“Wasn’t Theo like eleven?” I smirked a little.
“Yup, yup,” he chuckled. “I’ll go and grab the kids. I’m starving.”
Ash, on the other hand, had been the tiniest baby, a little underdeveloped due to his biological mother’s drug addiction. An addiction he’d been born with too. And then…he’d recovered and grown at a rapid rate. Through kindergarten and up to third grade, he’d been the cutest chubby boy.
I showed Micah those pictures sometimes so he wouldn’t feel bad about himself. It was one thing to manage his sugar intake and make sure he ate his vegetables, but he was much too young to get a complex. He hadn’t hit his growth spurt yet.
By the time I took the garlic bread out of the oven, Ash returned with Lily thrown over his shoulder. Micah was right behind them, and Dylan and Hallie followed shortly after, still bickering with each other.
“You know what you could do instead of bitching and moaning?” Ash asked them, helping Lily down. He adjusted the booster seat in her chair too. “You can help me solve a mystery where our prime suspect is this little princess.”
“Me? I’m the princess, Daddy!”
I sat down at one end of the table and pushed the salad bowl to Hallie.
“You sure are.” Ash dug something out of his pocket, then slapped a handful of whatever that was on the table next to her. “Are these yours?”
I leaned closer to see what it was. Tiny resin ducks?
Lily scrunched her nose. “No? I don’t have any ducks on my farm. Can I have them?”
Ash furrowed his brow and sat down at the other head of the table. “Then who the hell do they belong to? I keep finding them everywhere.”
“Some people collect them.” Hallie shrugged.
“Can I have them, Daddy?” Lily demanded. “Irepeatmyself.”
Dylan and I laughed.
“Oh—well, excuse me, Your Highness,” Ash said. “I didn’t hear you the first time. Yes, you may have them.”
“Yay! Thank you!” She went to line up the little ducks in front of her plate.
“Where are you finding them?” I asked.
“My truck, at work, sometimes in my clothes… I worked a construction gig the other week, and when I went to grab my tool belt, I found one in there too. I don’t get it.”
“Sounds like it’s someone at work,” Hallie offered. “Don’t you have some employees who bring children with them sometimes?”
Ash had doubts. “Mags and Russ bring theirs occasionally when they have office hours, but their girls are, what, twelve or thirteen?” He filled his plate with a big serving of lasagna, and the salad seemed to be more of a decoration. “I guess I can ask them.”
“You have that team-building event coming up too, right?” I wondered. “I talked to Theo—he said you’re gonna go golfing at some nice resort.”
“Which course?” Dylan was suddenly interested in the topic.
“Landsdowne. It’s a spa and golf resort out in Leesburg. If I like it, you and I are definitely going.” Ash ruffled the boy’s hair, which Dylan hadn’t appreciated in years. But he did appreciate going golfing with his dad. “I’m mostly looking forward to the steakhouse and a nice schvitz, though.”
We’d file that under images I didn’t need at the forefront of my mind, Ash sweating it up in a sauna.
Maybe we should go back to discussing ducks.
Maybe I should also get my shit together, come to terms with everything going on, and create more distance between Ash and me. Otherwise, I’d never stand a chance.
I didn’t know if I stood a chance, regardless, but I was getting desperate.
Desperate to become my own person again, and yet…highly fucking unwilling. How many times am I gonna rewatch our wedding video? And how is that going to help me move on?
But I guess it’s all there in my vows to you.
