She shrugs. “It’s secret,” she whispers, a grin popping onto her face.
“Hey, no secrets from Mommy.”
“It’s a secret because she doesn’t know where we’re going either,” I say. “Are you coming or do you have something to do with school today?” It’s Friday. Sometimes, she does and others, she doesn’t.
“I’m free. I was going to try to talk to Carey today, but this sounds like more fun. Whatever it is.”
I grin and lean over to kiss her. Savannah doesn’t even say ew anymore. That’s a good thing, isn’t it? That she’s so used to us showing affection that it no longer fazes her. She needs to see me loving on Sydney and treating her right, so when she gets older, she knows to accept nothing less. The thought of Savannah dating makes me frown.
“What is it?” Sydney asks as she catches sight of it.
“Just thinking about how she’ll be dating eventually. We had it easy because of the distance and being sneaky. I don’t think I could let Savannah hang out at a guy’s house like your dad let you when you came to see me at Christmas. And I definitely would’ve waited up to make sure she came home from prom instead of slinking over to spend the night with some sleazeball in a hotel room.” There are other choice words I’d rather use, but since Savannah’s little ears are listening, I substituted them with something other than a cuss word. Sleazeball has to be better than fucker if she happens to repeat that.
Sydney laughs. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves or weirdly call yourself a sleazeball. You were a great guy even back then.”
I scoff because if I take myself out of it and put in some random guy and think of Savannah as Sydney, then no. The guy was a jerk who got his girl to trust him so he could have sex with her whenever he saw her. Thinking of it like this sheds things in an entirely new light.
“Stop it, Ian,” Sydney whispers. “I mean it. We’re not worrying about whatever guy she’ll bring home and you aren’t allowed to reexamine the past. Give me a kiss and get over it.” She leans up and kisses me instead.
Begrudgingly, I focus on finishing our breakfast and what lies ahead. With having the day off, I knew I was going to spend it with Savannah one way or another. I was up earlier than I wanted to be considering I didn’t get too much sleep last night between getting home late, talking to Sydney, and then the fucking. But I needed to figure out what we were doing and wake up in time to make sure Sydney didn’t take her to daycare.
The first thing I thought about was a museum. But then, I figured she was probably too young to really be interested in whatever she might see. That’s when I remembered seeing a billboard about an aquarium. It’s like the bells were ringing in my head. So, that’s what we’re doing today. There’s not one in Raleigh, so we’re taking a mini road trip.
Once we’re on the interstate and I set my phone by the gearshift, Sydney realizes I’m using the GPS and glances over at me. “Ah, Ian, where are we going?”
“To Concord to the aquarium.” I flick my eyes to the rearview mirror. “We’re going to see a bunch of pretty fish like in The Little Mermaid,” I say to Savannah.
She is immediately excited, but Sydney talks over her. “That’s a little over two hours away.”
“Yeah, babe. I know.”
“What if I hadn’t have come?”
“Then I would’ve told you where we were going and would’ve had to find a way to entertain her for two hours. What are you getting upset over?”
She immediately takes a deep breath. “Right. I’m not upset. I just didn’t expect to be going all the way to Charlotte today.”
“I wanna see the fishies!” Savannah shouts to be heard over Sydney.
“Me too, but they are far away, so we have to be patient while I drive us there,” I tell her.
Savannah starts singing her version of “Under the Sea” and that’s all we hear for two hours. Sydney seems to relax and whatever she was about to get upset about has all but disappeared. Good. Today should be a good day with Savannah, and that means things need to be good with Sydney and me.
“Have you heard from your mom or dad lately?” Sydney asks as I find a place to park.
“Texted them both this morning about us getting married. Haven’t looked at Mom’s messages. Dad’s happy for us.”
“You told them in a text?”
I briefly glance over at her with an are you serious? look. “I’m not calling my mom and didn’t feel like talking to my dad.”
“Daddy?”
“Yeah, Savannah?”
“Are fishies here?”
“Yep.”