Vincent frowned. He dropped his arm and let it bounce against the mattress. The paper crinkled beneath his fingers, but didn’t fold.
After what he’d shared with Mal last night, he’d thought that Mal would want to stick around. Mal had opened up to him, and Vincent had opened up in return. They’d been good together. But Vincent’s choice in lovers had been questionable in the past, and he wondered if he hadn’t been misreading the signs. Maybe Mal wasn’t the kind of man Vincent had imagined he was—but that didn’t explain why he’d leave a note like he had, complete with a hand-drawn smiley face.
Vincent slapped a hand over his eyes and groaned. What was it with him and smiley faces lately? It really was like he was twelve again, obsessing over every little punctuation and nuance in a text. If he was going to get hung up on details like this, then maybe it was a good thing that Mal had gone. His heart was too easily entangled. He’d been single for the last handful of years for a reason—it was safer to keep himself closed off than to fall fast and hard and be broken along the way.
Delicately, Vincent transferred the note to the bedside table, then sucked in a noisy breath through his nose and let it out just as loudly. He sat up, stretched, and was about to get out of bed when he noticed Mal’s vibrator was still on the bedside table, where he’d put it after retrieving it from the condom before they’d fallen asleep.
Vincent frowned. If he’d had the time, he would have given it to Gwynn to return to Mal—closely cleaned and discreetly packaged, of course—but time was a commodity he didn’t have in abundance. In a few hours, he was due at the airport. Nikki was waiting.
Maybe next month, when they said goodbye to the city they’d always known and hello to Aurora, Vincent could return the vibrator in person.
He left it on the bedside table to pack later, climbed out of bed, and went to start his morning routine. What a hell of a whirlwind weekend it had been.
Knowing his luck, it wouldn’t be long before that whirlwind turned into a hurricane.
* * *
“Hey, sweet stuff.”Vincent smiled at his phone, watching as his five-year-old daughter, Nikki, squinted at him on the screen of her tablet suspiciously. Her long brown hair was brushed so not a strand was out of place—Melissa’s doing, no doubt. It seemed that whenever Melissa had custody of Nikki, she went out of her way to prove that their daughter was better cared for than she was with Vincent. “What’s up?”
“Mommy says you’re coming home today,” Nikki said. “Are you?”
“Yes.”
“When are you going to get here?”
“In about…” Vincent glanced at the time on the display screen of his gate’s flight status. “Six hours.”
“That’s a long time.” Nikki sighed. “I was hoping you’d be back early today so that we could watch moreHeaven, Lockedtogether.”
“We might still have time. We can watch at least one episode.”
“Really?” Nikki smiled at him, looking far too much like her mother. “I don’t want to watch it with Mommy because she doesn’t get it like you do. She says it’s too grown up for me to watch. So you need to come home!”
Vincent grinned. “I’m on my way. I’m in the airport right now, waiting for the plane to get here. Why don’t you spend some time today helping your mom around the house? I’m sure she’d love the extra set of hands.”
Nikki scrunched her nose. “I guess.”
“That’s my girl.”
“But if I do, then tonight, we get to watch an episode for sure!”
“Deal.”
Heaven, Lockedwas rated above Nikki’s age range, but so far, Nikki had been handling it well. They watched every episode together so Vincent could be there to supervise just in case Nikki got overwhelmed, but so far, he hadn’t needed to police much. And, frankly, if he had a choice between cut-and-paste pampered princesses learning recycled life lessons and a young female demon with heavenly aspirations who’d discovered a conspiracy to keep celestials out of the divine plane,Heaven, Lockedwon out every time.
“Did you see our house when you were there?” Nikki asked. “Is my room nice?”
“I didn’t get to see it,” Vincent admitted. “But I know your room is going to be fantastic. Have you thought about how you want to decorate?”
“Yeah!” Nikki grinned, showing off her gap-toothed smile. “I want flames on my walls.”
Flames didn’t sound like they’d be easily painted over. “How aboutHeaven, Lockedposters instead?”
Nikki looked at him like he’d just suggested that seawater was a fine replacement for saline.
“We’ll come up with something,” Vincent assured her with a laugh. He leaned back in the plastic airport chair he occupied and crossed one leg over the other. “Are you good with pizza tonight for dinner?”
“Can we make it?” Nikki asked, her outrage instantly forgotten. She smiled more widely than ever. “Please?”
