Page 31 of No More Love Songs

“It’s weird,” she says, still mulling over the experience of watching what I personally think is a pretty fucked up children’s movie. “Like, it’s dark and sad and the animation is lacking, and yet...”

“You kinda loved it, didn’t you?” Sky is grinning with a morbid sort of satisfaction.

“Yeah.” Ari looks like she still can’t quite believe it, though she can’t exactly deny it either.

“That is the beauty of that movie.” Sky sighs.

“More like the curse of it,” I mutter dryly, breaking down the last of the pizza boxes after putting the leftover slices away already. “Meanwhile, if you want s’mores, you gotta get the stuff.”

Ari doesn’t need to be told twice.

“What can I do?” Sky asks, rubbing her palms together like she’s eager to get in on some action.

“Ever build a fire?”

“Sure.” She nods. “In a fireplace.”

“Close enough.”

“With a switch.”

It takes me a good two seconds before I get what she’s saying. “Yeah, no. That doesn’t count.”

Her eyes light up. “Am I gonna learn something?”

“Yeah.” I take her by the hand and start for the back door. “And you’re gonna love it.”

“Big promises for a task mastered by cavemen,” she jokes, but she’s tagging along way too willingly for someone who has doubts about the levels of fun involved here.

“Big mockery for a grown-ass woman who hasn’t mastered basic caveman survival skills,” I counter. “Don’t think your switch flipping know-how would have taken you real far back then.” We reach the firepit and I release her hand. As soon as I do, I suddenly feel awkward having grabbed it in the first place. Maybe I’m getting too comfortable too fast. Especially with a woman who’s only just sworn off romance. Who knows the mixed signals I’m inadvertently sending her just because romance has been so far removed from my life for so long, it’s never at the forefront of my mind in anything I do. Not even when I’m holding hands with a woman. And the woman is as beautiful as Sky is.

I watch her a moment longer, trying to read her feelings. If she thought anything of the gesture, she’s not showing any signs of it. Maybe I’m the one overthinking things here.

“Are you actually going to show me something or am I meant to wing it?” she asks when we’ve been standing around the firepit in silence for too long.

“Winging it does sound like the route most likely to provide me entertainment,” I tease. “And after that movie I kind of feel like you owe me some.”

She shrugs, overplaying her confidence, but I’m willing to buy into it. “Am I rubbing two sticks together to make smoke? Clanking rocks for sparks? Praying for lightning to strike?” She drops her head to the side and tilts her eyes up, smiling sweetly. “Or do I get a blowtorch and some gasoline for this?”

I try to hold back the laughter, but it’s no use. “How about some kindling and matches?”

She pops her head up straight again and grins. “I’ll take it.”

Once she has all the required tools, it doesn’t take her long to get some nice flames going.

“I’m impressed,” I tell her, eyes captivated by the dancing light. Doesn’t matter how often I sit out here by the fire, I’m mesmerized by it every time.

“Now is probably a good time to tell you that I’m the sort of person who learns by watching...and I get to watch a lot of people do a lot of things.” Her tone takes a bittersweet turn at the end.

“Because you’re you, or because you’re you and a woman?” I ask.

She looks surprised by the question. No. She looks surprised that I’m the one asking it. “The latter. I fight it, but some days I just don’t feel like having to be the one to teach every sexist douchebag the many ways in which they’re perpetrating their ignorance. Some days it’s easier to just play into it, act like a helpless girl, have the dirty work done for me and then have a laugh about it when they leave.” She squints at the flames, but I don’t think it’s because the light is blinding her. “You can’t even imagine how often other men will talk to Grayson instead of me. And I’m Gray’s boss. I’ll be right there, and some record label intern will ask Gray a million questions about the music, thinking they sound like they know their shit, and Gray will repeatedly divert them to me because he doesn’t know the answers. They never get the hint. It’s embarrassing to watch. When it isn’t entirely infuriating to sit through.”

I nod. “I keep thinking times must be changing but then I still see this bullshit running its cycle with Ari’s friends. It’s cool to watch Ari when she’s confronted with it though. She gets super-heated. Always has, even when she was little, she’d get totally annoyed about gender specific things. Like how the girls’ toys in the catalogs had pink pages while the boys’ toys had blue. Which then of course made her question why they had to be separated in the first place.” I smile remembering. “I’m pretty sure I have video of her at four, going on about why girls should get to play with race cars and Legos, and how boys shouldn’t be told they’re playing with girls’ toys when they play with dolls because they’re all just toys.” They’re all just toys, Daddy, she’d repeated over and over again, like she just couldn’t wrap her brain around why anyone would overcomplicate something that was so simple and straightforward.

“I know I already told you this,” she says, her voice no longer sounding frustrated at all, “but you’re kind of an awesome dad.”

I have to fight the urge to downplay my efforts in the parenting department and instead humbly accept. ‘Thank you. That means a lot to me.”

“This being your life’s work and all?” she smiles.

“Yeah.” She’s got me grinning like an idiot again. “Yeah. And all.”

“I feel like I keep walking in on your conversations at all the worst moments,” Ari grumbles coming between us with all the makings of a s’mores fest on her tray. “Everything I overhear is either gross or total nonsense.”

“Now you know how I feel anytime I catch the tail end of your phone calls with your friends,” I point out, taking the tray from her and setting it down on the small table we keep out here for this very purpose. “Why don’t you pick the next conversation topic? And keep in mind I promised Sky there would be stargazing and talk of planets and constellations and such.”

“Oh!” As expected, she whips her phone out for the occasion. “I just got a new app we can use for that!”

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