Not just so I can ask out a hot single dad who might actually say yes.
But so that this place can keep working miracles for more people like me and Ginny and all of us here.
24
THE DATING GAMES
Heath
Bedtime with Lav lasts an eternity.
She insists on a bubble bath instead of a regular bath tonight. “Dragon slayers need pampering, Daddy,” she says.
Once she’s out of the bath and I’ve combed her hair and braided it—“I want curly hair tomorrow, Daddy,”—she asks for three extra chapters in the latest Phoebe Moon book that we’ve been reading together.
I finally get her tucked in with the lights off, her white noise machine playing, and her door closed, and then the singing starts.
So.
Much.
Singing.
The clock tells me it’s only 8:45, but it feels like midnight.
I check my email, then curse myself for it when I see my mother-in-law’s name at the top of the list.
Blocking her would be easy, but I need these emails. I need to see how unhinged she is at any given time.
I need to know how much I need to protect my daughter.
Why thefuckcan’t my mother-in-law just leave us alone? When will she take the hint?
I forward it to my attorney and ask him to resend the formal notice that they’re not welcome in our lives anymore.
And then I push my in-laws out of my head and try to pass the time playing with the cat, but she’s uninterested in chasing a feather on a string, or in pouncing on the light from a laser pointer, or in doing anything beyond staring at me like she wants me to know that the minute I do what I’ve wanted to do more and more with each passing minute today, she intends to cause chaos.
She still has a few specks of glitter on her face, and Cricket found Pip’s stash of catnip and confirmed it is, in fact, catnip and nothing I need to call the vet about.
I make myself wait another thirty minutes—thirty long, slow, mind-numbing minutes with my anxiety growing exponentially by the second and my cock getting hard as granite.
And finally—finally—I let myself open the door to the basement, hustle down the stairs as quietly as I can hustle down stairs, and knock on Cricket’s door.
Then I knock again.
And once more, this time more urgently.
I’m about to knock a fourth time when the door swings open, and there she is.
Cricket, with her face glowing like she just washed it, a pink terrycloth headband holding her dark hair back from her face, lips glistening.
In silky-looking pink pajama shorts and a matching button-up top.
My heart thumps hard once, and then it breaks into a steady rhythm whisperingthis is the one.
Everything will be fine.
Happiness is here.
