“We’re going to do all this tonight?” Lauren’s eyes are wide.
I shrug. “If you want to. The goal is to have options. We also have to eat a good dinner. One lesson you must learn early in your life is to always, always, always, eat before a party. That will save you a lot of stomachaches.” And headaches, but that doesn’t pertain to them at this particular moment. It also doesn’t seem to make a difference when you go whole hog on a cheap bottle of margarita mix.
“Why would we get a stomachache if we don’t eat dinner?” Leah asks.
“If you eat dinner first, you won’t make yourself sick on the snacks. Too much of a good thing can ruin it forever.”
Holt comes up next to me and wraps his arm around my waist. I tilt my head up, silently asking for a kiss. He obliges, smirking when he pulls away. “Much better than a high five.”
I lightly backhand his stomach, and he laughs as he heads into the kitchen, saying, “I’ll never be able to drink Titos again because I didn’t follow Gia’s rule. Be smarter than your dad, girls.”
The three of us laugh, although the girls don’t fully understand what he’s talking about.
“Come look at our fort!” Lauren grabs my hand and pulls me into the living room, where a ginormous structure has been erected. The four of us will comfortably fit in it tonight, although I wouldn’t have minded needing to be squished.
“This is the coolest fort I’ve ever been in. Did you guys build this on your own?”
“Daddy helped get the sheets up so they won’t fall, but Lee Lee and I decorated.”
Hanging from the ceiling are paper stars and rainbows,colorfully decorated with crayon scribbles. It honestly is an amazing structure. One I would have loved to have as a kid.
Leah grabs my hand. “Can we paint our fingers now? We never did that afore.”
“Let’s see how long we have until dinner. Nail polish and food do not mix well,” I answer.
We climb out of the tent and gather at the island to watch Holt put the finishing touches on dinner. He made some sort of baked chicken with orzo that smells incredible.
It hits me then why Holt is different from every other guy I’ve met before. He doesn’t need me. He’s a fully functioning adult who can take care of himself and his girls without needing his hand held.
I’m not the kind of woman who is willing to teach a man how to treat me. I don’t want to be his mommy, doing all of the wifely duties to give him an easy life without getting anything in return. I want a partner, someone I can rely on to pick up the slack when I’m not at my best because I’d do the same for them.
Nothing in life will ever be divided fifty-fifty, so I wholeheartedly believed that finding someone willing to put in the extra effort when necessary was going to be impossible. I was fine with that too. I knew I could take care of myself a whole lot better than anyone else.
Then Holt entered my life, and suddenly my idea of marriage and partnership didn’t seem so far-fetched. He isn’t dating me because he needs me to fulfill some role in his life. He’s dating me purely because he wants me here.
Holt looks up at me from behind the kitchen counter. He winks as if he knows I’m thinking about him. It makes me grin, and I start contemplating the best way to show him how grateful I am to be a part of his little family later.
The four of us settle at the table for dinner. The girls barely eat anything, too excited for our activities to focus. Weleave clean-up duty for later to set up our makeshift nail salon. I’ve laid paper towels on the table, and Leah’s tiny fingernails are spread out before me. She picked electric blue and hot pink, and it only takes me a few minutes to get the polish on her.
Lauren chose a salmon color for her nails. She grins at me the whole time I brush it on.
“Daddy, it’s your turn,” Leah says once I’m done with Lauren.
“Oh, I’m not sure I can rock the nail paint like you guys.”
“It’s nailpolish, Daaad.” Lauren rolls her eyes.
“Come on. You can have hot pink like me,” Leah offers, as if not matching was the only thing holding him back.
Holt comes over to the table to peruse the options. “How about you pick a different color for every finger?”
Leah’s eyes widen. “Like a rainbow?”
“Yeah, like a rainbow.” Holt’s heated gaze sends a flush through my face.
The girls dive into my basket of polish to choose the right colors. I raise an eyebrow, silently asking him if he’s sure. He shrugs as if to say it doesn’t really matter.
“Gia doesn’t have yellow, so you’ll have to skip it,” Lauren says as they line up the bottles.
