Winnie nodded. “Yeah. I was too young to know what was going on at the time, but I’ve heard the story.”
I braced myself. “Were you even in school when we graduated?”
“Barely,” she said, giggling again. “I was in kindergarten.”
Jesus.
I took another swallow. “Luna’s age. She starts kindergarten this year.”
“Is she excited?”
“I think so. It helps that Hallie is already there, although she can get anxious about things.”
“How so?”
“She’s a little bit of a germaphobe, doesn’t love eating in the cafeteria, also likes to have things just so in her desk, and if a kid borrows a colored pencil and doesn’t put it back exactly the right way, she loses her shit.”
Winnie nodded. “That must be tough on her.”
“It can be, because her behavior comes off as weird to the other kids. She hates being barefoot, so she’s always wearing something on her feet. Even in the pool, she wears swim socks.”
“What about in the shower at home?”
“Naomi, the girls’ mom, sometimes allows it to avoid a fight, but I don’t. That probably makes me the mean parent, but I believe in consistency, and the doctor said it’s better for her if we don’t allow the compulsive behavior.”
“Does the doctor think she’ll grow out of it?”
“Too hard to say right now, but it’s possible.” I hesitated, then went on. “Naomi thinks Hallie’s anxiety stems from worrying about me when I was gone.”
“I heard you were a SEAL. But not the kind at Sea World.”
“Not the kind at Sea World. They would have liked that much better.” I studied the label on my beer bottle, picking at the edge of it with my thumb. “I was gone a lot when they were tiny. Back-to-back tours.”
“But it’s not like you had a choice about that.”
“No, but the fact remains—I wasn’t there when either of them were born, and I missed a ton of milestones after that. I had to watch both of them take their first steps on video.” I paused. “I don’t regret my choices, but I feel bad about the things I missed.”
“And your ex blames Hallie’s anxiety on your absences?”
“She doesn’t exactly put it like that, but it’s pretty clear that’s the case.” I paused and added, “I think she blames a lot of things on my absences.”
She was silent at that, and I was embarrassed.
Why the hell was I telling Winnie about this? I never talked about this stuff with anyone, let alone a near-stranger. I was trying to think of a way to change the subject when Winnie gracefully moved the conversation in a different direction.
“Well, they seem like sweet, polite, adorable girls—when they’re not talking about my bum.” She brought her heels to the edge of her chair and wrapped her arms around her legs, setting her chin on her knees the way a kid would. “I hope they don’t give you too much grief about the swear jar.”
I harrumphed. “Too late for that. They already made one, although it’s more of a swear box.”
She laughed. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, they used the cupcake box. And they wrote on it. It says ‘Daddy’s swear box—money for future cat.’”
She burst out laughing, her head falling back, and I thought about putting my mouth on her throat. Did she wear perfume? What would her skin smell like? Quickly, I looked away and tipped up my beer again.
“So they want to get a cat?”
“Yeah, they’re always on me about getting a pet, and Hallie likes the idea of a cat because they’re supposedly clean animals. But my shifts at the fire station are twenty-four hours, so having a pet doesn’t really work.”
“I could help out,” she offered. “If you just let me know which days you work, I can come by and feed her or him. And I can tell you where to go to adopt one.”
“You’re not helping,” I told her in my best grumpy dad voice. “I don’t want a fucking cat.”
“Listen,” she said, dropping her feet to the ground and reaching for the cupcake. “I know what happens when little girls have their dad wrapped around their fingers. They get what they want.”
“Oh, really.” I watched her peel the wrapper from the cupcake, my eyes on her fingers. They were long and slender, and her nails were painted to match her toes in a bright, fiery red. The thought of that hand wrapped around my cock jumped into my head uninvited.