Cleo turned to me and didn’t even blink when she saw me standing close, holding and being held by her dad.
She was in kitty wonderland.
“Can we touch them? Hold them?” she asked.
“Of course, sweetie,” I answered.
She grinned genuinely and it transformed her whole face, making beauty exponentially more beautiful.
Zadie already had a hold of Chief and was cuddling him under her chin.
“He weighs, like, nothing,” she whispered in awe.
“You have Chief, Zadie,” I told her, then looked to Cleo, who was slowly stalking Poem down the couch. “And that’s Poem, Cleo. She’s my girl.” I looked back to Zadie. “Chief’s my boy and your dad named him.”
This was the wrong thing to say. I knew it immediately when Zadie’s attention cut to me, then to her dad.
She dropped Chief on the back of the couch and declared, “I’m hungry. Can we go?”
My body got tight. I felt Logan’s body get tight. And Cleo’s eyes shot to her dad.
I could feel he was annoyed but this was a much better beginning than I expected and I didn’t want anything, outside of things Zadie might do, to mess that up.
So I said quickly, “Yes. Let’s get going. Can’t wait for a big plate of spaghetti!”
I moved from Logan’s arm and toward the hooks behind the door where my jackets were so we could get on with getting to where we were having dinner. The Old Spaghetti Factory.
I grabbed the suede jacket I’d put there earlier with my pashmina in preparation for that very moment and shrugged it on, wrapping the scarf around my neck and grabbing my bag.
The girls had trooped out and Logan was holding the door.
“Alarm, beautiful,” he muttered.
I nodded, hit the digits, and armed it. We got out, Logan closing the door, me locking it.
We moved toward the truck. Logan took my hand and I saw Cleo in the truck, Zadie standing outside of it, her eyes narrowed on our hands.
She lifted her gaze to her father and asked, “Does Millie get to sit in front?”
“What do you think?” Logan asked back.
She huffed like this was an affront beyond the beyond.
Logan stopped us close to her. “Zade, do you ever sit in the front when there’s an adult in the truck with us?”
“Whatever,” she mumbled, and climbed into the back of the cab.
Logan let me go to shut her door.
I drew in a deep breath and lifted a hand to open the front door but Logan’s hand covering mine on the handle stopped further movement.
“Warning,” he stated, his voice abrasive and I knew from it precisely how pissed he was at his girl. “She keeps up with this shit, we’re outta there. I’ll drop you back here and the girls get beans and hot dogs in the RV.”
I looked to him. “Don’t do that, Low.”
“Don’t think I won’t, Millie,” he returned. “That shit is not okay and she can’t think it is.”
Damn it!
If he did that, she’d dislike me more and maybe Cleo wouldn’t like me much either.
Before I could argue (not that I could with the girls in the truck), he pushed my hand aside and opened the door for me.
I climbed in. He slammed the door and moved around the hood. I put my seat belt on as Logan angled in the other side.
He had the truck started and was negotiating a tedious six-point turn to get his big truck around in my courtyard when I asked the girls in the backseat, “Have you guys been to the Old Spaghetti Factory before?”
“Yeah, lots,” Cleo answered. “We love it.”
“We loved it when Daddy took us when Mom was with us,” Zadie mumbled, not quite under her breath.
“Zadie, strike one,” Logan growled.
The air in the cab, not exactly free flowing, clogged even further and I knew strike one meant to the girls what I suspected it did.
I just wondered how many strikes they got.
I gave it a moment for their father’s message to sink in before I instigated conversation, asking about school, friends, favorite subjects, teachers, movies, if they read. Then, finding Cleo liked to read, I asked what her favorite books were.
This lasted us from Cheesman Park where my house was to downtown where the Spaghetti Factory was.
Only Cleo replied. She didn’t do it by rote. She was relatively chatty and asked questions back, like what my favorite movies and books were.
Zadie didn’t say a word and I didn’t have to be a mother or know these girls since birth to feel her pouting.
Halfway through our journey, Logan took my hand and held it. Again, I worried about this display and I worried more when I felt Zadie-induced laser beams burning into our hands from the backseat.
However, I didn’t pull away.
We got in the restaurant. We got seated. We took off our jackets and put in our drink orders.
It was there that I noticed that Cleo often looked to her father even when she was speaking to me. And it was then that I realized that she was making an effort for her dad because it meant something to him, he meant something to her, and it wasn’t about me.
I’d take that. I could work with that. She’d soon see I loved her dad and that might free her to be open to building a relationship with me.
Regardless, I’d take it simply because it was a good deal better than the petulant silence coming from Zadie.
Logan ignored Zadie’s behavior and joined Cleo’s and my conversation. He also sat us at our table so he and I were side by side and the girls were across from us. I didn’t know if he was making a statement, if he wanted to keep an eye on them, or this was their usual arrangement.
But I was glad he was at my side.
It happened when we fell into a natural silence after we had to send the waitress away because we weren’t ready to order; therefore, everyone focused on their menus.
It happened when some sixth sense I had made me look beyond my menu toward Zadie, who was across from me.