Page 48 of Ugly Duckling
She stood directly in front of me in line before looking at Lottie who was perched on my hip and saying, “I’ll bet you’ll love my salad. It’s so good. Even my dad likes it, and he only eats steak and mashed potatoes if he can help it.”
The two of them talked for the next several minutes as we waited for the line to go down.
By the time that we’d ordered, paid and were sitting down near the play area, they hadn’t once stopped to catch their breath.
Lottie took off, yanking her shoes off as she went, and throwing them to the ground wherever she happened to be as she moved.
I got up, collected the shoes, and let her into the play area before returning to Sutton.
“Is the salad actually any good?”
Sutton smiled and crossed her arms over her chest before bringing her legs up to come to a rest against the table.
“Yes,” she answered. “It’s fairly decent for a fast-food salad. To be quite truthful, I’d choose it over the salad I’d make at home. Even some restaurants. Nothing is better than a Salt Grass salad, though. Sometimes I go to Salt Grass and buy a pint of ranch so I can have salads at home.”
“I can’t say that I’ve ever had one there,” I admitted. “We’ll have to go sometime.”
Her eyes flickered up to meet mine before they dropped to my chest. “Maybe.”
My lips quirked.
She was nervous.
I knew she would be.
We’d had two really great days of sex before she’d been forced to leave, and I’d needed to return to my fatherly duties.
When she’d left, there’d been no awkwardness between us.
But she’d also had three weeks to overthink everything that she’d done.
No way would she be able to come back completely confident after the childhood that she’d had.
We both sat down at the only open spot that was as close to the play area that we could get, and sat in silence watching Lottie play.
“I feel like all of that stuff in there is completely unsanitary,” she admitted as she watched one kid cough so much that some red juice had spewed up with his cough. “I mean, that’s disgusting. And the kids are just sliding down the slide straight into it.”
“At least that other little boy cleaned it up with his butt before Lottie came down,” I admitted. “But just sayin’, Lottie puked in the ball pit at the trampoline park last week when we went to a birthday party there. I don’t think they did anything besides clean the barf off a few foam balls.”
“That’s utterly disgusting, and I thank you for warning me ahead of time in case I ever find myself in a situation where I can get into a ball pit.”
I snorted. “Sorry.”
“No, no. Really. I appreciate knowing.” She turned to me. “I have eight clients already. After this, I’m going to drop all this stuff off at your place, and then I’m going to go get some work done. It’s highly likely that I won’t be home until late. Like midnight. I made all the appointments for this evening and tomorrow morning before ten.”
“That many dead people want manicures?”
“You have no idea,” she said as a man wearing a red shirt and khakis rolled up with our food. “I’ll go get Lottie.”
She got up while the guy was still putting the food down onto our table.
I thanked him and watched, enraptured, as she went up to Lottie who was in the net thing above her head and called out to her.
Usually, either Audric or I were the only ones that could get her out of the play area, but whatever Sutton said to her caused Lottie to squeal in excitement and tumble out of the netting.
Sutton caught her before she could trip and fall on her face, pulling her up into her arms before she turned and marched out of the play area.
“What sorcery did you just perform?” I asked as Lottie scrambled into the seat next to Sutton.
