No Quick Fix (Torus Intercession 1)

“Does retired Navy SEAL count?”

She squeaked. It was cute. “SEAL.” She sighed and put her hand on her chest.

Olivia tugged on my hand, and I gave her my attention.

“What?”

“How come people care that you worked with seals? Dolphins would be better.”

“I one hundred percent agree.”

A quick call later to the sheriff, and I was cleared to go on the field trip.

On the trail, I turned to Olivia, feeling like crap. “Aww, dude, I forgot about Winston. Is he going to pee in the house?”

She giggled. “That’s what the doggie door is for, Brann. Duh.”

I scowled at her, which sent her into peals of laughter. “You’re a real smartass, you know.”

She waggled her eyebrows at me. “Yeah, I know. Can you show us all what not to eat now?”

I could do that.

Emery wasn’t there when we all got home that afternoon, and after April fed Winston, and Olivia gave him fresh water, we took him with us when we walked first to the dojo and then down three more doors to where April had fencing practice.

“You can sword fight?” I asked April, excited over the news.

“Yeah,” she said, beaming up at me. “You want me to teach you?”

“Shit yeah.”

She laughed at me as Olivia told me to not use the word shit. It was naughty.

I went back-and-forth between the two girls for the next hour, checking on both, Winston trotting along dutifully beside me, and I was at the halfway point when they came running out to find me.

That night, we all caught Emery up with the events of our day.

“I think Mrs. Nakama liked Brann a lot,” Olivia reported to her father. “She turned pink when he held her hand to make sure she didn’t fall.”

Emery grinned at me. “You’re like a knight in shining armor, aren’t you?”

“Not quite,” I teased him, passing him the steamed broccoli.

“I think you’re being modest,” he assured me. “And that too is a lovely quality.”

During the rest of the rehash, I left out April’s and my chat with Mrs. Dabney, because he’d told me I didn’t have to check in with him on everything, and since it was all fixed, repeating what had gone on, and the resolution, seemed useless. Besides, I was doing what I was supposed to—removing obstacles for his girls and taking care of them when he wasn’t around. As it was, he had more than enough to respond to between April talking to him about the bombing of Pearl Harbor and listening to Olivia dramatically explain the horror she felt deep in her heart when no one in her class besides the girls on her soccer team knew who Lionel Messi was.

“It was just so awful,” she told her father as I pretended to cough so I wouldn’t laugh.

After having fun doing the dishes together and talking some more, when the girls went to shower, I took Winston for a walk, checking in on Jenny Rubio’s house in the process, while Emery graded papers. When I got back, he was lying on the floor in the living room, arms and legs flung out, eyes closed as Olivia and April sat close and giggled.

“What happened?” I asked after locking the door behind me.

“Dad is giving up on teaching because some of his students are so stupid.”

“Oh, come on, that’s mean.”

Without opening his eyes, Emery pointed at the coffee table. Crossing the room, I picked up a paper that appeared to be bleeding with how much red pen he’d used.

“Before the Industrial War,” I read and then glanced at the man lying prone, all rumpled and sexy in his sweats, a long-sleeved t-shirt, and crew socks. “Did I miss something?” He shook his head. “When, uhm, did the Industrial War occur?”

“After the Industrial Revolution, of course,” he said dramatically.

I laughed all the way to the kitchen for water, and he stayed there, on the floor, until his girls attacked him and he chased them around the house.

It would be so easy to get used to this.

That night, after the girls headed to bed, I went in and kissed them both goodnight. When Emery followed me, I thought maybe we’d have time, just the two of us, to talk. But he got a call from Lydia and went to take it in his bedroom. I was reminded then that the man did not belong to me, and it hurt more than I was ready for it to.

Later as I was lying in bed, texting Huck on my phone, I heard the creaking of the floorboards right outside my door, like he was standing there, then nothing for several seconds before there was the same sound again, as though he’d walked away.

I thought a long time about that.

I decided, during the second week, that even though I loved being in the house, putting some distance between myself and Emery was the smart thing to do. I was so attached already, and when I talked to Huck at night, he was all over me about taking a night off from being the nanny to drive somewhere and get laid.