“Esme.” She points at herself with her other hand, then flings it at Galen, breadcrumbs spilling from her little fingers. “Toi, t’es qui?”
I don’t know if Galen speaks any more French than Bhodi, but he figures it out. “I’m Galen and I like your hat.”
It’s a boys’ beanie. She stole it from her friend Lucian at nursery and won’t give it back. Which means I’ve had to talk to Lucian’s mum every day for the last week and I can still smell her dizzying perfume lodged in my nostrils. Feel her unwelcome hand on my arm as she tried to persuade me her kid and mine needed a playdate and a pretend wedding.
Fuck that.
The beanie’s cool, though. It’s the same green as Galen’s eyes and it has another truck on it—afiretruck, I realise.
Esme tugs her hat off and tries to give it to Galen.
He laughs again. “No, thank you, Miss Esme. Your ears will get cold, and we can’t have that, can we?”
Absolutely not. Shit like that keeps me awake at night when I’m not thinking about auburn-haired firefighters doing unspeakable things to me. Things I can’t begin to picture right now, even with Galen so close I can smell that apple pie scent clinging to his pale Irish skin.
I wrangle the hat back on Esme’s head and rise, leaving her with her wellies planted on the ground.
Galen stays at her level another moment and hands over the bread bag. It’s a win for her, but I let it slide while I contemplate the dusting of crumbs Galen now has in his hair. As I lose the fight to reach out and brush them away.
The contact makes Galen smile. “It looks good on you.”
“What does?”
“Being a girl dad.”
“She’s wearing a boy’s hat.”
“Sab, that’s not what I meant.”
The way he breathes my name does something unquantifiable to me. Something that has no business in a public park. Or a soul as defeated as mine.
I reckon he knows it too, as his boyish smile softens and he holds my gaze with enough intensity that I have to call on Esme to rescue me. “We’re going to feed the ducks.”
“Les canards,” she echoes brightly. But instead of taking my outstretched hand, she reaches for Galen’s instead, treating him with the same mischievous authority she does Bhodi. “Tu viens aussi!”
You’re coming too. A command that needs no translation, but I still scramble to offer Galen an out. “Galen might be busy, mon petit cœur.”
Beside me, Galen snorts. “I’d miss every dinner for a week to hear you speak French like that.”
“Like what?”
Galen grins with a sly spark in his eye. “That’s talk for another day, boy. Show me these ducks.”
And so we do. At least, Esme does, while I stand by and try not to melt into the icy ground at how good with her he is. And let me fucking tell you, I’ve never felt this way watching Bhodi with my baby girl. Never felt this longing in my chest that makes me want to simultaneously die and live forever.
It hurts. And yet I’m so locked into it, I don’t realise how much time has passed when Esme runs from Galen’s arms to mine to tell me she’s hungry.
Merde. We’ve been at the park so long we’ve missed lunch. We’ve fed the ducks, played on the swings and the slide, and explored the decorated bandstand.
Esme’s done all these things before. With me. With Tam and Bhodi. With my parents the last time they came to visit. But it’s not a stretch to believe her laugh is a little louder with Galen. Her smile a little brighter.
Or maybe it’s mine.
Regardless, as Galen joins us by the bandstand steps, hair mussed by the wind, cheeks flushed with cold, a fit of madness overcomes me.
“Do you want to have lunch with us?”
“Lunch?”
