Chapter 8

Liv

When the kitchen is clean, I step into the living room, where I discover Chase wearing a pink tutu and a green straw hat and talking in a high-pitched voice.

“Well, Elsa, where should we go on our adventure?”

Aw. He really is such a good dad.

Chase hasn’t noticed me yet, so I draw back against the stairwell and pull my phone out to photograph him in all his glory.

The click of the fake shutter draws Chase’s eyes away from Katie—who’s wearing an Elsa dress—toward me.

He lunges.

I pocket the phone, laughing like a fiend, ducking out of reach. “Best daddy ever!”

“Just for that, you need to wear a costume, too,” Chase says, eyes narrowed. “Katie, who’s Liv going to be?”

“Who’s your daddy dressed as?” I ask Katie.

“Princess Daddy.”

“Princess Daddy,” I repeat. “Oh, my. I’ve got my Facebook caption, then.”

Chase glares.

“Not good for the outdoorsy-guy image?”

He gives me the finger outside of Katie’s line of sight.

Katie gestures at me to crouch down, and she begins draping me with green fabric that I think was once a Peter Pan costume. “Am I Peter Pan?”

“You’re a frog. Hop.”

“Wait, what?”

“You’re a frog,” Katie says patiently. “A really, really, really ugly frog. Hop.”

I sneak a glance at Chase’s face.

He’s trying not to laugh. I raise my eyebrows. He shrugs. “Woman up,” he murmurs.

I glare at him.

I crouch and address Katie face to face. “Maybe I could be something else. Like a queen?”

Chase muffles laughter in the crook of his arm.

“No,” Katie says, Cupid’s-bow mouth set firm. “You’re the frog. Hop.”

“You could be the frog,” I tell Katie. “Don’t you want to be the frog?”

“I’m Elsa.”

Chase coughs. “We’re supposed to be encouraging her to use her imagination, not cramping it. She says I’m the princess and you’re the frog. So hop.”

I glare, hard, at him, and he smirks back.

“How does Elsa fit into this story?” I ask Katie, trying to buy time.

“After the princess kisses the frog and he turns into a prince, Elsa builds a magic ice castle for the princess and the prince to live in happily ever after.”

“Not all frogs turn into princes when you kiss them,” I can’t help saying. “And not all stories end with happily ever after.”

“Now you’re crushing her innocent dreams,” Chase murmurs so only I can hear him. I elbow him.

“This one does,” says Katie, undaunted.

Even though I’ve clearly lost this particular battle, I silently cheer for Katie’s ability to stand up for herself. And I admit defeat. I hop to the lily pad (pillow) by the stream (where the rug meets the floor). The princess is strolling through the forest.

Actually, the princess is prancing through the forest, clutching what appears to be an invisible parasol.

“I thought you sucked at princess and frogs,” I say, sotto voce, when he prances my way. “I feel like I’ve been hustled.”

“Just trying to keep standards high, Ugly Frog.”

Snarling, I pull out my phone to video Princess Daddy.

Katie snatches it away and sets it on the coffee table, out of my reach. “Frogs don’t have phones.”

“I need my phone to video your father!”

“Frogs can’t talk,” Chase says gleefully.

I dart a dark look his way. “Please,” I beg Katie. “The world needs to see this.”

“Frogs can’t talk,” Katie echoes.

Chase is laughing so hard it’s impeding his prancing. I clamp my lips shut to hide my own smile.

“You see the frog, Princess Daddy,” Katie instructs. “You look down and see him sitting on a lily pad.

“The princess looks down at the frog and the frog looks up at the princess,” Katie intones. “And even though the frog is really, really ugly—”

Chase snickers. I stick my tongue out at him.

“Is that why you didn’t want to be the frog?” I ask Katie. “Because he’s ugly? Because beauty is only skin deep, you know. I’m full of inner beauty.”

I felt the need to get that point in there. I give Chase a so there look, and he gives me a so what look back.

“Yeah. Elsa is beautiful. The frog is ugly.”

“But once I’m a prince I’ll be really handsome, right?”

“No. You’ll still be really ugly. Like the Beast. And then we’ll have to figure out how to lift the other spell on you. The ugly spell. That’s why we need the ice castle.”

This is a very fractured fairy tale. And I am definitely getting the short end of the narrative stick.

“But Princess Daddy will be beautiful the whole time?”

“Yup. And even though the frog is really, really ugly, Princess Daddy can see his inner beauty. You have to look at each other!” she shouts. “You have to fall madly in love!”

I challenge anyone to disobey a determined five-year-old whose mom died two months ago. Chase and I do what anyone would do in this situation. We look at each other. And pretend to lock eyes and fall madly in love.

Chase’s eyes, as I’ve mentioned, are beautiful, flecked with color. And full, at the moment, of undisguised glee. But as we stare at each other, something shifts. His eyes get serious. And dark. And—

Huh. He’s a good actor.

Chase is full of unexpected talents.