The First Taste (Slip of the Tongue 2)

“No. Never mind, Bell. Get your stuff.”

Jutting her bottom lip, she climbs off my lap and twirls around between the seats, teetering, hopping, almost flying off the bleachers. She gasps. “Ohhh. I know why you were talking to her.”

I grab the strap of her gym bag, haul it up to the seat below me, and unzip it. “Shoes.”

“Don’t you want to know what I know?”

I get her cardigan out along with her flats. “Nope.”

“She wants to kiss you,” Bell screams loudly enough to make everyone in the gym look over. She makes a kissy face, sticks her butt out, and wiggles. “She lo-o-o-ves you,” she sings. “She wants to ki-i-i-ss you.”

“Stop it,” I say. “I’m warning you.”

She jumps up on the bench and spins in a circle.

“Get down.”

“All the teachers and mommies want to kiss my daddy,” she croons. “He’s the most handsome, most nicest daddy—” She stumbles over her own two feet and falls onto her knees, nearly toppling over the side before I grab her.

“Goddamn it, Bell,” I shout, pulling her to her feet. “I told you to get down.”

She looks up at me silently, her eyes wide.

I’m instantly chastened by my own reprimand. I rarely yell at her, but the combination of intentionally defying me and risking her safety in the process makes me snap.

Her face crumbles, and she hiccups with her first wave of tears. “I-I’m s-sorry.”

“Ah, shit.” I run both hands through my hair, sit on the bench, and pull her onto the seat next to me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you.”

When I put an arm around her, she turns into my chest and sobs. I have to restrain from crushing her. “I’m sorry, Bluebell. I’m not mad. I’m just—” I shake my head. “You don’t understand what you’re saying, and I’ve told you—it’s inappropriate.”

She warbles something unintelligible.

“Why do you keep talking about kissing?” I ask, pushing through my discomfort. “Are you curious about it?”

She pulls on my t-shirt a few seconds and lets go to look up into my face. “I don’t know. When I go to Sarah’s house, her mom kisses her dad. Is it bad?”

My stupid, hard heart cracks down the middle. I take her hand and close both of mine around it. “No, it’s not bad.”

She looks around a little bit, her brows furrowed. “But you get mad.”

I’m a bad parent. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. My heart hammers. Whether or not I’m ready, we’re having this conversation. “What do you want to know?”

“Why don’t you have a girlfriend to kiss? Like other dads? Don’t you want one?”

I close my eyes. What . . . the . . . fuck. She’s just a little girl. How can she possibly be thinking about this, much less worrying about it? “I’m not like other dads, Bell.”

“I know,” she says, as if it’s a fact. “Does that mean you won’t ever have someone like Sarah’s mom? Her parents are happy when they kiss.”

“Do you think I’m not—” I swallow through the lump in my throat. “Not happy?”

“I don’t know.”

“You make me so happy, Bell. Daddy is very, very happy.”

“If you do find someone to kiss, then what? Will you go somewhere else?”

I cinch my eyebrows together. “Where would I go?”

“I don’t know. You kissed my mom. She left.”

“I . . .” I look down at our hands. “I didn’t know you remembered that.”

“Not really. I don’t remember anything. Don’t be sad.”

She’s lying to protect me, something she most likely learned from me. “I’m not sad. I’m glad you remember, I just didn’t know you were thinking about all this.” I have to breathe through my mouth for a few seconds to quell the pain in my chest. “You have questions about your mom?”

“I think so, but I know she makes you sad, and I don’t want that.”

I have tried, with every fiber of my being, to shield Bell from all this. I keep it inside as much as possible, and I never talk about Shana in front of her. It’s beyond me how she’s figured this out, though it shouldn’t be, because she continues to surprise me daily. “You’re getting so goddamn smart and big. How? When?”

“I’m not big. I’m still half your size.”

I chuckle. “Yeah. What do you want for dinner?”

“Pizza,” she says so quickly, I wonder if she really does or if it’s an automatic response.

“All right, tell you what,” I say, picking up her bag and standing. “We’ll get some pizza and go home, and you can ask me all the questions you have.”

I hope, that in the time it takes to order a pizza and drive home, I’ll be able to figure out the answers to questions I’ve avoided thinking about for four years.

TWENTY-FOUR

AMELIA

When Sadie knocks on my office door, it takes me a few seconds to invite her in. I’ve been avoiding her for days as best I can in a small office where we have daily meetings. We haven’t yet been alone in the same room, but I’ve caught her staring at me a few times.

Ever since I bolted from Andrew at the flea market, I’ve wanted to reach out, explain why, and make it right. I can’t get myself to complete the call, though. I once found Reggie charming, clever, and kind—all things I consider Andrew to be. Now that I’ve seen the other side of Reggie, I’m afraid it was there all along. I just turned a blind eye to it. How do I know I’m not doing the same with Andrew?

“Come in,” I say.

Sadie closes the door behind her, brings her laptop to my desk, and turns the screen to me. “How’s this look for the IncrediBlast event next month?”

I glance over the invitation, but I find it hard to care. I used to take self-abusive joy in micromanaging, in having my stamp on every single thing that passed through this office. The truth is, it’s a goddamn invitation that people won’t decline just because the kerning’s a little tight. I look up and sigh. “The kerning’s a little tight.”

“I thought so too.”

I look at her over my glasses. “You could’ve e-mailed it to me.”

“I needed to take a walk,” she says. Her desk is thirty feet away. “How are things?”

“Things are fine.”

“I meant with Andrew. I’m not blind, Amelia. I know you’re sleeping with my brother.”

I pause, then slide my specs off completely and set them on the desk. “And? Are you upset?”

“Why would I be?”

“You know how I am about men. And he’s your family. I didn’t think you’d like it very much.”

“Admittedly, at first, I was a little shocked,” she says. “You two don’t really make a lot of sense. But then I decided I was too impressed to feel anything else about it.”

“Impressed?”

“I’ve been trying to get him interested in someone for years. That’s why I tried to force Mindy on him.”

“Right. Mindy.” I sit back in my chair. “You should’ve tried harder. She really would’ve been a good fit for him.”

She tilts her head at me. “You think?”

“She’s young, energetic, beautiful. She wants kids. Well, I’m not sure how she’d fare in Jersey, honestly, but—” I stop at the perplexed look on Sadie’s face. “Oh. I’m ending things with him.”

“I didn’t realize. Andrew’s not very forthcoming about these things.”

He wouldn’t be, if not because he’s fairly private, then because I asked him not to be. We’ve only known each other a short time, but it’s as if the harder I resisted him, the closer we became. Which might be fine for a normal couple, but we’re far from normal. We can only be dysfunctional together, since we don’t function all that well apart.

I’d forgotten that for twenty-four hours, but seeing Reggie at the flea market over the weekend brought it all barreling back to me. Andrew and I might be able to make this work, and if I were younger, it would be fu

n to try. But now I know better than to walk willingly into the lion’s den.

“I’m sorry,” Sadie says. She makes a move like she’s going to leave, and I’m surprised by my disappointment. I have no one to talk to about this, and it’s been bothering me for days.