy.
MyTeddy.
It was definitely Teddy, who I’d had since I was four and would never mistake for another bear. Except instead of being propped against the million-thread-count fancy pillowcase Daddy had insisted I pick out when we’d accidentally spilled some chocolate on the old ones while doing, um,things, now Teddy was propped up on the check-in counter next to the bell people rang when—
When no one was at the counter.
WasIsupposed to ring the bell?
Was Teddy a sign?
I walked over there slowly, keeping my eyes locked right onto him, half worried he’d disappear like a mirage if I didn’t. Or else maybe I’d wake up and realize I was just dreaming. Except then what if I woke up and realized it wasalla dream? That the whole last year with Daddy wasn’t real at all? That Sam wasn’t actually my best friend and Mom wasn’t happy and independent for the first time in my whole dang life and Daddy didn’t… didn’t love me. That I wasn’t his dollbaby. That we didn’t regularly meet up for playdates with bunches of friends here at the Plum, and that I wasn’t—
I meant atThe Plazerra.
The.Plazerra.
“Teddy,” I whispered, lunging the last few feet and grabbing him tight. I squished him close to my chest, my heart thumping so bad from the spiral into worst-case scenarios that I was afraid it might hurt him.
Hewasgetting pretty ragged, after all.
Ragged and lumpy.
Lumpy?
