Page 5 of The Grump I Loathe
Christ. If I let her start playing, I’d never get her to stop. “Bodypointis waiting,” I reminded her.
“How about you leave me here while you go talk to the Ryker guy?”
I snorted. There was no version of reality where I was leaving my nine-year-old kid unsupervised in this chaos. Even if some psychodidn’ttry to kidnap her, we’d never be able to find each other again in this mob scene. “You know that’s not possible.”
She stuck her lip out. I didn’t want to see that disappointed pout, but this was one time when I’d have to put my foot down. But before I could get to the wordno, I was almost bowled over by a whirlwind of a woman.
Oh hell! I scowled, recognizing those bright green eyes, the neon blue streaks in her black hair, and the lush curves barely contained in her quirky T-shirt and holey jeans. This was the same woman responsible for wasting my timeandruining my shirt. I wasn’t likely to forget her in a hurry.
She was beaming at me, pure malice glinting out of that ridiculously lovely smile.
I gritted my teeth.
“Hey there, stranger,” she said. “Enjoy your lunch?” She lifted her finger. “You got a little something?—”
I resisted the urge to swat at her and grabbed Grace’s hand instead. “Let’s go. We’re going to seeBodypointright?—”
“Hi,” the hot sauce-wielding woman said to Grace. “I’m Eddie. Cool shoes. Digging the mismatched laces.”
Grace lit up at the compliment. “Thanks. I’m Grace.”
“Nice to meet you.” She gestured over her shoulder with her thumb. “So I made this sick game calledAlterbot. You want to give it a try?”
“No, she does not,” I growled.
“Yeah, I do!” Grace said, inching toward her.
I tried to stop her, but Eddie caught my gaze with a taunting one of her own. “How do you feel about raising some space sheep, Grace?”
“Heck yeah. Does the game let you name the animals? ’Cause I’ve got some good ones.”
Eddie laughed. “Of course! That’s the best part.”
“We’re not staying,” I said, mostly to Eddie.
“But Dad, please!” Grace said, giving me her best pout. “The sign says it has interstellar travel! That’s just likeShadow of the Hyperion!”
“Shadow?” Eddie muttered. I watched her eyes drop to clock Grace’s shirt, taking in the LockMill logo. Her eyes widened briefly in recognition, but before she could ask, Grace latched onto my arm.
“And it has space sheep.Pleeeeeeeeeease!” Grace turned the full force of her pout on me. “I won’t ask for anything else this weekend. I promise. I won’t even bug you to find out what time Mom’s going to call next weekend.”
My chest tightened uncomfortably at her words.Damn you for this, Ali.
I could admit that I hadn’t been the perfect husband; I could even admit that getting divorced had probably been the right choice for us in the end. We’d never been a love match—more like friends who’d ended up married for practical reasons rather than romantic ones.
And now that Ali had fallen for someone new, she wanted to have the whole big love story. Fine by me. Godspeed. But getting so wrapped up in her new romance that she ignored our daughter?Thatwas a hellof a lot harder to forgive. Especially when I saw all the million little ways it kept breaking Grace’s heart.
This weekend was the perfect example. They weresupposedto have a mother/daughter day, but Ali had double-booked herself and bailed because her fiancé, Sawyer, had decided at the last minute to whisk her away for the weekend. He’d made it clear that kids weren’t his thing, and he wasn’t making any effort to help Ali keep to a consistent schedule with Grace.
All of which made it nearly impossible for me to say no toanythingGrace wanted. Anything that had a real shot of making her smile. She’d always been my sunshine baby, but the forecast had been cloudy for a while now. If pink turnips and space sheep were what it took to make the sun break through, maybe I’d consider swinging back to the stall after we talked to Ryker.
“Yeah,” neon-haired Eddie parroted, another shit-eating grin stretching across her face. “Space sheep.Pleeeeeeeeeease!”
On second thought, hell no. I gritted my teeth so hard my jaw ached, all while Eddie pursed her lips in amusement. Those perfect rosebud lips that had no business belonging to someone so infuriating.
“Grace,” I said sternly. “We need to go.Bodypoint, remember?”
She hesitated at my tone, looking downcast as she sighed. “Yeah, all right.”
