Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 110113 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 551(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 367(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110113 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 551(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 367(@300wpm)
“Hugs are the best, aren’t they, June?” I ask, noting how artfully Ava dodged her daughter’s question.
June smiles, and she looks like such a mirror image of her mama that I can’t help but smile too.
“The best,” she replies.
A tug on my sleeve. “Daddy, can you watch me go down the big slide? Please?”
I gasp, like I haven’t already watched her do it twelve times. “You’re gonna go down the big slide? That one? The really, really, really tall one?”
She giggles. “Yes!”
“Wait a second. Are you sure you’re big enough?” I cross my arms, and it hits home how light I feel despite the heavy things Ava and I have shared.
“Daddy. I’m three and a half!”
I bop her on the nose. Cheeseball move, but can’t help it. She’s so fucking cute sometimes that I can’t stand it. “Then show me what you can do.”
She and Junie take off running again. They giggle like lunatics as they shoot down the slide. I whistle. Ava hollers. A minute later, the girls forget we’re there and busy themselves gathering sticks behind a blue plastic climbing igloo.
“I’m glad Ella’s taken to Junie so well.” I shift, draping my arm over the back of the bench. “She’s just so shy sometimes.”
Ava relaxes so that her shoulder almost meets with my fingertips. “Junie loves having someone to boss around.”
“I like a girl on a mission.”
Ava turns her head to look at me. “Of course you do.”
“That a dig?”
She sighs. “Just an observation. I still need an example, by the way. Of you putting on your superhero cape and saving all your brothers.”
“You really like talking about family.”
“That a dig?”
Only something I find incredibly attractive. “Just an observation.”
“Family is everything.” One side of Ava’s mouth kicks up as she looks out over the playground. “Hey, June, let’s not jam things up our noses, okay? That stick is gonna hurt if it gets stuck.”
“Okay, Mommy.”
“Anyway. Family is everything, whether it’s the one you’re born into, the one you find, or the one you make,” Ava continues. “So yeah, I’m curious about yours.”
Jesus, it’s like this girl read a manual titled Things That Turn Sawyer Rivers on an Absurd Amount.
She’s big on family. That mean she wants what I do? Marriage. More babies. Dogs and maybe some chickens and just the whole shebang.
“My younger brother Duke tried out for football back in high school. He was definitely going to make the JV team. Maybe even varsity. I was worried he’d get, like, paralyzed or something, because you hear all these horror stories—”
“How much Varsity Blues were you watching at the time?”
“Too much. So I quit the varsity soccer team to make sure there’d be a spot for Duke instead.”
Ava looks at me. And looks.
I clear my throat. “Because, you know, soccer is a lot safer—”
“Much safer.”
Her attention is unnerving. I can’t tell what she’s thinking.
“You loved soccer, though.” She says it like a fact.
How does she know?
Why does she care?
Is now a good time to ask her out on a date?
I shove the thought from my head. It’s too soon. Too much. We’re just fucking friends, damn it.
“I did love it.” What I don’t tell her? Coach Jenkins mentioned the possibility of me playing soccer at the college level. Maybe even getting a scholarship.
Not like I had the grades or the desire to go to college. Still hurt giving that up, though.
Still don’t regret it. Duke made the team and played all through high school. And I could sleep at night knowing he was safe. Knowing I’d showed up for him in a way I hadn’t been able to show up to save my parents.
Over the years, that sense of responsibility morphed into a twisted need to ensure I was never the one who needed saving. My brothers were hurting so much, carrying around so much grief, that I didn’t want them to take on my shit too. So I made damn sure I never added to their pain.
I made sure I could do everything in my power to take theirs away.
Ava’s doing it again, looking at me for an uncomfortable amount of time like she doesn’t quite know what to make of me. “That’s a pretty incredible thing for a high school kid to do.”
I lift a shoulder. “Family is everything.”
June and Ella reappear, begging us to help them draw unicorns with the sidewalk chalk. Ava and I pop up. Wandering-Eye Asshole notices.
I fall into it too easily—the fantasy that Ava is mine and the four of us are a family.
Fucked up? Yes. Supremely satisfying? Also yes.
I take a seat on the sidewalk beside the girls so that I shield them from Asshole’s line of sight. Feels … good.
Feels better to laugh with the girls as we sit in the sunshine and draw malformed unicorns that look more like cows than anything.