“Okay, okay, it’s for a site. I had to send it. So they can size you. For Christmas!” She kept adding on phrases as if she was building the story as she went.
I was beginning to become very afraid where exactly my photo was on the internet.
In retrospect, I should have questioned her further. I should have demanded her passcode so I could find that picture and destroy it.
My abs were nothing to be ashamed of, but times weren’t quite tough enough that I needed to use them to make a living—yet.
But I was very tired. And I just wanted a hot shower. In peace. Those three minutes surrounded by tiles, pressurized water, and silence were drawing me like a siren’s call.
That was why I muttered, “Keep an eye on those pancakes,” and sprinted for freedom.
I stretched the shower into five minutes and emerged feeling semi-human. I brushed my teeth three times to extend my escape—a blissful time when I didn’t have to consider my ex’s motivations or my daughter’s machinations—and came back downstairs in my standard work uniform of jeans, a white T-shirt, and Timberlands.
Ready for work, I was.
However, I was not ready to see Karen and Dani sitting at the table eating pancakes and passing her phone back and forth as if it was a nuclear reactor.
As soon as they saw me, they stopped laughing and playing keep away and soberly dug into their breakfasts.
“Food’s all done,” Dani said cheerfully. “It’s delicious. Thanks, Dad.”
Noticing she’d already made me a plate—or Karen had—I grumbled out a thanks and sat opposite them at the table. Almost immediately, my phone began to vibrate on the counter where I’d left it. My stomach was rumbling, so I ignored it in favor of scarfing down the pancakes. They were really good.
See, who needed a wife? I was quite capable in the kitchen.
Quite capable in all facets of my life, minus parenting. But I was beginning to think some body-swapping had occurred with the aliens while Dani had been visiting her mother in California.
It was as good an explanation as any other.
The phone vibrations started again. After that, they pretty much didn’t stop.
Dani and Karen looked at each other, their mouths full of food, their expressions equally nervous.
My heartbeat went into triple-time. She hadn’t emailed her mother. Hadn’t uploaded a picture to some clothing site for measurement purposes.
Dear God, what had she done?
Rather than ask her, I decided to see for myself. I wiped my suddenly damp palms on my jeans and stood, determined to stoically meet my fate.
Then I picked up my cell and saw the hundreds of notifications tagging me on Instagram.
It took only one of them—“I’ll help Gideon Get It Done, just give me a time and place”—for me to tuck my phone in my pocket.
Nope. Forget meeting my fate. Whatever my daughter had seen fit to do to her wonderful, loving, devoted father, I was not going to find out right now.
I was going to work.
Four
“Macy, we need another holiday blend.”
Clara’s sharp voice actually made me pause on my way through the door from the kitchen. A line of people snaked through the dining room. Instead of looking disgruntled by the wait, most were more focused on looking around.
And the ratio of women to men was alarming.
Phones were out, but that wasn’t the weird thing. Everyone had their damn phones attached to their hands these days. But people were sharing their screens and craning their necks as if there had been some celebrity sighting. One of the rockers from a few towns over had to be visiting again.
Then again Ian Kagan’s fanbase usually skewed a bit younger.