Paxton looked down at me with an instant frown when I stepped around him. “What? Why am I a stupid little fish? I don’t get it.”
I ushered the girls out of our bedroom, smiling at him over my shoulder. “I’m the stupid little fish.”
“I still don’t get it.”
“Forget it, Pax.”
“I have a fish. I got it from the animal bus,” Ophelia reminded us. That look over my shoulder was meant to be nasty. I missed that because I went to jail.
All in all the day turned out to be pretty okay. Other than Paxton’s quick window demolition, things went pretty smooth. The place he had used for the past five years didn’t have the window he wanted in the size that he wanted in stock. It wouldn’t be there until Tuesday. It wasn’t really a big deal though. At least the state people could see it was in the process. He just had to nail plywood in its place, and to my surprise, he wasn’t even a jerk about it. He was happy and playful the entire night.
Even after we had finished for the day, cleaned up, and were on our way to dinner, Paxton was playful, happy and in a good mood. He made it hard to be anything but that with him.
“I think we should get mommy a mini-Van,” he joked.
I frowned toward him, laughing at the hidden joke, and the girls, agreeing with the minivan.
“I’m not driving a minivan,” I assured him with warm fuzzy feeling. I was sort of in love with the moment, yet cautious. Trusting Paxton was hard for me. The man who drove his family out for pizza wasn’t the same man I’d left the hospital with. But…he was still there, and I knew this.
“I like to have a blue one, Mom. Hey, look, there’s a horse in there,” Ophelia called when we passed a truck pulling a trailer with a black horse, and just like that, the minivan was forgotten. Crazy kid.
Of course Rowan couldn’t just let it go with that. “That’s not a horse, it’s a pony, right, Dad?”
“It was a horse.”
“No it wasn’t. Horses are bigger.”
“Nuh-uh, Rowan. It just didn’t grow all the way up yet. It’s little like you.”
“I’m older than you.”
“But you’re not bigger.”
Paxton and I exchanged a glance right before he stopped the silly argument.
“Let’s go eat chicken,” he said through the rearview mirror.
I laughed when they simultaneously, yelled no.
“Chuckie Cheese,” they both agreed.
Paxton turned right, heading to Maria’s, his favorite pizza.
“Oh no, I said pizza, not Chuckie Cheese. I hate that place.”
“Well, we want to play there,” Phi whined.
I stared out the window, half listening after a sudden premonition, déjà vu. Like I’d already lived this scene in my life once. Only I was in the backseat. I was the one arguing.
“Gabby said we was bastards cause we don’t have a daddy. I’m not a bastard. Tell her I’m not one of those,” I complained from the backseat.
“Yes, you are. We both are. We don’t have a daddy.”
A truck squealed its tires behind us, blowing his horn when my mom whipped the car to the side of the road.
“You’re not bastards. You have a daddy.”
I blinked my eyes, trying to focus on Paxton.
“Hello?”
“Huh?”
“Where’d you go?”
“I—I’m not sure. I have a dad.”
“Um. Okay.”
Paxton derailed that one when the girls asked who my dad was. He talked about school instead, asking Rowan what she thought about skipping the first grade.
“I’m going to skip kindergarten, too,” Ophelia decided.
Again my attention ceased to be held on my family and the feud between my bickering little girls. Paxton explained to Phi how fun kindergarten was, and she changed her mind right quick. I stared at the guardrail, trying to get it back, the daze I needed more of.
I forgot all about it once we were seated at Chuckie Cheese, once again, falling for my man. Paxton was such a good guy. The kind of man women drooled over, the kind of daddy every wife wanted, the kind of lover that curled your toes. I smiled at him across the table, thinking about my silly observation, head shaking back and forth.
“What?” He instantly questioned.
I looked down to my cheese pizza, twirling cheese around my fork. “Nothing, it was just a fantasy.”
“What’s a fantasy?” Phi asked as she bit into her third slice of pizza.
Paxton looked over to Phi, and then right back to me. “Jesus, didn’t you feed that girl today?”
“I know, right?” I replied to Paxton and answered Phi’s question, staring right at him. “It’s make believe. A fantasy is something that isn’t real.”
Paxton narrowed his eyes on me, contemplating what I’d said. I didn’t say anything that wasn’t the truth. He knew it, too. There was no argument about him being able to shed his sheep’s clothes in the snap of a finger. I’d seen it many times over the past few months. One minute he was a soft and gentle like a sheep, and the next the wolf that ate the poor little lamb. Chewed up and spit out in the blink of an eye.
“My belly’s full,” Rowan announced with a hand swirling in small circles around her tummy.
“You can go,” I nodded while wiping sauce from the corner of her lip.
“And me too, Mommy?”
“Yes, are you done?”
“Yes, but I still want my drink. Don’t throw it away,” Ophelia called on the run, trying to beat Rowan.
I watched them run off while talking to Paxton like a normal conversation. “Watch, they both go straight for the rock wall, one hell-bent on beating the other one.” I sucked on my straw and turned to him when he didn’t respond. “What?”
“You think this isn’t real?”
I rolled my eyes and turned back to the girls, Ophelia hitting the rock wall two steps in front of Row. “Don’t make that something, Paxton.”
“Oh, okay. I’ll just toss it into the conversation with the girls and you can decode it, okay?”
Why I felt guilty for anything I directed at him was beyond me, it wasn’t like he didn’t deserve every single bit of it, but I did. “I’m sorry,” I said while slipping my left shoe off, a cheesy attempt to flirt. I ran my toes up the leg of his jeans with a tilted head and a crooked smile.
“Do you think I don’t love you, Gabriella? I do. I’m not the type to sugarcoat my feelings. I don’t say shit I don’t mean.”
“Paxton, don’t make a big deal about it. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Why did you tell me you have a dad in the car?”
I blinked my eyes a couple times as the thought entered my mind. “I don’t know. It was a quick vision of me driving down a highway with my mom and sister. I was mad at Gabby for saying we were bastards because we didn’t have a dad. My mom jerked the car to the side of the road and turned to both of us, telling us we did have a dad, but that was it. That’s all I saw.”
Paxton stared at me with a concentrated glare.
“What?” I finally had to ask.
“Gabby? Gabby said you were bastards?”
“Yeah…” I said with a little sarcasm. That’s what I said.
“So you’re not Gabby? You just said it yourself.”
“Oh, my God, Paxton. Will you stop with that already? We were little, like Ophelia’s age. I would have been Izabella then. Do you really believe that? Tell me the truth. Do you honestly believe that I am not the Gabriella you married?”
“I mean, I have times when I don’t, and times when I do. If you are, you’ve—”
“Gabriella! Where’s Rowan and Ophelia?”
I turned to catch Chance with open arms and an excited expression. I hugged her because I wanted to, not because I had to. I sort of loved her, just not her mommy and daddy. The conversation going on between her parents was obvious over her shoulder. Candace wanted to leave while Lane tried to be civil.
“Hi, baby. How are you?”
“Good, I lost my front tooth, see?”
“You did? Rowan did, too. Same one.”