“You do!” a voice piped up out of the blue from the other side of the kitchen door, and I laughed thinking of Peter walking by right on time to overhear that.
Grandpa Gus groaned as he opened the refrigerator door and pulled out the tray of carrots, broccoli, and oranges he had prepped hours ago, and the hummus dip he’d made then too. “I am being nice,” he tried to argue as he set the tray in the center of the island as Mo reached up blindly and snagged a handful of my hair, making me whine. “Yesterday, I taught him how to puree Mo’s food, and I only criticized him once.”
My mouth dropped open in pain and surprise as I started trying to pluck her little fingers off again. “Only once?”
“Your sarcasm isn’t appreciated.”
“But yours is?”
He made a face, but I knew he was just trying to keep from cracking up.
“He’s all right, but don’t hold your breath. I’ll think about it. I’m still not crazy about the idea of him only coming and going a few months every year.”
Which reminded me that I really needed to ask him what the hell his plan was—where he was going to go play, where he would live during his off-season, and maybe ten other questions too.
I told myself I wasn’t ready for that conversation.
“It’s a long time, Lenny,” Grandpa Gus went on. “A real dad wouldn’t leave his daughter for half the year.”
I sighed, knowing he had a point, knowing how I felt about that point, but… “It’s his job, and it’s what he’s worked for his entire life. You think I’m going to tell him to give up on it? How would you feel if someone told me that I shouldn’t practice judo anymore all because I was a mom? If I still could compete on that level, I mean.”
The face he made said he knew the answer to that question.
But the truth was, I didn’t know how we were going to make it work either. A rugby season was long and brutal. We lived on different continents. Seeing each other only twice a year for a couple months wasn’t enough, but what the hell could you do? We were going to have to figure it out someday, but that day wasn’t going to be this one.
I’d looked at the calendar, and according to what I remembered about rugby season dates, we had a little over a month before he had to fly back to France or New Zealand or wherever the hell he was going to go for his next season.
“We’ll figure it out,” I said, only hearing the lump in my throat when it was too late.
Grandpa narrowed his eyes, and I was pretty damn sure he had heard the ping-pong ball that had taken up shop in my vocal cords. “What was that?”
“Nothing.”
“I heard it. What was it?” he asked again, squinting just a little more, like that was going to help him sniff out my bullshit better.
I lifted Mo into the air and said, “Nothing.”
“I swear on my mother’s life—”
That had me breaking into a laugh.
“Don’t laugh! She was a wonderful woman.”
I laughed even more.
“Okay, she was mean and beat me every chance she had, but she was still my mother… and what were we talking about?”
I blew a raspberry against Mo’s belly, earning me a squeal and a short stream of babble, before lowering her down to settle on her feet. “Do I need to start looking up homes for people with memory impairments?”
Grandpa Gus stood there and shook his head slowly, even reaching for his heart. “After everything I’ve done for you….”
“Just kidding. With your vampire DNA, you’re probably done aging for the next ten years.”
“I’m thinking fifteen.”
I rolled my eyes with a groan and bounced my girl on her feet. “Did you close your bedroom already?”
My vampire grandpa sighed. “No, buy the pay-per-view while I do that.”
I followed after him through the door, hitching Mo to my hip as she babbled from my shoulder. “I know kiddo, Grandpa is crazy. Can you say that? Cra-zy.”
I glanced at the clock, knowing she was going to start winding down pretty soon. She hadn’t napped long enough earlier, and I knew it was going to hit her hard and fast. Everyone said I was so lucky that she slept so much, but it still didn’t feel like enough when I didn’t go to bed at the same time she did.
By the time I had dropped Mo off on the floor in the living room and gone back and forth twice to grab the tray of veggies and the bowl of chips, the doorbell had rang twice. The first time, Vince and another guy from the gym had come in, heading back out toward the back deck after a moment to get the burgers that Peter was grilling, calling out a hi. But the second time, Peter, who had wandered back inside the house, had answered it, coming back with a tall figure.
“Hello,” Jonah’s voice greeted Mo and me from where we were in the living room. She was sitting beside me with three of her big blocks while I tried to buy the pay-per-view via text message.
“Hey,” I replied just as Peter walked off holding a plastic bag. “Where are your mom and sister?”
“Long day. They decided to stay at the hotel, but Natia sends her love. Mum had me bring a plate over. I gave it to Peter,” he explained. “Only me tonight, if that’s all right.”
I made a farting sound that had him smiling as he approached and dropped to his knees, Mo’s face lighting up as two big—and now familiar hands—reached for her middle, the fingers doing something that made me think he was trying to tickle her, but wasn’t too sure about it. I told my heart to close its eyes even as she laughed.
“Does she hate me and decided to stay?” I asked him as I leaned back on my free hand.
A hint of a smile crossed the side of the face closest to me. “Yeah, nah. I think you may have frightened her a bit.”
“Me?”
The side of his mouth hitched up high. “My mum can’t be the first person who doesn’t know what to do with you. I still don’t know what to do with you half the time. But she was falling asleep on the drive to the hotel after lunch. She is tired. They both are.”
I was going to take that as a compliment.
Those trying-to-tickle fingers paused as Mo raised a hand to her face and made an agitated sound. “What’s wrong, sweetheart? I’m sorry I’m late.” He peeked at his watch. “Oh, no. You’re tired. It’s almost bedtime, isn’t it?”
“She didn’t sleep much when I took her back to the office with me.”
“She stayed with you the entire afternoon?”
“Yeah. I left an hour early, but it’s one of the benefits of being the underboss.”
He looked up at me from under those thick, dark eyelashes. “I wouldn’t use the word ‘under.’ Seems to me everyone listens to you just fine.”
Mo decided right then she’d had enough and made another fussy, cranky sound. “Okay, I hear you, kiddo. It’s okay,” I told her, scooping her up. “I’m going to put her to bed. There are veggie and turkey burgers outside, and Peter is manning the grill, so you don’t have to worry that Grandpa Gus will spit on your food or anything.”
He got up right along with me, a lot more nimbly than I did and faster, and I wasn’t going to admire it. “I’d rather come along with you.”