by Laura Burton
Pulling back from me, Hadley catches her breath that’s heavy from kissing. But before I can find it in myself to tell her how much I enjoyed that, she beams. “If we’re on the same page, which—” she lets her head drop to the right, a little embarrassment coating her. “Maybe we can give this a second chance. Whatever it is we are.”
Breathing harshly into the night, I can’t help but grin. “I’m good with that.”
“You are?”
Her shock makes me roar with laughter. “Yeah. I’m saying I’d love that. Whatever our hold up was our first time around, maybe our timing was off. But you’re right. There’s no such thing as perfect timing anymore. Not in this narrative.”
Hadley looks up and studies my eyes until she grows wistful. Pressing her fingertips to her lips in thought until she falls into something close to silent hysteria. “But what will you tell Nora?”
“I’ll tell her our truth. That we’re seeing each other. Again.”
Her eyes are giddy with something I haven’t seen in her before. “Romantically?”
I nod. “If that feels right for you. It does for me.”
Her lips fall into a straight line as she calculates something. “It feels right for me, too. Right now. Everything about this moment.”
“Good.” Pulling her into an embrace here on the lounger, I press a single kiss to her warm forehead. “We’ll let it feel right then.”
Suddenly hearing footsteps against the wood floor just inside, we disentangle ourselves. I imagine it’s Nora coming to find us, and this is a conversation I’d like to have with her alone. But when we finally spot the culprit, it turns out to be Pepper in all her just-woken glory, causing Hadley and me to break out into a fit of laughter.
“That was close,” she whispers.
“So close. I better go get that sleepyhead.”
Hadley nods and stands right alongside me. “And this one needs to go potty before bedtime.” Heading for the door, she lets Pepper out once more for the night. “Nora’s on the bean bag,” she tells me again. “Around the corner.”
When I reach the massive cushion, I can’t help but laugh to myself. My girl is lying down, nearly swallowed by the oversized pink plush, her arms and legs outspread like a comfy starfish, her dark hair splayed above her like a halo. Carefully as to not wake her, I scoop her up. As we make it to the back door, I step out into the light and watch Hadley as she wrangles Pepper back in the house without an ounce of fight.
“Goodnight,” I whisper, lingering on the brick pavers, really not wanting to leave her at all. “Thank you again. For everything.”
“You’re welcome. It was a pleasure. As always,” she grins. She steps closer to me and admires Nora’s sleeping figure in the night. Reaching up, she pushes a few stray pieces of hair behind Nora’s ear and smiles as if she’s adoring the child like she’s her own.
That gesture alone grips my heart in a concrete chokehold with unexplored emotion.
Before Hadley lowers her hand, I intercept it and press three kisses to her knuckles, one for each of us in the sudden newness that is tonight. “We’ll be seeing you,” I promise, meaning it this time.
Hadley
“Do you want me to help with the song?” Nora asks her best friend Ryley who’s fiddling with the cord of the microphone.
Ryley, who’s wearing a matching striped party hat, nods and bats her eyelashes.
“Okay.” Nora bops over to where her friend lingers, obviously nervous to be singing in front of Parker and me. “I’m Elsa, Princess of Arendelle. And this is my sister Anna. Is it loud enough?” Nora lilts, her thin lips pressed to the Frozen-themed karaoke set microphone she’d just been gifted for her birthday. Her voice echoes throughout my living room as Parker sits on the living room floor next to Pepper, tied up in a project of his own.
Ryley claps her hands from where she sits bolstered to the arm of the couch as the karaoke words scroll across the television screen. “Can you hear her?”
“Yep,” I laugh, walking over to turn the volume down just a hair. “Loud and clear.”
“Okay, goodie! This song is going out to my best friends in the whole wide world,” Nora continues, obviously amped up on sugar from the earlier s’mores we’d eaten with a test batch of Lolli & Pop’s new flavored marshmallows that we roasted over Parker’s backyard fire pit. Not to mention the birthday cake that Nora had insisted on partaking in before our dinner even arrived. “And those are my best friends right there,” she points. “Rye and Hadley.”
“Hey,” Parker chuckles, looking up from his spot. “What am I? Chopped liver?”
“Eww! You’re one of my best friends, too, Daddy. But this is different. This is a girl’s party so you can’t count. Just for tonight.”
“Just for tonight, huh? Alright,” he nods, teasing her about the comment. Working away as we listen to a handful of Frozen tunes, he’s elbow-deep in wooden pieces, screwdrivers, and sections of railroad track as he fights to assemble the railway train set table by Adventure Town that Jerry had gotten Nora for her big day.
Pop Pop had made a quick appearance for s’mores out on Parker’s back deck as it’s only a short trek from his spot in the guest room to the back door, but he still isn’t able to move around all that much and is gladly recuperating from a successful surgery.
“Can you film us on the iPad?” Ryley asks, gingerly handing it to me just as Nora starts in on the chorus of “Let It Go,” making me grin with pride.
“Absolutely.” I pull up the video function on my device and start recording the two girls, both of them performing their little hearts out as they belt lyrics straight from their favorite movie.
Suddenly, the doorbell rings, cutting into the boisterous hubbub of my house that, just for today, Parker and I refer to as Birthday Party Central. Quick to the punch, Pepper starts barking in alert.
“Pizza must be here,” I say, about to lay the iPad down.
“Pizza’s here,” both girls squeal as they hop around like flightless baby birds while still trying to keep up with the lyrics that are now fading into the background.
Without hesitation, Parker rises from the floor and intercepts me from answering the door. “I’ve got it,” he says, as he touches my wrist and flashes me a secret smile.
Letting him take the lead, I hang back and continue to film the girls.
Parker’s only gone for two minutes as the song comes to an end.
“Alright, your performance is now officially recorded. Here you go.” I hand Nora the iPad.
She plops down on the couch, Ryley stuck to her side as they watch the video back, cackling like young witches about to brew up something important.
“You two ready to come eat?” I head toward the kitchen to meet Parker where he’s just carried the two boxes of pizza delivery. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay for dinner?” I ask him just before the little ones come bounding around the corner.
“No! He can’t stay. He’s kingy king king, and he has to go back to the castle now.”
“Aww,” I say, shooting her a sad grimace. “He can have some pizza if he wants, can’t he?”
Nora waggles her eyebrows and nods. “Yes, but remember this is a girl’s night now!” Nora points through the window to their house. “Remember?”
Knowing she’s being particularly snarky this evening, Parker shakes his head with a tilted grin, letting her get away with all her sweet-talking. Just for the night. “Seems I was given strict orders to vacate the birthday premises. From my loving daughter,” he chuckles.
“Princess Elsa. And Anna, too.”
“Alright, alright. I’m leaving,” he says, putting his hands up as the girls surround him in celebration with Pepper joining in on the rambunctious action. “I’ll circle back around for the train table tomorrow,” he whispers to me with a quick wink.
Before trying to wrangle the girls onto barstools for dinner, I follow Parker to the back door.
Leading me to the back patio, he shuts t
he door behind us for a fleeting slice of peace and quiet. Turning to me, he blinks and cocks his head. “Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?”
My eyes grow wide at his comment that seems incredibly out of place tonight as I’m head-to-toe in a very casual purple romper. I slide my hands in my pockets and shake my head. “Not sure. You’ve told me a lot of things before though, so I suppose it’s possible.”
Hooking his hands around my waist, he grins and pulls me in for a quick kiss, planting one to my jaw, another to my cheek. Then one more fleeting kiss to my lips.
“What were those for?”I ask, my voice catching in my throat.
“For everything you’ve done for those sweet little hellions in there. But in all seriousness,” he says, his face growing solemn, “it’s not lost on me how wonderful you are.”
Searching his dark eyes, I can’t help but be so incredibly grateful for this man. I slip my hands around his warm neck and bring my face closer to his, smiling. “I’m glad we’re doing this,” I whisper. Knowing he can read my mind when I say that, this singular moment in times gives me a glimpse as to how an undivided life with him could one-day maybe look.
From the other side of the threshold, I hear a giggle fit growing in volume over the karaoke microphone that I suddenly realize they’ve pulled out again.
With a shake of his head, Parker smiles. “I better leave you to it.”
“Do you want to take Jerry some cake? I feel bad he’s only seen Nora for a total of what— five minutes today?”
Parker chuckles. “He’s probably passed out in the recliner.”
“What about you?” I push a few strands of hair from my jawline. “Do you want to take some pizza with you?”
“Nope,” he says with a single shake of his head. “That’s yours. I’m hardly hungry from all the s’mores.”
“You sure?”
“Positive. Good luck sleeping tonight,” he winks, skirting my question.
“Thanks,” I laugh. “Hey, I’m gonna take one for the team and sneak you a few pieces of pizza later. I have to. In good faith, I can’t know any of it’s going to waste when you’re literally next door. You love pizza.”
He chuckles and nods in concession, takes my hand, and places a kiss to the top of my knuckles like he’d done a few nights ago. “You’re good to me like that. Enjoy the madness.”
On the other side of the closed door, sent back into the rowdiness of the dwindling party, the craziness that I’ve come to now expect in my life since taking on these youngins, I shut my eyes tight and wonder what it would be like to steal moments away with Parker on a more regular basis. Would those moments always feel so loving, so needed, so pure?
“Hadley, can we eat now?”
Pulling me from my momentary reverie, I steel myself and plaster a smile to my face. “Of course! Let’s get you two some pizza. Who wants cheese, and who wants pepperoni?”
“Cheese, cheese, cheese!” Nora says.
“Cheese, please!” Ryley joins in on the happy chorus.
“Allllright!” I gather plates, napkins, and the cherry-flavored fizzy drinks with which Parker had supplied us girls.
I offered to buy snacks, balloons, a banner, or even dinner. But he wasn’t having any of it. He made it clear from the start that I wasn’t spending a dime on Nora if he could help it. I did gift her two brand new Beach Vibes outfit for her American Girl Doll though. He didn’t have a say in that.
It’s not long before I dole out cheese pizza for all three of us. “Happy Birthday, Nora,” I smile. “Are you having a good night so far?”
She nods fiercely, her dark eyes just like her dad’s, burning furiously with a love for life. After swallowing a few more bites of her picked-over pizza, she zeroes in on me, tapping her fingers together like a mad scientist. “Can we play Truth or Dare time now?”
“Yeah! I love that game!” Ryley says.
“Wait a second. You want to play Truth or Dare?” I laugh. I hadn’t heard of that game myself until I was, at the very least, in middle school. Something close to twelve-years-old. How is it these two six-year-olds know the game? “Like the game called Truth or Dare?”
Both girls giggle and bob their heads as they continue to chew on tiny bites of pizza crust.
“Alright then. You want to go first since you’re the birthday girl?”
“Princess,” she corrects me, blinking vigorously with an amused face. “And okay.”
“Oh, the birthday princess,” I tease, changing my choice fo words.
“Truth or Dare!” she says to Rye.
“Dare!”
Nora pats her chin with a greasy finger. “I dare you to run around the couch three times and do a cartwheel into the bean bag,” she says, pointing over to where the oversized cushion is stationed on the floor.
And here we go. All I can imagine is Ryley getting dizzy and throwing up today’s party contents. All of it.
Without a single ounce of hesitation, Ryley drops her pizza to the counter, hops down from the barstool, gallops into the living room, races three full laps around my couch with flailing arms, and then makes her way over to the bean bag where she perfectly executes a cartwheel all while giggling like a little school girl being cheered on by Nora.
“Wow,” I shout as Nora and I both clap. “I’m so impressed with you. That was amazing.”
“Your turn!” Nora says, now zeroing in on me. “Truth or Dare?”
I let out a thick puff of air, knowing good and well I’m not about to be turning any tricks with all this food in my belly. “Truth?” I ask, trying not to cringe too hard.
Nora waggles those dark eyebrows of hers and whispers something into Rye’s ear, clearly acting deviously.
Ryley nods, giggles in response, and whispers something right back to her, shielding it from me with a tiny hand.
“Okay, truth. Hadley, do you love my Daddy?”
Ryley squeals as she watches, picking a patch of cheese from her pizza slice that’s now only half-eaten.
Nearly choking on my beverage, I shove half of my crust into my mouth to buy me some time to formulate an answer, chasing it with yet another sip of punch. “Love?” I finally ask, trying to hide my smile. I hadn’t even used that word with him yet. Not our first time around, and certainly not the second time. “That’s an awfully big word.”
“No, it’s not,” Nora laughs.
“Yeah, it’s only four letters,” Ryley says, counting on her fingers.
Nora nods in support and smiles wide as the ocean as she stares at me, studying my eyes and facial expression for any sign of a clue of my coming answer.
“Well, I care about your dad a lot,” I finally say, willing my cheeks not to go red. “He’s a very nice man.”
“Yeah, but do ya love him?” she asks, planting her elbows on the table as she props her head on eager fists. Her sporadic blinks are indicative of how thrilled she is for an answer.
Letting out a long, worried sigh, I nod. “I guess that I do. I love your dad for how generous and fun he is. For how good he is with you. Plus, he’s super funny, right? Does that answer work?”
The two girls giggle in tandem, obviously smitten with themselves for having persuaded such an answer out of me, and as I watch them fawn over my sentiment, I can’t help but wonder how I’d feel if I were to directly tell Parker I love him myself.
Parker
Grabbing the remote from where it sits on my dad’s knee in the recliner, I press the power button, turning off the old rerun episode of M*A*S*H. He’d fallen asleep a good half hour ago at eleven, but I don’t want the noise of the show to wake him again. He needs his rest while he’s on the mend.
Grabbing my cell phone, I consider texting Hadley just to see how she’s handling things this late into the night. When I’d left, the pizza was hot, the noise level had spiked, and the air in her living room basically tasted like sugar from all the sweet treats the gals had consumed so far. I can only imagine what dial they’re on by now.
Me: How are you holding up?
Ever since Hadley and I agreed to give our relationship a second shot, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her. Knowing that we’d given up so easily the first time around, I want to make sure I do everything I can to show her how grateful I am for her, how appreciative I am that she’s in my life in such a capacity— in any capacity really. Especially regarding Nora.
As I unload clean dishes from my dishwasher to busy my mind, I hear my phone beep from the counter.
Hadley: So far, so good. They’re down for the count.
Me: Glad to hear that. Can I meet you outside?
Hadley: Yes! But I’m warning you— I may or may not be on a sugar high, too. You want your pizza now?
Me: No. I just want you.
Grabbing the box I’d left in the middle of the kitchen table by the French doors, I slide it into my pocket and head over to Hadley’s.
“Are you sick of them yet?” I ask once I see her coming out the back door as I cross our yards.
“Can’t say that I am. They’re quite angelic as long as they’re sleeping.”
Glancing down at my watch, I realize the time now. “Quarter til midnight. How’d you get ‘em down already?”
“Magic,” she says, waving her fingertips at me as she meets me for a warm hug under the July moon.
Happy as anything to have some alone time with her, I wrap my arms around her, holding her tight, gently swaying her to let her know how much I care about her.
“Or maybe it was the Truth or Dare that did them in.”
Pulling back, I glance down at her. “What? Truth or Dare?”
“Oh, yes.” Hadley slips her hand into mine and leads me over to the lounger where I sit next to her. “Your six-year-old daughter totally somehow knows how to play Truth or Dare.”
“That’s alarming.”
“Tell me about it,” she laughs. “She asked some hard-hitting questions, too. Believe you me.”
Furrowing my brow, I shake my head. No way. Not my little girl. “Like what?”