Everything inside my rib cage—that softens too. Relief. Renewal.
I feel legitimately renewed, able to set aside the assumption that she doesn’t want to go deep. Hear this stuff.
She doesn’t get spooked easily. I like that.
“Fair point,” I manage around the emotion that grips my throat.
“That really and truly sucks about your parents.”
“It does suck.”
She squints a little, thoughtful. “How the hell are you doing this without them? Single parenting?”
I chuckle, for real this time. “Like I said, it’s a shit show.”
“But you’re so good at it.”
“Am I?”
“I’ve known you as a dad for all of, what, mere days, but I already know the answer to that question is an unequivocal yes.” The green in her eyes is so earnest. “I feel like you need a hug. Can I give you a hug?”
The emotion in my throat is making it difficult to breathe. A hug can’t hurt, right? I hug people all the time, and it’s always platonic.
A hug is, after all, just a fucking hug.
“I’d take a hug.”
“Thank God.” She leans in and wraps her arms around my neck. “I’d definitely have had somewhere to suddenly be if you’d said no.”
Leaning into her is as natural as pulling air through my nose and mouth. She’s warm, and she smells like flowers.
She holds me tight, so I curl my arms around her waist and hold her tight too. My body lights up like a night sky booming with heat lightning. At the same time, a strange, not-altogether-unpleasant feeling settles low in my stomach.
What on earth did I do to deserve a random run-in with such a beautiful person?
“I needed a hug too, I think,” she murmurs, and I have to resist the very strong urge to bury my face in her neck.
“Mommy?”
I immediately release Ava at the sound of the little voice.
“Yeah, Bug?” Ava asks.
“Why are you hugging Mr. Sawyer? Do you have big feelings?”
Ava’s eyes catch on mine for a single, searing beat before she drops her sunglasses back on her face. “Junie and I hug it out when those big feelings happen.”
“Hugs are the best, aren’t they, June?” I ask, noting how artfully Ava dodged her daughter’s question.
June smiles, and she looks like such a mirror image of her mama that I can’t help but smile too.
“The best,” she replies.
A tug on my sleeve. “Daddy, can you watch me go down the big slide? Please?”
I gasp, like I haven’t already watched her do it twelve times. “You’re gonna go down the big slide? That one? The really, really,reallytall one?”
She giggles. “Yes!”
