Page 60 of Entirely Yours
She turns to fully face me then, her green eyes sparkling in the glow of the lamp. “Dadurday, huh? I like the sound of that,” she whispers. “You’d want to hang out with a four-year-old on a Saturday morning?”
“Chloe is important to me. I may not be as fun as Ben and Gabe, but I want to get to know her, and I want her to get to know me. Spending Saturday mornings together is a good start.”
“Saturday mornings? Plural?” she questions, a single eyebrow raised.
Busying myself with the braiding again, I say, “Yeah, it’s a recurring thing. Every Saturday morning. And when the baby gets here, he can join too.”
Thea hesitates before responding. “Once we’re back in the apartment it’ll be kind of a pain to come get them, won’t it?”
“About that…” I muse, feigning nonchalance. “What if you didn’t go back to the apartment?”
Her hand reaches up, running along the stubble coating my jawline. “You are a good man, Julien Bardot,” she mutters.
I finally work up the courage to make eye contact, just in time to catch a single tear roll down her cheek and disappear into her hair. My hand shakes slightly when I wipe the tear away. “Is that a yes?”
Thea’s eyes dart back and forth between mine, as if she’s trying to figure out if this is something I actually want. I do. I hope she sees that.
“Let me think about it, okay?” she eventually replies.
I nod in agreement. I can let her think about it. I decided a long time ago I would wait as long as it takes Thea to be ready, I’m not going back on that now.
Saturday morning rolls around and at 6:01 on the dot, there’s a knock on my bedroom door.
“JuJu!” Chloe whisper-shouts. “JuJu! Can we go now?!”
Thea ran the idea of Dadurday past Chloe the day after I asked her about it. We aren’t calling it Dadurday… just “hang out time with Jules” which is not as catchy, I have to admit. All Chloe had to hear was the word donuts and she was in.
I know Chloe tends to wake up early, so I’m not surprised to see her dressed and ready to go when I open the door.
“Go get your shoes and jacket on. I’ll meet you in the kitchen,” I tell her, watching as she scurries off to do just that. I quickly change clothes, cracking the door to Thea’s room to make sure she’s still asleep before I head to the kitchen.
Chloe is bouncing on her toes in excitement while Cat watches from her resting spot on the counter. “How long have you been up, Chlo?”
“My clock said five four one! Mama said not to wake you up until it was six zero zero, so I played in my room until the clock changed.”
She’s got an adorable bedhead situation going on, so I ask, “Do you want me to braid your hair before we go?”
Chloe looks at me in surprise, her movements halting. “You can braid? I love braids! Can you do two?”
“Of course I can, I used to braid my sister’s hair when we were little, and I was practicing on your mom the other night.” I say that out loud and realize it sounds weird. “Braiding… I was practicing braiding,” I clarify.
“Obviously…” Chloe sasses. “Let me get my hair bucket!”
She runs out of the room and comes back with an actual bucket full of hair ties, bows, headbands, and a brush. Handing me the brush, she picks out one pink hair tie and one yellow one, as well as two mismatched unicorn bows. I try to be gentle as I brush her hair, parting it down the middle and starting the first braid.
“Can you teach me to play music like you?” Chloe asks when I’m midway through her second braid. “That’s your job, right?”
“For now, yes. But I would teach you even if it wasn’t my job. Done,” I reply, adding her chosen bows to the end of each braid.
“Thanks, JuJu! Let’s go! Bring the lio-lin,” she instructs.
“The what?”
“The lio-lin, JuJu! Your music!”
Oh,violin. Got it. I oblige because I can’t help myself with the Rose women, and while we sit in the corner of the donut shop that morning, I teach Chloe how to hold my violin. It’s entirely too big for her, but she gets a kick out of it anyway. I don’t give her the bow yet, but let her pluck a few strings so she can hear the music.
When she’s ready to move on, we go to a local park. Chloe immediately heads toward the swingset, screaming “higher!” every time I push her. She requests my help across the monkey bars and insists that I slide down the slide with her. We play tag, hopscotch, and a game Chloe made up that pretty much only consists of finding different rocks that meet her specifications.
