We hopped into the truck and within minutes we were pulling into the elementary school pickup line. A little blonde ball of energy raced for the truck once it caught her eye. She shoved a flower she had just picked into her bright pinkbackpack.
Abel jumped out of the driver’s seat, scooping the running girl into his large arms. He swallowed her up tight into his chest, placing kisses all over her giggling face. Once he got her buckled into the backseat, he pointed up tome.
“Raine, I want you to meet a new friend ofmine.”
She waved and bounced in her seat. “Hi! What’s yourname?”
I waved, holding back the giddiness that fluttered in my chest after watching such a tough guy melt into a puddle of mushy gushy feelings and love once his daughter was in hisarms.
“It’s very nice to meet you Raine, I’mCrickett.”
She giggled. “I like thatname.”
“Yeah? Thanks. I like yours a lot,too.”
“Want to see Miss Gilda?” She chirped while digging through herbag.
“Sure.”
She victoriously held up a little unicorn-looking rubber ducky with a rainbow tail andmane.
“She’s so pretty!” I exclaimed as Raine smiled wide, holding her little plastic friend to herchest.
“Thanks.” Raine beamed, still bouncing in her seat. “Here.” She grabbed the flower out of her bag. “This is foryou.”
I choked from the flood of feels that rushed over me as I took the white daisy from the little girl’s hand. “That is so pretty. Thank you, Raine. We’ll put it in water when we get youhome.”
Abel grabbed my hand, mouthing, “Thankyou.”
I mouthed back, “Of course,” squeezing his handback.
“Crickett?” Raine called from thebackseat.
“Yes?” I turned in my seat, resting my chin on thebackrest.
“You’re pretty. You should be my newmommy.”
Fire burned my chest, neck, and cheeks as Abel choked and laughed from the front seat. Thankfully he savedme.
“Raine, honey, Crickett and I are just friends, but hopefully she’ll be able to hang out with us a little bit while she’s intown.”
“Miss Gilda and I would really like that,” she stated while bouncing the rubber toy on her knee and looking out thewindow.
When we got back to Abel’s house, Raine showed me her pretty pink princess room with all of her dolls and toys. She and I played for hours, coloring and playing Barbies, marrying Ken and Barbie—Barbie even rode into her wedding on the back of Miss Gilda. Abel left us to go to the garage to help the guys with my car for a while, and I was kind of glad to have a little one-on-one time with Raine. She was such a sparkling light that my spirits were lifted right away and I felt like I had been in this little girl’s life for years, not justhours.
Before I knew it, Abel was calling up to both of us that dinner was ready. Talk about time freaking flying by. It was so wonderful to spend an afternoon completely carefree with a child that was so sweet andinnocent.
We ate pizza while Raine chattered away with her dad about her day at school and told him all about how much fun we’d had playingtogether.
“All right, you little princess. It’s time for a bath and then off to bed withyou.”
She crossed her arms and gave him puppy dog eyes. “But I’m not…” She took in a deep breath as a yawn escaped. “Slllleeeepppyyy…”
Abel let out a soft laugh, lifting her into his arms. “How about you go take a bath and then Crickett can read you a story beforebed?”
He looked up at me to make sure that was ok. I smiled and gave him a quick nod. “That sounds like fun, Raine. Besides, doesn’t Miss Gilda need a bath too? She played a whole lottoday.”
She shrugged. “Yeah.Ok.”
With her dad’s pinky in her hand, they marched up the stairs to thebath.
“There’s beer in the fridge, this won’t take long. Make yourself athome.”
I grabbed a cup of water and watched a Friends rerun while I waited for my cue to head up for story time. My heart felt so full of love and emotion seeing such a loving father with his daughter. I knew there had been times like that with my dad, but most of those memories had been lost along theway.
I could tell that Abel and Raine weren’t the only ones that lived in this huge house. It was a total dude’s house too, except for the explosion of pinkish-purples in Raine’s room. The walls barely had art on them, there was mostly beer in the fridge—other than stuff for Raine—and the smell of bachelor pad emanated from every room. I hoped that none of them came through the door to find me on the couch by myself in theirhome.
