“Hey,” I said, and thought of reaching out to push her hair out of her eyes, but she was prickly as a cactus. “How was school?”
“Fine.”
“Any homework?”
She turned back to her tablet. “Nope.”
“What did you have for lunch?”
“Hamburger.”
“Was it good?”
She shrugged and tapped on the screen. Well, that was scraping the bottom of the barrel, wasn't it? Talking to my daughter about school lunch. I tugged on her headphones cord when she didn't look back at me, and her eyes turned back to me with a silent what?
“We'll go home earlier tonight, all right? You need more sleep.”
Her teacher had called me about her sleepiness in class and plummeting grades again, last night during the lesson with Serafina. As if we hadn't already talked about it and discussed the very not-ideal circumstances of single parenting. Unfortunately, I had an idea that her teacher, a single woman, just liked to talk and tried to find excuses to get on the phone with me, a single man with more money than Pineville had seen in a while. No teacher should call at 9:30 at night.
“Okay.” Her expression brightened slightly. “Can we have that biscuit stuff for dinner again?”
“The chicken thing?”
“Yeah.” Her eyes widened. “It was so good.”
“I'll try to figure out how she made it.”
“Who made it?”
“Serafina.”
She seemed to ponder that for a minute, then said, “I like that name. It's pretty.”
Well, that was a first. Didn't know she was capable of liking anything. “We'll try to make it together?” I asked.
Ava's nose wrinkled. “Nevermind.”
“Listen, hater,” I said, attempting some levity, “I'm great at cooking.”
Her expression suggested otherwise, and a shout from the gym called me away. “Good talk,” I said and patted the blow-up mattress she'd thrown herself onto, but she'd already turned back to her screen. Maybe the tablet was the issue. It had been loaded full enough when she came, as if Sadie let her be on it all the time. Restricting her to an hour of use a day certainly hadn't helped our relationship.
With a sigh, I let myself get drawn back into the new trainee who had just moved here for the next three months. Work called, and so did the oblivion that followed a rigorous mat routine.
While walking past the big, open wall of windows that faced Main Street—technically the only road in Pineville except for neighborhoods, and it didn't even have a stoplight—I glanced across the street to the Diner. Serafina stood out there, a dirty black apron across her rounded hips. Her hair trailed out on her back behind a hat, and she laughed, eyes bright, while talking on the phone. Did she work in the evenings? Knowing her, she went back to work to visit a friend or something.
Last night recalled into my head. Her soft body in my arms. The way she seemed so trusting. Occasionally distracted. Confident, but quiet. Her lip had healed somewhat but still seemed a bit sore. It still puzzled me. I thought she might tell me more about how she got a fat lip during the lesson, but nothing had come out.
Brother, maybe?
Friend?
I turned away, already unable to get her off my mind. Why it mattered, I didn't know. With great effort, I forced myself to focus on the mat.
The last complication I needed in my life was another woman.
The clock over the desk glared at me several hours later.
9:30.
So much for that early escape.
With a sigh, I shoved away from the paperwork my accountant, Stella Marie, had requested from me. She lived up the canyon with her boyfriend Mark and had to finagle some final paperwork back together to get our payroll running. I'd put it off too long already to accommodate the new trainee.
My eyes were bleary as I rubbed them. Ava had fallen asleep a few hours ago, or else I would have left early. Seemed stupid to wake her up too soon because then she'd be awake for hours, singing in her bed, banging her feet against the wall. I could crash here. We had a few blankets in the back.
Or maybe I just didn't want to go back to that stupid, empty, still-dirty house. I hated that house. The ringing hollow of it. It felt like a lifeless tomb. It sucked my time, energy, and mental capacity after an already long day at work, and it never felt like home.
Frustrated, I shook my head and straightened up just