Stripped Down (28 page)

I snorted. “If you think that’s unfair, I’d advise staying six forever.”

“No. I’m going to grow up tomorrow. I bet you can go swimming if you have a tummy ache.”

“Well, that is a perk of being a grown-up.” I put her dress in her bag and turned to her underwear drawer.

Why did this child never have matching socks? Sure, there was a bunch of white ones, but why the hell were all the patterns completely different?

“CiCi, why are all of your socks mismatched?”

She sat up and looked at me. “I don’t know. You wash them.”

“Attitude,” I scolded her. “Yes, I wash them, but you put them away. I know I pair some of them before I give them to you.”

“I don’t know. Maybe the monsters ate them. Like in Monsters Inc.”

“I’m pretty sure they couldn’t touch human things, much less eat them.” I rolled my eyes, and... “Aha! Got it.” I rolled the two matching socks together and put them in the bag.

Thank God for that. That could have gotten ugly between me and the socks real fast.

“Don’t forget Cookie.” She handed me the stuffed cat, and I dutifully tucked her into the princess backpack. “Have you thought about the pool and school thing?”

Good lord. “Yes.” I zipped the backpack. “If you go in the pool, you go to school. If you don’t go to school tomorrow, you don’t get to play in the pool.”

“Mommyyyyy.” Her whine echoed around the room, and she dropped herself back onto the bed with another flourish. “That’s just not fair.”

“I told you—don’t grow up, then.” I grabbed her bag. “I’ll be downstairs. Come down with your swimsuit when you’re in a better mood or you won’t be going in the pool at all. Understand?”

She glared at me, but she nodded anyway. She didn’t have much of a choice. She knew I wasn’t messing around. It was the pool and school or nothing at all. She could whine and protest all she damn well wanted. If she could eat a pancake and a cupcake without barely taking a breath, according to West, she could go to school in eighteen hours.

I dropped her backpack at the bottom of the stairs and left it there as I walked into the front room. Already, I could hear her footsteps in her room above me. I guessed her sulking hadn’t lasted that long. I wasn’t that surprised. She loved that goddamn pool more than she loved the ponies she so carefully looked after.

The deep rumble of Beck’s Range Rover sounded through the open front window. Not even the air conditioning was killing the midafternoon temperatures, so I had the windows open, like it’d help. I had been wrong. It wasn’t any cooler at all, but it certainly helped to find out when he was there.

The sound of his engine died. A moment of silence was followed by two rapid knocks at the door then a, “Hello?”

“Hey,” I called back.

He came in, if the shutting of the door was anything to go by. “All right?” He appeared in the doorway of the living room, a lopsided grin on his face. “Where’s CiCi?”

“Upstairs. Lamenting the unfairness of her life.” I turned the volume on the TV down and switched the channel.

“She’s six. What could possibly be so unfair?”

“Everything!” CiCi stormed past him and put her hands on her hips. In quick succession, she relayed what I’d said about the pool and going to school. In much more dramatic fashion, of course. I was a horrible, horrible person, unfit for adulting, if you asked her.

“Ciara Gallagher,” I said firmly. “I suggest you tone down your attitude before I burn a hole in your swimsuit and make you go to school tomorrow. Go and stand in that corner for six minutes and think very carefully about what you’re going to say when you get out of it. If I were you, I’d make sure there’s an apology in whatever you plan to say.”

Her brown eyes glared at me for half a second before she stomped off into the corner. She accompanied it with a sigh, and I took a deep breath. I counted to three before I let it go and then walked out of the room.

Damn.

That attitude stunk.

“So,” Beck said, joining me in the kitchen. “Is that what you said about a tantrum?”

“Nope.” I spun to meet his gaze. “That’s a mild bitch. A tantrum is full-on screaming, stamping, and downright horribleness. And that’s just my response.”

“Wow.”

“You really thought that was a tantrum?”

“Shut up,” he muttered. His eyes still sparkled though. “For the ignorant, it was, perhaps.”

“That was nothing close to a tantrum. Even for the deaf. You have so much to learn.” I patted his upper arm, and he laughed, grabbing me before I could fully move away.

He spun me into him, clasped one arm around my shoulders, and kissed me through a smile. It was the best kind of kiss. Mostly because he was too busy smiling at me to actually kiss me, and somehow, that felt far more like happiness than his lips fully on mine.

“Ewwww!” CiCi’s loud exclamation cut through the air.

I jumped back from Beck. Unfortunately, I was only an inch from the counter, so my butt rammed right into it, and I yelped in pain. My hand found my butt, and I rubbed it as my gaze landed on my daughter.

“Are you done with your attitude?”

“Why were you kissing?” she asked, her face screwed right up. “Kissing is yucky.”

“Are you done with your attitude?” I repeated. My cheeks burned, and god, I hoped she didn’t notice.

CiCi pursed her lips. “Yes.”

“Have you decided what you’re doing to do?”

“I’m going to go to school tomorrow.” Her tone was so grumpy that you’d have thought I had asked her to clean her bedroom.

“Good choice. Did you find your swimsuit?”

She shook her head.

“Then go find it.” I pointed out the door. “Shoo.”

“Are you going to kiss again?”

“Ciara.”

“What? It’s yucky.”

“Ciara.
Now
.”

She turned and walked out of the kitchen without another word. I stared after her as she went. I couldn’t help but shake my head the entire time.

She was... Well, I didn’t know, but she was something between a nightmare and a sweetheart.

“Is it wrong,” Beck started in a quiet voice, “that it’s kinda fucking hot when you do that.”

“When I do what? Tell her what to do?”

“Yeah. It’s the voice. You’re totally a hot mom.”

“Isn’t the term MILF?”

“You want me to call you a MILF, Blondie? Because ‘Mom I’d like to fuck’ isn’t the correct terminology.”

I pursed my lips. “Watch your mouth. I don’t want to be hauled into school to have to her teachers ask why she’s got the mouth of a sailor.”

“I’m sorry, I must have mistaken you for having the mouth of a saint.”

“I swear to god I will stick a baseball bat so far up your—”

“Got it!” CiCi yelled. Heavy, elephant-like stomps followed as she ran across the hall above us and took to the stairs. She came into the kitchen swinging it around like it was a flag and she’d just claimed a new planet. “See? Got it!”

“Put it in your backpack, please.” I ignored the blatant blinking of her big, brown eyes. “No, don’t look at me like that. You still have to apologize for your attitude before we go anywhere. Are you ready to do that?”

She didn’t move for an entire minute. Silence rattled in the air around the kitchen as she clearly considered what I was proposing. Her attention darted toward Beck and back to me, her gaze flipping like a yo-yo.

“Yes,” she slowly said. She turned her full attention on me. “Sorry, Mommy.”

I looked at her intently. Seeing an apology she meant over one she’d said for the sake of it was an art. However, she seemed like she meant this one.

“Okay. You’re forgiven. Go put your suit in your bag and we’ll leave soon.”

“Okay.” She hesitated for a minute before her gaze moved toward Beck. It hovered there before she ran across the room and hugged him from the side. It was over before I could blink, and she ran out of the room like a bat out of Hell.

“She’s a good kid.” He stared at the door for a moment before looking at me. “You know she’s going to ask about that kiss.”

“Mhmm.” I walked past him and upstairs to go into the bathroom to grab our toothbrushes.

“What are you going to tell her?”

Of course he’d followed me.

“I’m going to tell her that, when adults like each other a lot, sometimes, they kiss.” And prepare myself for the awkward questions that would inevitably follow.

“She’s going to laugh you out the country if you try to leave it at that.”

I turned, clutching our toothbrushes, and caught the upturn of his lips. “Yes, but I’m Mom, which means I don’t have to explain anything I don’t want to.”

“Is that in the same vein as ‘because I said so’?”

“Nothing is in the same vein as ‘because I said so.’ That totally stands alone. Nothing even comes close to that baby of an excuse.”

“Why?”

I looked him dead in the eye and said, “Because I said so.”

Slowly, his lips tugged up, and with a chuckle, he replied, “Well played, Blondie.”

I flashed him a grin. Then I darted past him, back downstairs, and into front room, where my overnight bag was on the sofa. I tucked the toothbrushes inside and grabbed the hairbrush from the coffee table. I shuffled through what was in the bag and, satisfied that I had everything I needed, zipped it with a flourish.

“Ready?” Beck asked, standing in the doorway.

“Yep. Where’s CiCi?”

“Upstairs. Sounds like she’s telling Pirate Sparkle how unfair her life is.”

I blinked at him. “Do you mean Twilight Sparkle?”

“I don’t know. Do I?”

“I think you do.” I smiled. “It’s a pony.”

“I’m not even going to ask you to elaborate. Rapunzel I can manage. Ponies with questionable names? That’s gonna take a little time.”

I didn’t blame him. Even I couldn’t keep track of those things. I had no idea how CiCi managed it. The six-year-old mind was a curious and wonderful thing.

“CiCi!” I yelled. “Let’s go. Come on.”

“Okay.”

It took her a couple of seconds, but I eventually heard the tell-tale elephant-like stomps of her running across the floor and down the stairs. She ran into the front room, stopping with a jump and a giant grin.

“Let’s go. I’m ready.”

“All right then. As long as no pirate ponies are coming,” Beck said.

She frowned at him. “Pirate ponies?”

“Never mind. Let’s go.” I picked the bag up and steered CiCi toward the door by her shoulder.

If we got into the ponies, we’d never get away from the conversation, and the day had been far too long and far too emotional for that crap.

We were in the car, pulling away from the house, when she asked her next question. Unfortunately for me, it was the thing I didn’t want to answer.

“Mommy. Why were you two kissing?”

Beck glanced at me, his lips teasing into a smile.

“Because, when two adults like each other, sometimes, they kiss each other.”

“Aren’t you worried about cooties?”

“No. Cooties are only for children. You’re not allowed to kiss when you’re children, and cooties are your punishment.”

“Harsh,” Beck whispered, chuckling.

I glared at him sideways. Maybe, but she was too young to kiss.

“Oh, okay. Did you get a cootie shot, then?”

“Yes. We both got cootie shots on our twenty-first birthdays.”

“Can I have one when I’m twenty-one?”

“Sure. You just can’t kiss anyone before then.”

“I don’t want to kiss anyone. It’s all sloppy and slippery and yucky.”

“Yep. Sure is.”

Beck looked a little offended. It was hard not to laugh at him.

“Do I have to see you kissing anymore? That was definitely sloppy.”

“Hey!” Beck said, glancing at her in the mirror. “I’ll have you know I’m not a sloppy kisser.”

“Then why is Mommy laughing?”

“Because Mommy’s silly.”

CiCi giggled in the back, and I shook my head, still smiling. In this moment, we felt a lot like something she’d never experienced.

Family.

It was a strange and unusual feeling, to have someone joke with her the way I did, but it didn’t feel...wrong. It felt like it was something that would slowly cement itself into our lives... Become our lives.

And, for the first time, I was okay with it.

I was okay with letting somebody else love her because I didn’t really think he’d break her heart.

I woke to an empty bed and sunlight streaming through the window. Panic grasped me, and I sat up straight, scanning Beck’s room for a clock. I found it on his nightstand, and I breathed a sigh of relief as the numbers blinked back at me. It was only seven a.m. I still had time to get up and get CiCi ready for school.

I slipped out of the bed and quickly got dressed. I doubted that my shorts were appropriate for working behind a bar, but then again, said bar was in a strip club. If anything, I was going to be overdressed by the time the other girls came out.

It was strange. It’d been several days since I’d danced. Usually, my own form of female contact came from the interactions in the dressing rooms, and despite the bitchiness that happened, I’d craved it because I had been so desperate for it. But, now...I didn’t miss it at all. I didn’t know if it was because of Mia or because I didn’t need it as much as I’d thought I did, but I didn’t.