“I…uh…I have seen your bedroom,” I say. “It’s always clean and tidy.”
Her eyes go wide and a blush spreads across her cheeks. “You…you’ve seen my room?”
“It’s across from mine, hard not to, right?”
Hard being the key fucking word here. Cause yeah, that shit’s happening between my legs again.
“Yeah, true. I can see yours, too. Not that I’m trying to look or anything. It’s just that sometimes when I’m up late studying, you have your light on, and your blinds open, and like you said, our windows are directly across from one another.” A nervous laugh catches in her throat. “I could toss you a slice of pizza. Sometimes I bring a pie home with me.” As she rambles on, I take in the flush on her cheeks. Damn if she isn’t sexy when flustered.
“Rachel.”
She stops for a moment, takes a deep breath, and lets it out slowly. “Yeah?”
“Can you hand me the broom?” I gesture toward it, and she steps into the kitchen to hand it to me.
“I’m not like my roommates though,” she starts up again. “And I want to apolog—”
“Daddy, what happened?” Cassie gasps as she pokes her head into the kitchen, her big blue eyes wide as she takes in the broken dishes. “You’re bleeding.” She makes a move toward me, but Rachel runs and grabs her before she can walk on the glass.
“I dropped a couple plates, and it’s just a little scratch. Stay there, okay, and get your shoes on. I don’t want you to get cut. And say hello to our new friend Rachel. She’s the client I’m giving a drive to.”
Rachel crouches down to Cassie’s height, and smiles at her. “Hello, Cassie. I’ve seen you around but we’ve never really met before.”
“You’re Daddy’s friend?”
“Yes.”
Cassie crinkles her nose. “You’re a girl.”
“I am.”
“Does the mean you’re his girlfriend?”
“No, no,” Rachel says quickly and explains the difference between girl friend, and girlfriend.
“You’re pretty,” Cassie says, and I glance up to see her holding her brush and elastics out. “Daddy was going to braid my hair and make me pretty, too.”
“You don’t need your hair braided to make you pretty, but how about I do it for you, since your dad has to put a bandage on his hand.”
Cassie leans into Rachel. “Daddy makes Nightmare Moon.”
“Nightmare Moon, what is that?”
“Her name is Princess Luna but when she’s evil they call her Nightmare Moon.”
“So you’re saying your dad makes evil braids?”
“I can hear you,” I say, but my heart is in my throat as I see how quickly my child has taken to our neighbor. Cassie has seen her around of course, and they’ve waved in passing, so truthfully Rachel isn’t a stranger to her. None of the college girls next door are.
Rachel giggles with Cassie, and in my heart I know how much my little girl needs a mother, one who isn’t an addict and chose a life of drugs and partying over her family. I tried to help her, I really did, but in the end, she ran off with her dealer, without so much as a glance at us in the rearview mirror. I guess we weren’t enough for her to get clean. Then again, I was labeled a lowlife and was never enough for anyone to stick around. But I plan to do everything in my power to be enough for Cassie. Outside of her grandparents I’m all she has.
My in-laws were always worried about me taking care of Cassie—considering my past—when they should have been worried about their own daughter. But they didn’t know what was really going on behind closed doors, and I didn’t want to be the one to shatter their image of their sweet Sarah, a college-educated girl from an upper-class family who veered off track. They blame me for that, but I was slowing down on the partying scene when I met her, and gave it up completely after Cassie was born.
“I think I want a ponytail, like you,” Cassie says, bringing my thoughts back.
“Easy enough.” Rachel holds her hand out for the brush and elastics, and Cassie hands them to her.
Rachel stands, and turns Cassie around. As she combs out my daughter’s hair, I sweep up the rest of the glass, wash and bandage my finger, then grab Cassie’s lunch from the fridge. I drop the food into her plastic lunchbox, and look up to find the two girls chatting quietly.
“Are you two whispering about me?” I ask
“No,” they both say in unison, but from the grin on Rachel’s face, I know it’s a lie.
“All right, come on. Let’s get you both to school.”
“You go to school?” Cassie asks Rachel as we make our way downstairs and back outside.
“I do?”
“What grade are you in?”
“Well, I’m in college?”
“What’s college?”
Rachel glances at me and I shake my head. “Chatty Cassie,” I say.
I open the door to the back seat as Rachel grabs her backpack from her car. “In you go, kiddo.”
Cassie climbs into her car-seat and buckles herself in. “Good?” I ask.
“Good?” she says and picks up her mock iPad and turns it on. As music blares, Rachel slides into the passenger seat. Once we’re all buckled up, I back out of the driveway and head to Cassie’s school.
Rachel casts me a glance. “You have your hands full.”
I scrub my chin and flick on my signal. “Yeah. She’s definitely a full-time job, but I wouldn’t change it for the world.” Rachel shifts restlessly beside me, and I don’t miss the curiosity in her big brown eyes. “What?”
“It’s not my business, but I take it her mom’s not in the picture.”
I stiffen and grip the steering wheel tighter, and Rachel holds her hands up, palms out. “Sorry, none of my business. I wasn’t trying to pry.”
“No, it’s okay. I just…” I pause, not wanting to divulge too much about myself. “You’re right, her mom’s not in the picture. She left a couple years ago and we’ve not seen her since.
