Scandalous Scotsman - M.J. Fields Page 0,50
light in her eyes, and her nose is scrunched up.
“That Tonya is troublesome. What did she do now?” I ask, craving her inane humor.
“She will not shut up about this guy that she thinks is totally hot and all sorts of swoon-worthy.”
“Is that even a thing?”
She grins. “Oh, yeah, it is.”
“Interesting.” I squat down beside her car. “Also, interesting, you’ll need to unblock me so that I can text if I get antsy about Kai being gone.”
“Oh. Oh, so that’s a thing?” She nods, looking for her phone.
When she’s finished unblocking me, I snatch it away from her and stand.
“Hey!” She laughs. “I swear I …”
She stops talking when I pull out the waistband of my shorts and take a picture.
“What are you doing?” She laughs.
“Never sent ye one, and I’m feeling like ye need to remember what ye’re missing out on and what’s missing ye. Might entice ye one of these nights to cross the road, use the code, head up the stairs, open the door on the very end, and …” I stop rambling as I inquisitively scroll through her recent pictures and see one that shocks me. “Well, fuck.”
She leans out. “What? Bad angle?”
“No. Interesting, though.” I turn the phone toward her to show her.
She gasps. “Give me that thing!”
“Care to explain?”
“No, not at all.” She snatches the phone, and I can’t help laughing.
“Still need an explanation as to what those two bananas, one with the foreskin— I mean, the peel— missing at the top is all about.”
She swats at me playfully through the window, and I catch her hand, squat down again, and hold it to my face. Turning into it, I kiss her palm, watching her face as her eyes darken.
When she rubs my cheek with her thumb, I close my eyes.
“You’re an amazing father, Ethan James Stewart,” she whispers.
I open my eyes and sigh. “Doing the best I can.”
“You’re doing it very well.”
“She has to go to her grandparents’ tonight, and I think I’m going to lose my fucking mind. Every day she seems better and better. I really hope there are no setbacks.”
“I can tell when my students are transitioning from one home to another at first, but after a few months, it becomes routine. The easier it is for you, the easier it will be for her.”
“Ye’ve been a teacher all of two weeks, and ye can see that already?”
“I was a long-term sub last year for Mrs. Kennedy, the woman whose position I filled.”
“I hate that I have to share that time with them when they made me fight for every fucking minute.”
“Daddy!”
Elizabeth pulls her hand back, and I stand up and see her standing on the sidewalk across the road. Even though there isn’t anything coming, I want her instinct to be to check it out. “Look both ways, Kai. Twice, okay?”
I watch her as she does it.
“Nothing coming.”
“One more time.”
She does it one more time.
“Okay.”
I sent Elizabeth a message and asked that she and Kai meet me for lunch after yoga, and she did.
Kai still isn’t chatty in public, but she sure does make up for it at home. However, when her grandparents showed up, she immediately went to whisper mode.
When they pulled away, she watched me out the window of their car as I stood there, waving. Not sure how long it was, but Elizabeth pulled into her driveway and started unloading groceries.
She waved to me and smiled. I nodded, and then she waved me over.
I grab the two bags still in her trunk and walk into her kitchen.
“I didn’t wave you over to carry groceries. I thought I passed a car with Kai. Or, at least I think it was Kai, because she waved to me.”
Sighing, I set the bags down and run my fingers through my hair. “They didn’t even ask me how her first two weeks of school were.”
“Maybe they have more faith in you than you know.”
“Or maybe the cruise they took the day after she moved in and returned from yesterday is over, and they want to make my life hell.”
“I saw the custody paperwork in her file.”
“Is that so?” I ask.
She looks over her shoulder at me. “Does that bother you?”
“No, not at all.”
“Good, because from what I saw, you have no need to worry. And aside from the first day accident, she’s done extraordinarily well. They have no reason to take you back to court, Ethan.” She closes the fridge and laughs. “And you have the whole school behind you.”
“Is that