Do you see that guy on the couch with the kid? Does he look nervous?
Ha. That’s a goddamn understatement. I haven’t been this nervous since getting on an overnight flight to Amsterdam after doing a few hits of acid. I don’t remember much, other than being handcuffed to the seat when I yelled at the full moon to “Take my soul!”
You’re probably wondering where the nerves came from? Um, well, convinced I was importing narcotics, they cavity searched me. If you don’t know what that means, google it. I’d rather not say.
And for the sake of your sanity, because I’m sitting here with a child, I haven’t touched acid since then.
Back to what’s happening. I’m left with the kid, three bags of her stuff, and her holding the DVD of Beauty and the Beast, while she’s screaming at me to play it. While she cries like someone pulled her hair, I think back to Amberly’s face when she left and hope this isn’t something like, hey, watch the kid while I go out for a pack of smokes and never come back.
She looked happy, didn’t she? Or maybe she was thrilled because I was acting like a grown-up? All I know is she better come back.
“I watch it now!” River screams, pointing at the television where Shade is watching highlights on ESPN where they’re showing the X-Fighters in Madrid. A year ago, he broke his neck in Madrid, and since then, he hasn’t watched the highlight. I’m not sure what is making him now, but I’m about to ruin that because I can’t handle this screaming.
River was normal when Amberly was here, but the moment she walked out the door, I’m not sure she left me with the same kid.
Walking over to the television, I grab the remote from Shade and turn the audio to the DVD and insert the disk.
“What are you doing, asshole?” he shouts, sitting up and glaring at me. “I was watching that.”
“Go someplace else and watch it.”
When the menu pops up with the music, River starts twirling around, dancing.
Shade looks to me, then River, then me again. “Are you fucking shitting me? Why is she here and what is this crap?”
Flopping down on the couch, I cradle my face in my hands. What in the fuckcicle did I agree to? I’m not parent material. Why didn’t you say anything?
I hold up the DVD cover, still cradling my face. “It’s Beauty and the Beast. And Amberly left her with me so she could move.” The moment the words leave my lips, I question my sanity. You are too, aren’t you? You’re thinking this is a disaster, aren’t you?
Shade stands, like he wants no part of this, but asks, “For how long?”
I look up. “Said she’d be back in a couple days.”
“Why would she leave her with you?”
“I just told you,” I snap, hitting the Play button to the movie. River grabs her blanket and sits next to me like we’re going to fucking cuddle up and enjoy the movie together. “She’s moving.”
It takes Shade a minute, but he stares at me, then River and then to my surprise, bursts out laughing. Motherfucker. “She’s your kid, isn’t she?”
Reaching across me for an empty beer bottle on the coffee table in front of us, I throw it as hard as I can at Shade. Naturally, he moves out of the way, and it hits the window behind and breaks it.
“Mom!” Shade yells jokingly when Willa walks back into the house with her phone pressed to her ear and Berlin on her back, sleeping in one of those baby carriers. She notices the broken glass. Shade points at me. “He did it.”
“Knock it off,” she says, barely interested. “And clean this up.”
“I can’t.” I scoot River closer to me. “I’m busy watching Beauty and the Beast.”
Willa begins unbuckling her carrier and get this, she hands me Berlin like I’m a fucking babysitter now. “Well if you’re so cozy, watch Berlin while I deal with your mess and figure out how to get Shade to Peru next week to do a shoot.”
“No way.” I try to push Berlin back at her, but how can you push a sleeping baby away from you? That’s just evil.
Look at me curled up with two girls on the couch. Adorable, huh? Yeah, fuck off. Don’t get used to this. Where’s Amberly? I bet if she saw this, her ovaries would burst and maybe—just maybe—she might actually let me fuck her.
Shade’s eyes widen. “I have to go to Peru next week? I’m supposed to make an appearance in Madrid.”
Ah, yes. That’s why he was watching the highlights. Since the accident that almost killed him, he hasn’t been back to Spain, and I can’t say I blame him. I broke my pelvis and every bone in my left leg in Athens, Greece, and I have no desire to return. Fuck Greece. Unfortunately, I have three plates in my leg as a reminder.
Twenty minutes later—or an eternity when you’re watching a Disney movie—I’m only half paying attention to the movie River’s fully engrossed in. Until they’re at the scene where Beast and Belle, I know, pretty fucking weird I know her name now, but still, this is the part of the movie I pay attention to because River’s crying again. Berlin—who’s apparently teething—is awake and chewing on my fucking fingers like I’m a chew toy.
“Ow, fuck.” I place my hand under her chin and pry her wet mouth off my hand. “Stop that. I like girls who bite, but there’s gotta be grass on the field.” Berlin’s barely over a year old and cute as fucking ever. She stares at me, then grins a big two-teeth smile at me.
But I’ll pause on the drool-monster for a moment. Pay attention to the movie. Do you see the beast outside on the balcony with Belle? Do you notice when he says, “It’s foolish for me to think someone like me could ever win your affection?”
Or something like that.
Remind you of any situation currently going on in my life? If not, I’ll tell you a story. And it has everything to do with a flower. Same kind of flower in the movie, I might add.
I’ll even set the scene for you. Picture Southern California, two kids on the playground at school, sunny day. . . and a little boy with severe anxiety he doesn’t yet understand—still doesn’t—and a shy girl afraid of the boy’s darker side. She knows him well, and his temper. After all, even at five, he’s beaten up every boy who’s shown interest in her, including his older brother. So the boy, he hands the girl a rose one day and asks her to be his girlfriend.
She says. . . no.
The boy eats the flower.
The girl kicks the boy in the balls.
That boy? Me. The girl? Amberly. We got history for sure.
How odd is it that I’m sitting here with River watching this movie and the rose is losing all its petals, and the beast is groveling in his misery for losing the girl?
I grab the remote and River stops me. Berlin takes it and chews on it. “Why him not fight?”
I raise an eyebrow. “The beast?”
“Yeah?”
“He’s a pussy.”
She stares at me curiously, but she lets it go and hands me a list from her backpack. I open it and frown.
Amberly left a fucking list of everything River couldn’t do at my house. I look at her. “This is stupid. What are you allowed to do?”
River shrugs. “I don’t know.”
“Well, I’ve never been good at following rules.”
She leans in, grinning. “I not supposed to pee in the tub. But I do. All the time.”
“I’m sure you’re not the only one.” It’s hot in here, probably because I have now two kids climbing on me. The pool’s looking better and better. “Can you swim?”
River shrugs. “No.” I can’t believe a kid who lives in California can’t swim. Hell, Berlin can swim and she’s one.
“Well, let’s learn then.” Scooping booth kids up, I jump in the pool with both of them. All of us fully clothed.
Oh, relax. Don’t go freaking out and calling child protective services on me. I jumped in too and she only swallowed a little water. You didn’t think I’d sit on the couch all day and babysit, did you?
Get this. I take her on my dirt bike next. She’d never been on one before. I even put a helmet on her, and I wasn’t even drunk.
And here’s where my heart turns from a hard-ass crazy fucker to maybe sort of a dad. A small resemblance of one.
It’s when River looks up at me with her helmet on, twisting around on the seat of my dirt bike, her cheeks squished together, curiosity dancing in her face. Dirt’s smeared on her chubby cheeks with a faint dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose. “I like you,” she says.
The words hit my chest like the wind’s been knocked out of me. You would have thought she told me she loved me, but then again, nobody likes me so to have this kid, my kid, tell me she likes me is enough to make me want to hug her.
I wink at her. “You know, kid, I think I might like you too.”
“We should be friends.”
“I think that can be arranged.”
Shade rides by on his dirt bike heading to the foam pit to work on his jumps. He takes a double take at River. “Are you insane?”
“Yes. And she’s fine. Look. She loved it.”
“Amberly’s going to kill you.”
Turning River around, I rev the bike, shifting into first gear. “Not if you don’t tell her.”
Shade takes off ahead of us and takes the first jump while doing a 360. That gets River’s attention for sure. She points at him, her voice muffled under the helmet when she yells out, “I wanna do that!”
“That?”
Her tiny body tenses with excitement. “Yeah!”
“Um, no.” I might be crazy but taking a kid on a jump is not safe. I once did a backflip with Camden on my bike, but he knew to not let go. I can’t say he went unscathed either. When we landed, his front teeth split his top lip in half. In. Half. Took ten stitches and a week of pudding for the kid, but he says he doesn’t regret it.
But then she says, “Pease.”
Well shit, how do you say no to the word pease? Something strangely adorable about the missing L.
With my heart pounding faster than any high I’ve ever had, I take her on a jump and guess what? We land perfectly, but I know she’s my daughter when she screams in my face and points to the seventy-five-foot ramp we use for training that stretches over the irrigation ditch. The same one I landed in when I greased the landing and ended up with a broken wrist and bit by a rattle snake I disrupted in the process.
“Dat one! Do dat one!”
“No way.” I draw the line. “Come on. I’ll toss you in the foam pit.”
Any time we’re working on a trick, we practice it in the foam pit first. It’s far more forgiving that dirt. So I set her up on that and jump off with her on my bike, hoping it doesn’t crush her. I mean, she has a helmet on. It’s all good. And then guess what happens?
Don’t freak out, but I lose her. It’s like fucking fifteen-feet deep so I have to do some searching. But I find her missing a shoe with a big grin and ready to go again.
Her bright eyes beam. “This is the best day of my life.”
I don’t say anything to her, at least not to that effect, but her words rattle around in my head as I attempt to make sense of them. I can’t, other than the way they make my heart swell and my words choke. “Wait until you see our candy wall inside the house.”
She likes the idea of that. I run my hand through my hair and take a deep breath, watching her. One girl who’s three feet tall, and she has the power to unravel everything I’d held onto for so long.