by Emma Hart
Selfishly, I still needed Elliott.
I was a horrible person. A horrible, horrible person.
I put my purse down by the front door and quietly made my way upstairs. The gentle sound of his voice shushing tiny, helpless cries tugged at my heartstrings, and I had to take a deep breath before I could go up the last few stairs.
“Hey, princess, it’s okay,” I heard him say softly. “It doesn’t matter. I can change your bed. You want the pony sheets or the princess ones?”
“Cindewella,” she sniffed.
What was I doing here? I should have just gone. Left a note. Texted him.
Texting sounded good…
“Okay, let me get that. Give me two seconds.” I turned to walk down the stairs right as he stepped out of the bathroom.
His eyes caught mine before I could dart away and get away from Dad Elliott. “Peyton?”
I cocked a thumb awkwardly. “I was, uh…I should go.”
He nodded, understanding clouding his eyes. “I get it. But, could you just…actually, never mind. It’s fine.”
Don’t ask. Don’t ask.
“What?” I asked.
Idiot.
“It’s fine,” he replied.
“No, what?”
He said nothing.
“Elliott Daniel Sloane!”
“Jesus.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Only my mother uses my middle name.”
I hit him with a look she’d probably be damn well proud of.
“Fine.” He dropped his hand with vigor. “Could you just watch Bri for a minute? She was a little sick, and I have to change her bed sheets. She’s in the bath, or I wouldn’t ask. It went in her hair, and…” He trailed off with a shudder.
Oh. Oh, damn.
“Uh.”
Think fast, Peyton. Think fast!
“Sure,” was what came out of my mouth. I’d done it before, and I could do it again. Hell, I’d once bathed two three-year-old boys in a college babysitting stint. They’d bathed me, too.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. I promise. Go change her bed. I can watch her.”
He shot me the most grateful look I’d ever been on the end of and darted back into the bathroom. “Bri, Daddy’s friend is going to watch you while I change your bed, okay? I’ll be two minutes.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
I looked at him, then slipped into the bathroom. It wasn’t huge. Just big enough that I could sit on the toilet to watch Briony in the water.
She was beautiful.
Sure, her blonde hair was damp with sweat, and she was pale, but there was no denying that she was one of the prettiest kids I’d ever seen. She had the biggest eyes, even if they were saddened by her tummy ache. The most perfect little button nose and ribbon lips finished off her baby features.
“Hi,” I said softly.
She looked up at me. “Hi,” she whispered. “Are you Peydon?”
I put down the toilet seat and perched on the edge of it. “I am. Are you Briony?”
A tiny smile twitched at her lips. “I am. And I sick.”
“I know. Your daddy said. How do you feel, sweetie?”
“My tummy hurts. And I gotted sick in my hair.” She picked up a chunk of her blonde hair and looked at it. Immediately, she wrinkled up her face and dropped it. “I need a shampoo.”
I looked at the bottle that had a princess on the side. The word “shampoo” was in big, bold letters, and Briony reached for it. She unscrewed the top and squeezed the bottle. Bright blue gel landed in her palm with a quiet plop.
“Oh—you need to make your hair wet first,” I said before she could put the shampoo on her hair. “Here. Let me help you. Turn around.”
I got up and pulled the showerhead down from its holder. Starting the water, I carefully tested the temperature of the water as she hummed along to a tune I didn’t recognize.
“Is this too hot?” I asked.
She stuck her hand under the stream of water. “Good.”
“Okay, good. Tilt your head back. I don’t want to get it in your eyes.”
Briony leaned her head so far back I thought she might topple backward. She closed her eyes and even put her hand over them to protect them. I couldn’t help the smile that stretched over my face as I brought the shower head close to her head.
She was adorable.
I took extra care to wash her hair. She held the showerhead while I gently worked the shampoo into her hair and handed it back so I could rinse it.
“‘Ditioner, too?” she asked when I pulled the showerhead away.
“Sure.”
She reached forward and picked up another brightly-colored bottle, then handed it to me and took the shower head. I ran the conditioner through her hair, then did the rinse thing again.
“There you go. All done.” I shut off the water, replaced the shower head, and squeezed the extra water out of her hair.
She spun around in the tub and smiled up at me with as much brightness as a kid with the stomach flu could muster. It was more than I expected—but, then again, sometimes a good hair wash could do wonders.
“Fank you,” she said with a tiny lisp.
I sat back on the toilet with a smile. “You’re very welcome.”
She dropped her head and looked at the mermaid toy she had in her hand. The bright red hair gave it away as Ariel, even if she was completely naked.
Ah. She cut Barbie’s hair, and her doll was naked. She was a classic little girl.
That made me smile, too.
“Are you all done?” Elliott leaned against the doorframe and looked at us both. “Hey! Did you wash your hair all by yourself?”
“No! Silly Daddy. Peydon did it.”
Peydon.
That was adorable.
“She do it best than you.” She grinned at him. “I ready to ged out now.”
“Better than me?” Elliott feigned shock as he pulled a pink towel from a bar on the wall. “Careful on your steps.”
Briony stood up and almost rolled over the side of the tub onto the plastic kids steps on the floor. She almost slipped on the wet plastic but managed to stay upright until Elliott wrapped her in the fluffy towel and scooped her up.
“How’s your tummy feel?” he asked.
I followed him out of the bathroom.
“Bedder. I tired, Daddy.”
I caught his eye and motioned to go downstairs. He smiled and nodded, and I left him to dry her and change her.
The pizza boxes drew my attention instantly.
I no longer cared if it was rude. I could feel my mind gearing up to go a million miles an hour, so I checked both pizza boxes and grabbed mine, then sat down on the sofa.
The wet cushion.
I squealed and jumped up, almost dropping the pizza box as the wetness went through the thin material of my dress. I quickly darted over the room to the safety of the armchair and sat in it.
Then tugged up my dress so I didn’t have to sit on the damp material.
What? Nobody wants their tushy to be wet.
I took a bite of the pizza slice.
Why was I here? What was I doing? Shouldn’t I have left by now?
What had possessed me to wash Briony’s hair? To do something so gentle to such a beautiful kid who was born to someone I hated.
Or… did I? Hate him?
Not only was my entire perception of junior prom onward apparently misconstrued, but seeing him with his little girl?
Excuse you, ovaries.
You don’t get to go boom. You get to slam your whore legs shut and fry those eggs instead of releasing them.
Seeing him with Briony was dangerous. He was so soft, so gentle. So tanned against her paler skin. They were night and day. He was dark where she was light, and she was tiny where he was large.
He should not have been able to be so gentle with her. And, honestly, to my annoyance, the hottest thing I’d seen in a long time was him picking up his sick toddler while sh
e was wrapped in a hot pink towel.
How was I ever supposed to scratch that out of my mind?
Oh. That’s right. I wasn’t.
I slammed the pizza crust into the box and snatched up another piece, only to tear off a bite. I was almost a Neanderthal, and this was almost certainly pizza abuse. No pizza deserved to be eaten by a pack of wild dogs.
Which was how my annoyance was making me eat this.
Like a savage.
A sexually-frustrated, emotionally confused savage.
Ugh. I ripped off another piece of pizza and chewed.
It was cold. Thank God it was pizza. It was, after all, one of the only things that tasted good cold.
Pizza, best served cold. Right up there with revenge.
Ahh, revenge…
Did I have a plot for revenge? Was revenge on the cards? Was revenge anything I had justification for?
This sucked.
Had I been a typical woman and held a grudge for ten years for no reason?
Man, that was not a slice of humble pie I wanted to eat. I bet it wouldn’t taste as good as this pizza.
I finished the second slice. I dropped the crust on top of the other and grabbed the third slice. I was halfway through it when the light dimmed drastically.
Looking up, I saw the reason why. Elliott was filling the entire doorway, and apparently, it’d gotten dark during my thinking session.
“It’s dark,” he said, confirming my suspicions.
“I was hungry,” I said through a mouthful of pizza. “Sorry.”
He stared at me for a second, then laughed as he twisted the dial to turn the lights up to full brightness. “Don’t worry. Is it really cold?”
I nodded solemnly, taking another bite.
“Hey. Cold Dominos is the best. Don’t look so sad.”
Man. He was a couple conversations away from having the potential to be my soulmate.
Shut up. I took pizza seriously.
I took yet another bite. I didn’t want to speak. I wanted to eat. I was still hungry. I was hungry and torn and frustrated.
So, I ate.
I nibbled down to the crust of the third piece of pizza before I lost my appetite. I dropped that, too, then stared at the rest of the pizza.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Elliott put down his second slice.
“You know,” he said, “You didn’t have to do what you did.”
“What did I do?” I closed the box and leaned over to put it on the table.
“Washing Bri’s hair.”
I shrugged a shoulder. “She was going to try to do it with her hair dry. That wouldn’t have worked. I was helping her.”
His lips twitched. “Sure. Thank you.”
“It’s no big deal.” I smiled, even though I felt a little awkward. It had been a spontaneous decision, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about being that nice.
“So…Did you want to finish what we started?”
I paused, staring at him.
“High school conversation,” he said slowly, a grin stretching across his face.
“I don’t know why you’re grinning. It makes me want to punch myself in the face. And you, for that matter.” My expression had to be the total opposite of his.
“I’m not smiling about high school. I’m smiling because you looked, for a minute, like you thought I was talking about something else.”
“Yeah, well, we need to get on with finishing that, too,” I muttered. I sighed and adjusted how I was sitting in the chair. “Fine. You were going to tell me what happened at homecoming?”
Elliott shifted, almost uncomfortably. “Actually, I need to start with prom.”
I leaned back and folded my arms across my chest. I even tapped my foot for good measure. This didn’t sound good, and I wasn’t sure I actually wanted to hear it anymore.
“I didn’t stand you up deliberately,” he started. “About an hour before I was going to leave, my mom got a call from the hospital that’d been treating my grandmother. She’d had a stroke that afternoon and died.”
Oh my god.
“She threw me into the car still wearing my suit. I didn’t even have time to grab my phone to tell you I wouldn’t be there.” He ran his hand through his hair. “And then, you wouldn’t listen to me. I thought you might be coming around when your car got egged.”
I swallowed. “By you.”
He shook his head. “I had nothing to do with it. I knew you thought I did, and that’s why I pretty much gave up trying to explain to you what happened.”
“There was a note on my windshield signed by you,” I told him. “Even the writing was similar.”
“I swear to you, Peyton, it wasn’t me. I was trying to make it up to you—why would I do something to hurt you when you were already mad at me?”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to think anymore.
“As for homecoming…I told Todd I needed a favor. He was trying to get on the football team, so I told him that if he decided not to take you to homecoming so that I could, I’d talk to the coach about him.” Elliott rubbed his hand across his mouth. “He agreed.”
“So? What happened?”
“I got sick. I wasn’t even in school that day, and I didn’t have your number. You changed it after prom, and as far as I knew, told every person in our year that if they ever gave me your number that you’d make their life a living hell.”
I shifted awkwardly. “Only hypothetically.”
“Well, apparently, you were serious enough that they all believed you.” His lips twitched to the side. “To be honest, if you told me that, I’d have believed you, too.”
Shrugging one shoulder, I said, “So, what you’re telling me is that I’ve hated you for years for no reason?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I could have done more to make you listen. Whether I meant to or not, I hurt you, and I don’t think I ever took responsibility for that.”
“It wasn’t your fault, though,” I said quietly. “You had no control over the situation, and I was a stubborn bitch.” Some things didn’t change. “I don’t—I don’t know how I feel about this.”
I knew staying was a bad idea.
When would I learn to listen to my gut?
Elliott’s dark gaze was steady on me, but I saw no judgment. I saw no anger or frustration from him.
In fact, his gaze was almost reserved. Like he was holding in any emotions except for the hint of regret that had tinged all his words.
I knew one thing. I couldn’t be here right now. It was such a stupid thing, but I was angry. I was furious.
At myself.
At teenage Peyton.
And more than anything, I needed to process.
“I have to go,” I said, standing up. I grabbed my purse from the table, almost knocking over the wine glass in the process, and walked toward the door.
“Peyton…” He followed me with silent footsteps.
I turned and looked at him, keeping my hand on the doorknob. “I have to process this, Elliott. I don’t know how I feel about this or how I’m supposed to.”
“You have a habit of ignoring me when I do—or say—something you don’t like.” Hurt flashed in his eyes for a split second.
A hurt I felt clenching in my stomach.
“I’m not the person I was in high school. Just like you aren’t. I’m not running away, but you have to understand that for the last ten years, I thought you hurt me deliberately.” Admitting that wasn’t easy, and now, the hurt was spreading through my body. “To find out that you didn’t, that you were in your own kind of pain and I never knew because I ignored you is something I need to think over. I need to process everything you just told me, because believe it or not, this changes everything.”
He looked me in the eye, then reached up and pushed my bangs from my eyes. He said nothing, but he didn’t need to. His silence said more than he ever could.
I opened the door and walked out without another word. I didn’t have a cab
or any way to get home, but I didn’t care right now.
I just walked.
And walked.
And walked.
Until I reached one of the most familiar-to-me buildings in this city.
I knocked on the door, knowing I was about to get my ass chewed out for waking her up.
The windows on the door gave way to a wavy reflection, illuminated by the lights in the hallway. After a couple of clicks and the tell-tale tick of the key turning, the door opened.
Mimi looked at me as if she wanted to kill me. She opened her mouth to speak, but whatever she was going to say never came out. Instead, her expression softened, the tired frustration in her eyes quickly giving way to love.
“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” I said quietly. “But can I stay with you tonight?”
“Oh, darlin’.” She pulled me to her and hugged me tightly, stroking my hair and kissing it. “You always can. Come on in here. Let me get you hot cocoa and make your bed for you.”
“I can make the bed,” I said as she dragged me inside. “I woke you up. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you dare be sorry,” she scolded me. “You’re sad. I’m the person you come to when you’re sad. So, I’m gonna make you hot cocoa, and you’re gonna sit down while I get your bed done. Got it?”
I nodded. “I got it.”
I followed her into the kitchen where she bustled about to make the cocoa. From scratch.
I must have looked really fucking miserable. Cocoa from scratch was a rare thing, and almost always happened if someone had died.
And, in a way, something had died.
But I couldn’t think about it. Just twenty minutes ago I’d left Elliott at his door with the declaration that I needed to process, and here I was, ignoring it. Like I was in denial.
“Mimi?”
“Yes, darlin’?”
“What would you do if you got information that had the potential to not only change what you’ve believed for ten years, but also made you realize you were wrong and could change everything you think you know right now?”
“That’s a loaded question, ain’t it?” She poured the cocoa from the pot into a giant Piglet mug. She put the pot in the sink, then slid me the mug across the table. “I guess that would depend on how much it would change my life.”
“Probably a lot,” I admitted.
“Then, I would take all the time I needed to really think it through.”