“You’re happy?” she whispered as I dropped my mouth down to the bare skin of her belly the moment we hit the bed.
I looked up at her.
“Fucking ecstatic.”
***
Sixteen years later
“Oh, God,” I moaned. “Is she done yet?”
My girl was on the balance beam, and she was at the most complicated part of her routine. The part where she did the backflip. The part where my breath left me each and every time she did it.
Tally inhaled sharply, and my eyes slammed open.
The crowd around us stood and started screaming.
I could do nothing but stare as my daughter not only stuck that landing, but aced the whole flip.
“Thank fucking Christ,” I groaned.
My other daughter, Morrie, smacked me on the shoulder.
“Dad, we’re at the Olympics. You can’t say ‘fucking’ because it’s highly likely that we’re on national TV right now.”
She was right. We were.
***
Tallulah Ophelia Tomirkanivov, better known as Tot, had a full house in the audience today. Her father. Mother. Sister. Grandparents. Uncles—who look really out of place watching these Olympics with their leather, tattoos, and scowls.
Everyone was in attendance to watch her perfect balance beam routine. She received gold in her first-ever Olympic event, and then went on to earn three more. One in floor, one in uneven bars, and one in the vault. And hopefully this is just the start of many more to come for Tot.
Watching her dad, however, was the highlight of the event for many fans, as he moved, jived, and practically jumped with each of Tot’s moves. And when she did her final backflip and landed perfectly, Dad had a few choice words to say.
We’ll leave his words up to interpretation, though.
However, as a father of three, one of whom was an Olympian as well, I personally couldn’t agree more with his words.
Thank Christ, indeed Mr. Tomirkanivov. The USA is excited for this win, too!
***
Ghost
Present day I watched, my heart in my throat, as the child walked across the stage at second grade graduation.
The child’s mother was seven rows in front of me. Watching with a large smile on her face.
But there was sadness there, too.
A deep-seated, never-going-to-leave-her sadness…and I’d put it there.
What’s next?
Oh, My Dragon
Book 3 in the I Like Big Dragons Series
4-6-17
Chapter 1
Some girls watched Beauty in the Beast and wanted the prince. I want the library.
-Meme
Wink
The stairs screamed in protest as I made my way back down the ladder.
I hated my job.
Well and truly hated it; I had no clue why I continued to do it when I hated it so much.
In fact, if I’d just quit already, I would be free to do my photography full time.
But that was the thing about me. I hated quitting. Anything.
It didn’t matter what it was.
A sport. A novel. A job.
They were all the same in my book.
Not to mention that I had no guarantee that next month would be as good as this month.
Christmas was now over, and I’d realized that if I managed to get at least six clients a month, I could make enough to carry me through until next month.
I also sold my photography as well. Anything I was able to sell was an added bonus that gave me a tiny cushion and made everything a little bit easier.
But my brain was still stuck in ‘poor’ mode. Meaning that I couldn’t quit. Not when my mind still had me eat eating Ramen noodles when my bank account clearly could accommodate Velveeta mac and cheese.
My brain just couldn’t process that I was in the black on the balance sheet, not the red.
So, until I was confident in that, it meant I had to stick it out at my day job.
Once I had enough in my savings to hold me for a year, then I’d know it was time to stop my day job and pursue my passion, but not until then.
Not after the last four years.
Which was why I was currently crawling down the steps of the upstairs loft in my client’s house.
I was a professional cleaner.
Or maid, if you wanted to get all technical and shit.
I worked for a man who I never saw, yet he always managed to make a huge fucking mess.
My guess was that he only came out at night, after I was gone.
That would certainly explain why I never saw him.
It would also explain why his house was such a freakin’ pigsty every other morning when I came back.
Last night, it appeared, he’d had another party, because there were dishes and cups everywhere, as well as questionable things on his sheets.
My boss owned a large house on the outskirts of Dallas, right on the lake.
It was a three story monstrosity that was the bane of my existence.
But, alas, I had it clean.
For today, at least.
Now it was time to go home.
Which I did not five minutes later, being sure to lock up so I didn’t get another threatening letter from my boss for forgetting.
Which I never did.
Ever.
I was a freak about locks.
I had six of them on my door at home, as well as a reinforced door, a security chain, and a half-assed security system I’d bought off of Amazon.
So yes, I understood all too well the importance of locking doors.
Something I’d found out the hard way.
Meaning I didn’t screw up when it came to locking a door, especially not someone’s that I had to go into where there were so many freakin’ places to hide.
After locking up, I made my way home, thankful that the day’s traffic was over with. Mostly.
The interstate was always busy, but it was nothing like the five o’clock rush hour.
Today, as I drove by Taco Bell and decided to get myself a burrito that I ate it in the car on the way home, I was telling myself that tomorrow I would start my diet.
Tomorrow I would lose the ten pounds I’d been promising to do for the last half a year.
But would it even matter if I did?
It was highly unlikely that I would find anyone.
Not unless I could meet them in traffic, at my boss’s shitty big house, or at the houses where I painted my murals.
Speaking of murals, my best friend and brother from another mother, Shane, chose that moment to call.
“Hello?” I answered, pulling into my driveway.
“Why, oh why, do I not know how to paint yet?” he asked me.
I laughed.
“Because you like to work with metal,” I said amusingly. “And you don’t paint well.”
“You like to sculpt with metal, but you can paint, too,” he countered.
“That’s true,” I said, getting out of my car, being sure to grab the trash from my devoured burrito out of the cup holder.
I sighed and started up the front path that led to my apartment, then even further inside the building.
“What are you doing tonight?” I asked him.
“Working at the bar,” he said almost distractedly. “Hey, can I call you back? I think someone’s here.”
He hung up before I could reply, and I sighed, dropping my phone into my purse and hitching the handles back over my shoulder.
I had no life.
Really, I didn’t.
I’d worked my ass off all day, and what did I have to show for it?
Nothing.