She’s saying something but I can’t read her lips. I walk toward her and she warns me to stop, holding up her hands. Her eyes dart to Hayley, and then back to my face, and she doesn’t look too happy with me. I set Hayley on the counter and put a cookie in her hands, and she settles there to watch us, her mouth full of chocolate chips. Hayley’s three, and she’s a cool kid.
I move the towels around with my boots, and Kit drops to her knees to mop up all the water. She pushes the towels around frantically, until it’s all cleaned up. Then she throws the wet towels in the mop bucket and starts a load of wash with them in it. She comes back to the kitchen and looks at Hayley, who’s still perched on the counter, happily munching on her cookie. Paul’s going to have my ass when he finds out I gave her chocolate, but I needed to entertain her for a second.
Kit blows her hair out her eyes with a frustrated breath and glares at me. “You’re home,” she says. Her hands are on her hips, and she’s not wearing any make up and her hair’s a mess and she has a line of dirt streaked across her forehead. But she’s never looked prettier.
I nod. The knees of Kit’s jeans are wet, and her shirt’s damp now, too. “What have you been doing?” I ask. I look around. The apartment is clean. And I don’t just mean “straighten it up because Grandma’s coming over” clean. I mean spotlessly clean. Like showroom floor clean. But better. It smells nice. And it looks nice. And she’s here. God, I’m so happy she’s here.
She shrugs. “How was your day?” she asks. Her gaze zips between me and Hayley. Hayley’s making a mess, but I don’t care.
“Better, now,” I admit. I feel like someone took a weight off my chest when I walked into the room and saw her here. I reach for Kit, and squeeze her to me, kissing her on the forehead. She scrunches up her face, and pushes back from me, her gaze jumping to Hayley again.
“Who’s that?” she asks warily.
I wet a kitchen towel and wipe Hayley’s mouth and hands clean. She hasn’t gotten it on her dress yet, but I know it’ll happen any second. Her mother will shit a brick if we send her back with dirty clothes. I tickle Hayley’s tummy and she giggles, her belly clenching as she arches into my hands. “This is Hayley.”
Hayley looks a little confused, and I pick her up, putting her on my hip. She wraps around me, and one hand covers my mouth. I kiss her palm and make noises at her. She wiggles in my grasp. She’s probably confused about the noises coming out of my mouth. I’ve never talked in front of her before.
“How old is she?”
“How old are you Hayley?” I ask her, jostling her on my hip.
She holds up three fingers.
“Three?” Kit says, like she’s amazed. “Such a big girl.” Kit looks at me. “Does she talk?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. Her lips are really hard to read, so I don’t know if she talks or if she’s just making noises. She knows how to sign simple words like food, milk, bath, water, and other things she needs. She and I do pretty well together. Most of it is just me trying to figure out what she needs, but Hayley doesn’t seem to mind. “She might.”
Kit bends down to her level and asks, “Do you talk?” Kit smiles and she’s so damn pretty making faces at Hayley that I want to kiss her. I grab Kit quickly around the waist and jerk her into my side with a hand on her hip, and she laughs, looking up at me. I kiss her on the forehead and Hayley bats the side of my face with her open palm. “I don’t think she likes that,” Kit says, backing away from me.
“She’ll have to get used to it.” Kit’s eyes meet mine, and then they skitter away.
“She’s adorable,” she says, but she’s not looking in my eyes. We’ll have to talk about that later.
“What happened to the apartment?” I ask, a grin tugging at my lips. She looks unsure of herself as she brushes her hair back from her face. That streak of dirt is still across her forehead and I reach out to wipe it away with my thumb.
She wrings her hands together and doesn’t look me in the eye. “I did a little cleaning.”
I take her chin in my hand and tip her face up to mine. “I’m glad you’re still here.”
“You’re not mad, are you?” she asks. She bites her bottom lip.
“That you’re here?” I ask softly. “I’m fucking ecstatic.”
She scowls and looks at Hayley. “Language,” she says. “And I meant about the cleaning. I started it this morning and… well… I couldn’t stop.”
“You shouldn’t have.”
“I know,” she says with a shrug. “I wanted to. And I sort of feel like I owe you guys for letting me stay here.”
“You don’t owe us anything,” I try to explain. I tug her to me again. I like the feel of this girl in my arms so much more than I should. “I like having you here.”
She smiles up at me, and then Hayley starts to jump in my arms. She’s excited, and reaches over my shoulder. I look back and Paul’s coming in the door. She gets so excited to see Paul.