“Totally cool, Dad. Happy for you,” Aisling mumbled when Cillian moved away. She slunk in, ducked her head but gave her dad a sideways hug that was genuine.
“Thanks, baby,” he murmured against the top of her hair, obviously not caring it was greasy. He didn’t let her go far, keeping her close to his side with his arm around her shoulders, asking all of us. “Lobster Market, Breeze Point, the Boathouse or Tink’s?”
My choice was Lobster Market or the Boathouse because the former was wonderful and I’d never been to the latter but I’d heard it was good.
Cillian shouted, “Tink’s!” just as Aisling said, “Tink’s.” So even not voting, I was outvoted.
“Amy, babe?” Mickey asked me.
“Absolutely,” I replied. “Tink’s.”
Cillian raced toward my car, yelling, “I ride with Amy!”
Mickey turned his daughter around but did this stretching out a hand to me. I took it and Mickey got to walk with both his girls close as we made our way to our vehicles.
The only thing that happened during this brief trek was seeing the tall, good-looking sheriff Mickey had been talking to standing with his back to us between a car and an Explorer decorated in sheriff colors with a county sheriff insignia on the driver’s side door.
He was on his phone and I heard him asking tersely, “Trouble follow you from Denver?” and before whoever he was talking to could possibly reply, he demanded, “Answer me!”
I looked up at Mickey as we kept walking. He felt my eyes and gave his to me.
I lifted my brows.
He gave a shrug.
I let it go and we went to Tink’s, Cillian riding with me, Aisling riding with Mickey.
The burgers were again phenomenal.
But the place still scared me.
*
“Yeah. Right.” Pause. “Yeah, I get it. You forgot. That’s okay. I appreciate you showing.”
Mickey was pacing his room in nothing but a pair of pajama bottoms (these flannel also, but navy), his broad chest and cut abs bare.
Usually, I would watch this with great fascination.
But since I’d told him Rhiannon had come over and he was speaking with her while I sat cross-legged on his bed in one of my nighties, I decided to give them a modicum of privacy.
I did this tearing my eyes away from my guy, giving my attention to my own phone, and texting Robin.
Did you call Lawrie?
I sent that and then reached for the moisturizer Mickey bought me that was sitting on his nightstand.
I was rubbing it in when she texted back.
I finished rubbing before I grabbed my phone again and read, Yes. He’s coming to town. Wants to get drinks.
My hand curled around my phone and I just stopped myself from pumping my arm in victory.
Instead I texted back. Lovely, are you going?
To which she quickly replied, Of course, he’s Lawrie.
Fabulous!
“Okay, Rhiannon. That’d be good. Like I told you this morning, the scene with Ash didn’t sit great with me,” Mickey said and I looked up at him. “Right. It’ll be good you do that.” Pause. “Okay. Later.”
He took the phone from his ear and sauntered around the bed to his nightstand.
I looked to my phone and swiftly texted, Good. Have fun! Now going to bed. Talk to you later.
Then I looked to Mickey. “All that okay?”
He nodded. His phone was on his nightstand and he was throwing back the covers.
He got in, settled with his back to the headboard and gave his attention to me.
“Like I said after you told me she came ’round, I ended our détente this morning to give her the info on the scene with Ash. She says she’s also noticed the deterioration, came by to check in, talk to me, maybe speak with Ash. She forgot about the council meeting. Now she says, when she gets her back, she’s gonna give it a go.”
“That’s good,” I whispered, my phone chiming.
I looked to it and saw, ‘Night sweets. Cuddle your hottie for all the single ladies.
I grinned, set the phone on the nightstand, but stopped grinning when I turned back to Mickey.
“Have you seen the movie Dogfight?” I asked.
“Nope, it new?” he asked back then offered immediately, “You wanna see it?”
I adjusted myself so I was facing him fully, feeling my features soften at his offer but also in preparation for what I had to do. “No, baby, it’s an old movie. Ash has a movie poster for it on her wall.”
His eyes went unfocused before they refocused on me. “Try not to pay too much attention to her room. Place is a sty.”
It was and a strict-ish dad should probably do something about that but I didn’t address that.
I asked, “Do you know what a dogfight is?”
His brows drew together. “Everyone does, Amy.”
“No,” I replied quietly, leaning toward him putting my forearms in the bed between us. “A dogfight in regards to a nasty game a pack of boys play on a girl.”
His entire body stilled and his eyes started burning into me.
“You know,” I whispered.
“Do not fuckin’ tell me…” he trailed off like he couldn’t finish.
“I don’t know. I brought it up with Aisling, didn’t get very far. I asked if that movie spoke to her and she just said ‘obviously.’ I didn’t get more out of her before Cill interrupted us.”
Like the words were difficult to say, he ground out, “If some fuckwads played that game with her, you’re a chick, you think she’d have that poster on her wall?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. If it was me, no. I wouldn’t want the reminder. But, Mickey, in that movie, the boy falls in love with the girl. He goes to war and he comes back to her.”
“I’m not—”
“My fear, honey, is that she identifies with the plain, overweight girl in that movie and maybe looks at it in a twisted way as hope for her future. I’ll say that saying that the actress in that film is extraordinary and she was beautiful in so many ways. But my concern is, Ash doesn’t see all of them.”
“Been worried about her weight,” he muttered.
“Don’t. That’s not the issue,” I stated firmly. “She carries extra weight but not that much. And she’s pretty, she’s sweet. She’s a little shy, but it’s cute. And she’s probably supremely aware of her weight when she’s far from obese. You mentioning it at this juncture would not be a good thing. From you, she has to feel she’s nothing but beautiful no matter what. The issue is that’s one symptom in many and some of those include overall not caring about her appearance. For a girl her age, that concerns me. It isn’t that she has to cake on the makeup and spend an hour doing her hair every day. But I don’t think she’s showering, Mickey.”
“Yeah, me mentioning that was when things blew up last night,” he reminded me.
I nodded. “I hope Rhiannon can get through to her. But I’d like to hang out with you guys this weekend, just in case I have another shot.”
“Then you’re here, babe, happy for that for more than the fact you wanna look after my girl.”
I smiled at him.
He didn’t smile back but lifted his hand and sifted his finger through my bangs.
“You didn’t say much about meeting Rhiannon, Amy,” he noted after his hand dropped.