Page 165 of Small Town Firsts
A clunking sound made me frown and then Seth’s lacrosse stick came through the door with a bottle of bubbles in the netting. I laughed and stood.
Laurie giggled. “Thank you, Daddy!”
I took the bubbles. “You’re a dork.”
“Daddy’s a dork.”
“Great. Thanks. She’ll be saying that for days.”
“Fitting.”
“Har-har. Everything okay in there, girls? It’s way past bedtime.”
“Almost done.” Laurie slapped her hand on the water. “Go away.”
“I’m going.”
I snaked a finger through the crack in the door and flicked a nail over the back of his hand. “We’re fine.”
He let out a slow breath. “Thanks.”
“Of course.” I rubbed my hand over my breastbone and went back to his daughter with the bubbles. I unscrewed the cap. “Okay, you get one blast of bubbles for each friend you finish washing.”
“Deal.” She dunked her dolphin into the water and it came out gleaming. She set it on the shelf along the back of the tub. “Go.”
I pulled the double wand out and blew out a stream of rainbow bubbles.
“Me. I want to do it.”
“Two more of your buddies and you got it.”
The big whale and baby whale got dunked and deposited on the shelf. I dunked the wand and handed it to her.
“No, I want to do it.”
“You are wet and soapy, kiddo. We don’t want these to fall in, do we?”
She scrunched up her nose and lips. “No. I guess not.” She shrugged and took the wand. She blew too hard and only got three bubbles. “Hey.”
I took it back and dunked. “Easy. Soft. Yes, just like that.”
When the stream of bubbles floated up, she clapped. Five minutes later, there were many squeaky clean fish guarding her tub and a pruny almost four-year-old standing with a purple towel on her head and fluffy pink Care Bears towel wrapped around her.
Before she could find another reason to extend her bath time, I swooped her out and deposited her on the bath mat. I wrapped another towel around her and started a rubdown. By the timeshe was mostly dry, she was still giggling and I was laughing with her.
I hadn’t even known this was exactly what I needed to even me out.
“Okay, Daddy, we’re ready.”
He opened the door so fast, I knew he’d stood out there the entire time. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Didn’t he trust me?
Then I looked down at the crazy monkey in my arms and her adoring eyes only for him. There was no way I could get upset about that. Laurie reached for him and suddenly I was forty pounds lighter.
He looked down at me, his eyes flashing for a moment as he dropped his gaze over my wet shirt. Yeah, good thing I had that padded bra on. I turned away from him to pick up the bubbles and empty bottle of soap.
He cleared his throat before burying his face in Laurie’s neck. She giggled and squirmed, causing the towel on her hair to fall to the floor. “I’m just going to get her dressed.”
“Yeah, good idea. I’ll just clean up.”
