“Hi, Mr Maverick.” She smiles up at me.
“Hi, Ellie, good to see you again.” I reply, putting the bottles of beer into the cooler.
Looking at Wyatt, I see him beaming with pride at his granddaughter, one arm resting around her lap, keeping her in place on his knee.
“So, Ellie...” I start. “Are you looking forward to tomorrow?” I ask her, trying to make some form of conversation with my girls daughter. Taking another beer from the pile, I pop the cap off.
“Yes!” she squeals. “Are you coming?” She asks me. She really is as cute as a button.
“Am I invited?” I ask her taking a sip.
“Of course, wait, hold on,” she turns her head over her shoulder and looks back at Wyatt.
“Gramps, can Mr Maverick come?” She turns her head over her shoulder back at Wyatt who lets out a laugh.
“I reckon we can squeeze one more in for you, Ellie-belly.”
There it is… the nickname.
I freeze in my seat
Damn, I really hoped they all called her that. My heart swells at the memory of her name and where it came from. Even though I left, its bringing me comfort that Mabel tried to live our life out as much as possible.
The house, Ellie; I wonder what else she’s done in the memory of us, of the life that we should’ve had, that I carelessly walked away from.
Leaning back into my chair, I hold onto my bottle with a tight grip, taking in my surroundings. Ellie is talking away at me, telling me about her favourite things in the world, what class she’s in at school and how she spends her time on the ranch.
I hardly get a word in with her talking and it offers me a familiar fondness; she’s just like her mom.
I gaze at her in awe, studying her as she rambles on about almost everything anormal nine-year-old girls rambles on about.
“So, what about you, Mr Maverick? What’s your favourite colour?” She asks, by this point she is almost sitting on my lap she is so close to me.
“Well, Ellie, my favourite colour is orange,” I answer back to her, looking into her eyes.
“What kind of orange?” she asks, now she’s hanging on every word I’m about to say, and the feeling makes me nervous.
Truthfully, my favourite colour has always been her mama’s hair. The dark auburn that always flowed so softly down her back, that would always get caught in my fingers as I kissed her lips. The hair that I’d always push behind her ears so I could study her face so much better when I looked longingly into her eyes, seeing every piece of her heart and our future.
The same colour that as we got older, I’d breath in like a drug, sinking her smell into my flesh as we made love out in the open field that we claimed as ours.
“Just orange.” I smile back at Ellie shrugging my shoulders, giving her as much as I want to pass along.
“Like my mama’s hair,” she exclaims, and I snort; girl hit the nail right on the head there.
“What about my hair?” I hear, snapping my neck in the direction her voice came from. Mabelstruts out from the kitchen doors and pauses, hand on her hip, eyebrows raised; my eyes flicker back towards Ellie.
“Mr Maverick was saying his favourite colour was orange, Mama, and I said just like your hair!” Ellie explains, moving away from me and towards Mabel.
“That so, huh?” Mabels eyes automatically dart to mine, eyebrows still raised. I give her a subtle shrug before looking back down at my beer bottle.
“Well, office is all shut up. Come on Ellie-Belly, time to head home.” Mabel looks back down at her daughter.
“Aww, Mama, can’t we stay here a little longer?” Ellie whines famously like she had done earlier today, when Mabel rescued me from my dilemma that is called Stallion.
Mabel looks down with a grin and shakes her head. “No can-do, Sugar, we all got a long day tomorrow.” She winks at her daughter.
“I know, Mama. Mr Maverick said he’s coming too.” Ellie looks back at me and now I feel awkward as fuck again.
