Page 43 of The New Guy
Gavin
My crazy weekendends very suddenly at six-thirty on Monday morning, when Jordyn jumps onto my bed.
“Daddy! You’re home!”
“Hi, angel,” I say without opening my eyes. Unfortunately I’ve gotten less than five hours of sleep. We flew back after the Tampa game, landing in the wee hours.
“Wake up!” she says. “I missed you.”
I pry my sleep-pasted eyes open. “Wow, nice haircut.” It’s shorter, barely to her shoulder. And cut in a skillful, flattering way.
She lifts a quick hand to her hair, as if I've reminded her it exists. “It’s okay,” she says gravely.
“Just okay? It will dry faster. You hate drying your hair.”
“Daddy, it's too short to braid!” she says with great anguish. “All the girls at school wear braids.”
“Turn around. Let me see.” She rotates to face the bedroom door. “Huh. Let me get up and do a little research, pumpkin. I bet I can still braid it.”
“Really?” She whirls around again. “I told the girl at the salon that I like braids, but the girl didn’t listen.”
“It’s going to be all right,” I say. “Let me get up and put on the coffee. I do hair better with coffee.”
She gallops out. Fifteen minutes later, I'm working on something called a Dutch milkmaid braid, thanks to a YouTube tutorial that popped up when I searchedhow to braid short hair.
“This is going to work,” I tell her. “Just don’t wiggle around so much? So how was the ballet?”
“Long.” She hunches her shoulders. “I didn’t understand the story. It was supposed to be about swans. Mostly they just danced a lot. The hockey game was more exciting.”
“You are definitely Daddy’s girl! How are your grandparents doing?”
“Good. But Reggie got mad at something Grandma said about her tattoos.”
Jesus.
“I don’t know what it was. And Grandma wants me to go to a summer camp in New Hampshire. She said I would like it. They have horses there.”
My fingers go still. “A sleep away camp?” She’sseven.
Jordyn shrugs. “You can ask her.”
“Do youwantto go to horsey camp?”
“I’m not sure. Horses are very big and a little scary.”
“You are a very sensible person. I like that.”
She giggles, but I’m not joking.
* * *
Now that I’m awake, I dad so hard. That means homemade pancakes for breakfast on a school day, plus a banana smoothie and several knock-knock jokes I’d been saving up. Then I walk her to school, hand in hand.
My smile doesn’t drop until she’s safely inside the building.
After getting home at two a.m., I’m still exhausted. And I’m feeling a little hollow.
Fooling around with Hudson was kind of like indulging in a big cupcake with buttercream frosting. It is delicious, and you can try to savor it. But pretty soon it's gone, and you already regret devouring it.
