Page 94 of Chasing Shelter

I grinned and shook my head at her. “I think I’ve got my hands full with Grem and our friend Goaty. Who you still have to help me name.”

“Oh, oh, oh,” Keely cheered as she set Gremlin down. “I thought of theperfectone.”

“Lay it on me, bestie. I need to know.”

“Bumper. Because she’s always bumping into things.”

A laugh bubbled out of me. “That is perfect. You are a creative genius. What do you say? Want to lend me that genius by helping me with this wall?”

Keely gazed up at my creation. It was mostly a pencil drawing at this stage, with a few paint swatches in places to make sure the tones were right. “Whoa. This is soooooo pretty.”

“Thank you. I think it’s going to bring a lot of happy.”

Kye’s murals had given me the idea, but this was my spin on it. A stylized rainbow with all sorts of flying creatures around it. Fireflies to light my way. Sparrows to represent my new home. Dragonflies to bring me luck. Bees to tend the home I was building. Hummingbirds to remind me to be fierce. And butterflies as my symbol of transformation. My favorite of all.

“My mom would never let me do this,” Keely mumbled.

Tension wound around me as memories of my father filled mymind. “This might not be everyone’s thing, and that’s okay. They might have their own thing.”

Keely scowled at the floor. “Her thing is homework and nine million lessons.”

I fought the wince that wanted to surface. “Maybe you guys just need to find your thing together.”

“Maybe,” Keely said, scuffing at the floor with the toe of her shoe.

I hated to see her so dejected. “For now, how about you help me make this wall sing?”

A little of Keely’s smile returned. “Let’s do it!”

I held out my hand for a high five, and Keely slapped my palm. As we got her covered in one of my old tees, I couldn’t help but worry about Keely and her mom—and all the waysI’dnever felt free to be who I truly was. I didn’t want that for Keely. But the only thing I could do was make sure she felt safe to be who she was with me. And I’d let her paint my whole damn house to do that.

28

TRACE

Leah held my gaze,a hint of hardness slipping into her expression. “You just let our daughter go hang out with a stranger?”

My jaw wound tighter with each word that slipped from my ex’s mouth. “I think you know me better than that.”

I’d never put Keely at risk. That girl was my life, and Leah knew it.

She shifted uncomfortably as if reading the thoughts swirling in my mind. “Well, she’s a stranger to me. Don’t you think I should know who Keely’s spending time with?”

“I have friends you don’t know. Ones that are around Keely plenty. Why is this suddenly an issue?”

Leah’s lips pressed into a firm line. “A friend.”

“Yes, I do occasionally have one of those.” The only problem was that Ellie was so much more than that. I had no idea how to classify her when both of us were running from what I knew it had the potential to be.

I liked things to fit in neatly ordered boxes, and Ellie didn’t do that. She scribbled outside every line. She refused to play by any rules.And slowly, she was making me realize that what I needed wasn’t what I’d originally thought.

“Are you sleeping with her?”

The question jerked me from my thoughts and nearly had me rearing back. “You know that’s none of your business, Le.”

Neither Leah nor I had been in a serious relationship since the divorce. She’d dated here and there but never brought any of the guys around Keely because it hadn’t reached that stage. I’d gone on a handful of dates that had gone nowhere because nothing seemed right. But neither of us hadeverbeen territorial over the other.

The muscle where Leah’s jaw met her cheekbone began to pulse, her tell that her annoyance, anger, or some other emotion was mounting. “We share a daughter.”

---