Page 66 of Fighter
“I'll be right there.”
“Okay.”
She hung up without another word. I looked to Mav with smug irony. “Pay for lunch, will you? My daughter is sick and needs me.Thatis how this love thing works.”
Ava's face had finally relaxed out of the scrunched grimace that it had been for the last thirty minutes. I ran a hand over her head, slightly warm, and let it rest there. She opened her eyes to look at me, her lips turned down in a miserable expression. A bucket lay on the floor nearby, ready for her next round of retching.
“You okay?”
She nodded, but tears lingered in the corners of her eyes. “I don't like throwing up,” she whispered.
My nose wrinkled. “It's the worst.”
She nodded.
“Let me get you some more fizzy stuff, okay? Just sip it. It will help you feel better.”
As I stood up, relieved that her stomach seemed to have finally calmed—she'd thrown up twice on the way home and five times since we got back—she tilted her head back on her pillow.
“Where's Sera?”
“She had to take the day off.”
Her forehead scrunched. “Why?”
“I don't know.”
Disappointed, she relaxed back against the pillow. Cartoon ponies quietly flickered across the television on the wall as I ruffled her hair and made my way back to the kitchen. Bethany had come from the Frolicking Moose with various drinks and home remedies after I desperately texted her for help. My thumb hovered over Serafina's name on my text message list, but skimmed past.
Hernandez. Her brother. It all ran through my head.
No, she had her own life. Just because I felt so deeply about her so quickly didn't mean she had to be available at my every beck and call. Besides, this very situation proved out a deep-rooted fear that haunted me ever since she first popped up: I couldn't be fair to her. I would be the Sadie in our relationship. The pull, pull, pull. The unfair drain on energy and resources. I wanted to help Serafina right now, but I couldn't. Ava had to come first.
Avaalwayscame first.
Maybe this was a good experience. A reminder of the responsibilities in my life and where they fit before we dove too far into whatever magic had started to bloom. A shiver skimmed my body when I thought of Serafina's kiss.
I packed a few sippy cups with different drinks, grabbed a package of crackers, and set it all within arms reach of Ava. She had her arms around a ragged stuffed giraffe that she slept with every night and her eyes glued to the screen. While I collapsed onto the couch next to her, my thoughts spun to work. The new trainee. The paperwork for Stella to finalize some accounting.
Sadie.
Serafina.
Sadie.
Maverick's annoyance haunted me.You're avoiding your problems by staying at work.That didn't sit well. Maybe because it could be true. Not that itwas, but it could be. Certainly, I avoided coming home because I hated this empty house with so many responsibilities. And today, I was not in the mood to figure out just how deep that went. Not with the heaping elephant of Sadie fat on my mind.
Instead, I put my hand on my daughter's leg. She glanced at me, then back to the screen. Just when I thought her contempt for me couldn't have gotten any worse, and Sadie's wishes for a damaged relationship between me and Ava would actualize, Ava shuffled. Seconds later, a bright purple pillow landed in my lap. Ava sprawled on top of it, giraffe in her arms, and whispered, “Will you play with my hair, daddy? It makes me feel better.”
“You bet,” I said.
And somewhere, deep in my chest, my hidden heart finally cracked. Maybe she didn't hate me.
Maybe the two of us could do this.
22
Serafina
