Chapter 10
After ordering food and tokens, Liam found Raven sitting at a booth. Glancing at the bright-red, cracked cushion, he made sure there were no “surprises” before taking a seat. He tried to make small talk as Royael and her crew roamed around arcade games and obstacle courses, but Raven had turned into a Chihuahua. The Chihuahua—a secret name he’d gifted Raven—had a sharp reply for everything.
“Look, Liam, I'm here because of Royael. I'm not always confident in how well I turned out,” she chortled, “so having a father works. Step out of line and POOF, you're gone. Please, give me a bit of time to digest this, and then I'll tell you happy stories. But, oh, I'm going to tell you the best parts of Royael—what am I saying? She's my baby, she's perfect. So like I said, I'll give you the good times with her, just to make you feel worse about yourself.”
“I’ll be forever grateful for that.” He nodded. “Setting eyes on Royael has made me realize you are my biggest regret.”
“Please,” she said through gritted teeth.
The two of them sat across from each other in silence, eating pizza. Every so often, she spoke. He found out that Royael just celebrated her fifth birthday a few weeks before. His daughter was a New Year’s Eve baby. When he asked what they did, and Raven mentioned cake and ice cream with the neighbors. A while later, she spoke of Royael’s favorite bear, Mookie, who their daughter had named.
***
After a while, they got up to play with the kids. Liam stood at the arcade game where you have to bop the top of the gopher’s head. Royael stood in front of him, and he helped his daughter hold the hammer. As the various gophers kept popping out, he helped her push them down.
Raven stood against the wall next to them, smiling and encouraging her daughter to move faster. But watching the father-daughter play and the way her child laughed courageously made her heart soften.
“All right, Royael, let’s show him how this really goes down.” Raven came to life as they finished up with a measly twenty points.
Liam placed another token in the machine as she stationed herself behind Royael. Raven helped her bop the top of the gopher’s head, but Raven also used her other hand to press down the heads of even more gophers which popped up. The girls were chuckling hysterically by the time they finished, with almost double the points.
“Yay, Mommy, I got so many tickets!” Royael shouted, snatching the stream of tickets.
Their daughter ran off to join her friends, and the two went to sit down again. The laughter vanished and an awkward silence ensued.
“That’s weird,” Raven murmured, about an hour later. “The kids are usually back by now asking for more tokens and acting like they’ve been starved to death. The pizza’s cold already.”
“I gave them ten thousand tokens,” Liam replied. “I don’t think so.”
“You gave three five-year-olds ten thousand tokens? Ya gotta be kidding me.” Raven giggled and came to sit next to him, scooting close. A mixture of confusion and enticement from her fruity perfume took over him.
“See those boys?” Raven pointed to a pair of pimple-faces who were following Royael and her friends, picking up tokens that fell out of the girls’ pockets. Raven patted his shoulder, chuckling. “Mr. Big Bucks, you’re paying for everybody’s tokens.”
Liam stood abruptly. “Those little bastards!”
“Sit, Mr. Big Bucks!” She smacked his tailored butt. “You can’t beat ’em for taking this opportunity. Do you really want to get in a fight with all of these parents on your first visit with Royael? Granted, you're no longer a fat ass, but you do not have an ally in me.”
“Don’t start, Raven.” He rubbed at a phantom headache as she continued to laugh.
***
A slight ache formed at the pit of Raven’s stomach as she watched Liam carry their sleeping child into the house. Touched by the love on his face and torn by what he’d written in the letter, Raven took a seat on the couch. Her heart had split from the need to shield her daughter from his previous views. But, they connected.
She’d just changed the tot and put her in bed. Liam went upstairs afterward to read a goodnight book. Raven’s heart had been on the verge of exploding, so she silently left the bedroom.
Downstairs, Raven grabbed a throw pillow and held it to her chest, letting the day sink in. Closing her eyes, a vivid image of them on the very same couch in Bellwood took over. He’d convinced me that he’d never leave. She’d been hesitant. Lips tingling, she reminisced on his kisses and how, like a dum-dum, she’d caved in. Liam made love to me, made me think that he was the only consistency in my life, then he abandoned me.
“I barely turned the page and she was out.”
Liam’s voice and the movement of him sitting near her shoved Raven into reality. The scent of amber and woodsy cologne almost had her eyes closing again. Instead of giving into dreamy temptation, she smiled genuinely. “Royael had a good day.”
“Do you mind if I stay and look at pictures of her? I’ve missed a lot.”
The smile plunged into darkness. Of course, you did! A plethora of emotions had her feeling angry and sorry for him at the same time. Nodding, she rose and went to the bookshelf. She spread photo albums across the coffee table and dug in from the beginning.
A while later, their laughter mingled with the rain patter on the windows. Raven leaned on his shoulder, legs covered by a knitted blanket as she pointed to a picture of a seven-month Royael at her first pageant. “She won the highest title in Natural and Glitz. Now, Royael dominates the pageant world.”
Raven told him a story about each photo. She stopped on a picture of Royael in the bathtub with her face and body smeared in chocolate. “She was almost two, stole a candy bar from the checkout stand while I was paying for groceries. It wasn’t until I pulled into the driveway and looked through the rearview mirror … You could just imagine the mess in the dead of summer! Chocolate all over the seats, ugh!”
“She loves chocolate like her daddy.”
“Oh, here’s the infamous Mookie Number Three.” Raven showed him a picture of a tan, curly, stuffed bear. His mouth was smeared with what had to be chocolate. “It was all matted to his skin.”
Liam smiled as he glanced through the photos of Royael holding her bear. “Why’s his name Mookie Number Three?”
“Because The Diva treats the bear like a human. She’s lost one or two at the zoo, and one had started to smell like mildew since she’s hardheaded and took a bath with it. Do you know, one time I had to wake up at before the rooster to buy Royael a new one after finding out it didn’t make it home with my sleeping child from the zoo? You just put Royael to sleep with Mookie number uhhhh … I’ve lost count.”
They sat for hours as Liam learned about his daughter’s life. Looking back on all the pictures had Raven in a carefree state. She picked up the last book, Royael’s fifth year, and excitedly told the story behind those photos, too.
“This looks professional,” he commented on a recent picture of Royael on the merry-go-round.
“I took it. I’m … I was attending photography school.”
“You stopped? Do you have a portfolio?”
This is getting too personal. Raven stiffened; she’d almost gone through the whole day without hating herself for being so chummy with him. “I’m barely a second-year student.”
“You shouldn’t be shy about it. This picture looks great.”
Finally noticing how near they were, she stood hastily. “It’s getting late.”
Liam stood. “Okay.”
The soothing sound of rain permeated the room as she opened the front door. She hastily grabbed an old newspaper from the rack beside her Grandpa’s Laz-E-Boy. He seemed to be in apologize mode. Raven thrust the newspaper to his chest. As soon as he stepped outside, she closed the front door.
No amount of mental mantra could stop her from peeking through the blinds. Raven watched him saunter to his car, not even using the paper to shield himself from the rain.