Page 35 of Perfect Imperfections

“Yup, birthday pancakes.” And coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.

Twenty minutes later, Charlotte was happily stuffing her face with fluffy pancakes dripping with far too much syrup while he was on the way to feeling semi-normal enjoying his second cup of coffee. After breakfast, Sullivan got them both dressed and started party preparations while Charlotte watched her favorite Saturday morning cartoons in the living room. At exactly ten o’clock, the door opened, and someone called out.

“Knock, knock. Is there a birthday girl in here?”

“Uncle Gavin!”

Sullivan continued pouring candy into the elephant piñata, ears attuned to his brother’s heavy footsteps heading his way.

“Happy birthday, Cheeky Monkey. So how old are you now? Sixteen, twenty-one?”

“Uncle Gavin,” Charlotte giggled, held aloft in his brother’s arms as they both entered the kitchen. “I’m eight.”

“Eight? Wow, you’re old. Time to move out and get a job. Am I right, Sully?”

He glanced up from stuffing fun size sour gummy bags into the minuscule hole in the elephant's back. “Don’t call me Sully and Charlotte won’t move out until she’s thirty.”

“That’s gonna make it awkward when she starts dating.”

“She’s not dating until she’s thirty.”

“Right, keep telling yourself that, big brother.”

“Daddy, what’s dating?”

He speared his brother with a death glare. Gavin, the jackass, just smiled.

“Dating, Angel, is when two people who really like each other go out to movies or the park and spend time together.”

“We went to the movies. We saw the pig cartoon.”

A smile curved his lips at the memory of their special daddy daughter day to Charlotte’s first movie. She’d been so excited to see a movie in the real theater and he’d gone all out for it. Large popcorn, soda, all the candy she wanted. A move he regretted later that night when all that sugar gave her a stomachache. But the outing had been a special moment for Sullivan as a father and it warmed his heart to know it had become a cherished memory for his daughter. In a few years, she’d probably ask him to drop her off at the movies with her friends a block away so she wouldn’t be seen with her uncool dad.

He wished she could stay a kid forever.

“Yes, we did, but that’s not like grown up dating. Grown up dating is, um…” Shit, how did he explain this to an eight-year-old?

“Is it when you kiss and stuff?”

His heart stopped. Pausing mid-beat in his chest.

“What do you know about kissing?”

“Janey said she had a babysitter last week because her mommy and daddy went to a show and when they came home, they were kissing, but they didn’t see her because she was supposed to be in bed, but she wasn’t because she wanted a glass of water and she saw them kissing. Is that dating, Daddy?”

There was something to be said for being a single parent. At least his kid couldn’t inadvertently stumble upon him and his wife making out, or worse. It had been so long since he’d gotten any, he’d almost forgotten how to do it.

“Yes, Angel, it’s something like that and it’s only for grow-ups.”

“Uncle Gavin is a grownup.” Her little head turned to his brother, still holding her in his arms. “I saw him kissing the lady at the mall last week. Are you dating her, Uncle Gavin?”

His brother had the decency to look abashed. “No, Cheeky Monkey. She’s, um, just a friend.”

“A kissing friend?”

“Hey, Angel, how would you like to test out the bounce house?” Her eyes lit up, and he knew his distraction had worked. Charlotte wiggled out of his brother’s arms and ran to the backyard where the rental company had set up a deluxe bouncy castle just half an hour earlier.

“Sorry,” Gavin winced once Charlotte was safely out of hearing range.

---