Gage

Standing at the top of the stairs, I listen to the conversation going on in my kitchen below me. Their instructor, Mark, is talking.

“I was notified this morning that they’ve canceled the experience, and you will all be receiving an A in the class as an apology for my actions.”

“Woo hoo!” The girl sitting next to Clover yells. I can’t remember her name, but I haven’t forgotten how hard she came on to me last night. I knocked on everyone’s door last night passing out his or her dry clothes, but I left hers outside her door to avoid any more of her unattractive Valley-girl flirting.

She’s a pretty girl with an ugly personality that I find difficult to tolerate even in small doses. I’ll wait until she’s done eating to go down and have my breakfast. I feel bad for abandoning Clover to eat alone, but I couldn’t risk any more questions about my dead music career.

Just in case someone out there still remembers me, I want to keep my identity under wraps. I’ve successfully stayed hidden for six long years, and I don’t want to fuck it up now.

I have no idea how the world would react, but the last thing I need are helicopters flying around my house and people in the industry trying to lure me off my mountain. I’m content here with Adley, and I don’t want to be thrust back into the limelight, but more importantly, I want to protect Adley from that lifestyle.

“Daddy?” I turn and find my sweet girl standing on the threshold of her bedroom looking timid and worried. I made her feel bad when I snapped at her, something I almost never do. She’s well behaved, and she deserved better than that.

“Hey, baby,” I say walking into her room to sit down and have a chat with her. “I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier.”

“It’s okay,” she says lowering her eyes to her feet.

“No, it’s not, but I know you’ll forgive me, won’t you?”

“Yes, Daddy, course.”

“I want to explain myself, though, is that okay?” She nods her head, and I open my arms. She walks into them, and I hug her tightly. “When your mommy died, it was the saddest and the happiest time in my life because I lost her and I got you, ya know?”

“Uh huh.” She knows the story of her birth and her mother’s death, but I’m not sure if she’s ever connected the two events as the reason I ended my music career.

“I stopped singing so I could focus all of my attention on raising you since Mommy was gone. I wanted to do it because I loved you so much, and I wanted you to have the best life possible.”

“You still sing, though.”

“Only for you, baby, because you’re my special girl. That’s the thing, though, I quit singing to the world, and the world wasn’t too happy about it. I like to keep that part of my life a secret because I want our lives to stay private up here on our mountain. Do you understand?”

“Yeah, everybody was mad at you, and you don’t want ‘em to find us now, right?”

“Well, yes, sort of.”

“But you like Clover, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do, very much, but I like our privacy, too.”

Her forehead puckers with a frown. I hate to see her frown. “Daddy, we can’t hide up here forever. I’m gonna go to Clover’s camp and grow up and stuff. I don’t want you to be alone up here when I go. Clover could be our friend. She could visit and teach me girl stuff you don’t know about.”

“Girl stuff? Like what?”

“I dunno silly, she’s gotta teach it to me.”

I smile and kiss her frown away. “Okay, we can be friends with Clover, but let me tell her things about my past when I’m ready, okay?”

She smiles and wraps her arms around my torso to give me a big bear hug. “I love you, Daddy.”

“I love you, too, sugar. Now let’s go see what everybody’s doing downstairs, okay?”

“Yep, I’m gonna have Clover do my hair. She knows how to braid!”

“Maybe she can teach me?”

She shakes her head back and forth vigorously. “No, then you’ll say you can do it, and she doesn’t need to come visit.”

Damn that hurt.

“I would not. Listen, Clover can come and see us any time she wants, I promise.”

She bites her bottom lip while she thinks. “Okay, if you promise.”

“I do. Now let’s go.”

After everyone is fed and caffeinated, I announce I’m going to chop wood.

“Oh, that sounds, like, so manly. Care if I come with?” The flirty, annoying woman asks flipping her hair. I cringe inwardly.

“It’s pretty cold out, and the snow’s coming down hard. You might want to keep your clothes dry in here by the fire.” God, please let her be as superficial as she looks and acts, so I don’t have to be a dick.

She looks out the floor-to-ceiling windows in the family room and shrugs her shoulder. “Yeah, I should stay dry, I guess.”

Thank the good Lord above for small favors. “I’ll be back. Adley, help with the clean-up in the kitchen and get online to check in with Miss Kitty.”

“But, Daddy, we don’t have Wi-Fi, remember?” I don’t usually lie to my daughter but telling her we don’t have Wi-Fi this morning seemed justifiable due to the weather and our extra company.

“All right, help clean up and find a book to read or something productive.”

“Can’t I go outside and play in the snow?”

“Not today, it’s too cold, and the snow is deep and unpredictable,” Clover says with a sad smile.

“I’m used to the cold, and you could come with me.” Adley clasps her hands together in front of her bouncing on the balls of her feet.

Clover’s eyes ask for permission. “Yes, as long as you’re with an adult, you can, but if Clover changes her mind, don’t give her a hard time about it, okay?”

“Yay! I promise, I promise!” she squeals jumping around like a super ball.

“You sure about this?” I ask.

“Yep, I’m opening a camp for kids someday, remember?”

“Yes, a summer camp, no snow or blizzards.”

“I was thinking of making it a year-round camp to give kids the total wilderness experience.”

“I’ve never heard of that.”

“Exactly, I’ll be the first and the best. Kids from all over the country will want to come.” I adore her enthusiasm and the sparkle in her eyes when she talks about her dream to open a camp. I’m going to help her do it. I don’t know how, but I am.

“I don’t doubt it for a second. I have to go, see you outside later.”

A collective bye goes up from everyone in the room, and I give a wave. It’s strange having my house full of people when for six years, it’s been just Adley and me all the time. We rarely have company, and it’s usually someone from town coming up for a beer to go fishing or shoot the shit.

Outside, I squint into the falling snow and make my way from memory to the clearing where I chop wood. I have plenty put up already, but I never miss a day. It’s a workout for me not to mention it’s therapeutic being out here alone melding with nature.

When I’ve been at it for thirty minutes, I hear Adley and Clover’s laughter in the distance. I sling the ax hard into the stump and make my way back the house as if being led by a siren singer. The sound of their laughter is magnetic and beautiful.

“The next one won’t be so gentle!” Clover yells racing behind a tree laughing as she goes.

“Mine either!” Adley yells back scooping up a huge handful of snow and packing it into a giant snowball. I tap her on the shoulder and hold a finger to my lips so that she will keep quiet.

We crouch down together behind a tree, and I start making snowballs like a machine until we have a snowball-fight-worthy pile. “Okay, call her out now but don’t let on I’m here.”

“Daddy, that’s not nice.”

“It’s a sneak attack, it’ll be fine. Trust me.”

She shrugs and takes a small snowball in one hand and her giant one in the other.

“Okay, I’m ready!” she yells stepping out from behind the tree.

“Me, too!” Clover yells back, and suddenly hundreds of snowballs are whizzing this way and that. Adley throws hers, and I start windmilling mine in Clover’s direction but as many are coming our way as we are throwing.

That little sneak has help! “Get her!” I yell, and Adley starts whipping the snowballs faster covering me while I run around the perimeter of the yard. I come up behind her and find three of her classmates huddled on the ground helping her make snowballs.

“I gotcha!” I yell tackling her and throwing her into a huge pile of freshly fallen snow. She shrieks and laughs and covers her face when I toss a handful of snow at her. “That’ll teach you to play dirty with my daughter! Us Mercury’s stick together!”

“Uncle, uncle, I’m sorry!” she yells between giggles, and Adley joins us looking shocked.

“Daddy, you could hurt her, you’re a big man!”

“I’m fine, honey. It’s okay. Sorry for the sneak attack. When the girls came outside, I couldn’t resist.”

“It’s okay, Daddy was doing the same to you.”

I hold out my hand to help Clover up, and she yanks hard pulling me into the snow alongside her. “Now, we’re even,” she says spitting and sputtering snow from her mouth. Her mocha complexion is rosy, and her eyes dance with joy.

Seeing her like this, so young and full of joy and life, it makes me feel alive as well. Parts of me feel more alive than others. If she were the only one staying with us, I might have thrown her over my shoulder like a caveman and hauled her to bed.

I haven’t been with a woman I cared about since my wife. My sex life is nearly non-existent since I don’t have anyone to leave Adley with. Clover makes me want to change that. For the first time in six years, someone appeals to me on multiple levels.

She’s gorgeous and loves the outdoors as much as I do. She isn’t pretentious, and she loves kids. I have the feeling there are a lot of other things we have in common. Now that I know she’s not going back to college, I plan on finding out what they are.

“Not even close!” I say jumping up and kicking snow around her.

“You’re gonna get it, Mercury!” she says jumping up to chase me around the yard until we drop laughing like maniacs.

Fifteen minutes later, we’re lying on the ground looking up at the chunks of snow falling on our faces trying to catch our breath. “Nobody’s called me Mercury for years,” I say, and instantly, I wish I hadn’t brought attention to that.

“That’s because nobody calls you anything but daddy living up here. You need to socialize your sweet girl. She craves interaction like a drug. You should have seen her cleaning the kitchen this morning, and then she kicked our asses at a game of Spades.”

“Why don’t you stay and help me with her when the storm’s over. You don’t have to go back to school. You’re getting an A thanks to your teacher’s fuck-up, and you’re graduating early. You could be her nanny.”

“Nanny? I don’t know, Gage. I didn’t go to college to be a nanny. I have plans, remember?”

“Yeah, but those plans weren’t supposed to start for another two months. And who starts a camp in the winter, anyway? I can help you with the start-up on the camp when the weather is warmer. In the meantime, you can nanny for me and give Adley some much- needed female companionship.”

She’s quiet, and I’m digging my hands in the snow at my sides praying she’ll say yes.

“I guess you’re right. I hadn’t given it much thought yet. And helping kids is a big part of what I want to do with my life.” She’s talking like she’s trying to convince herself, and I’m rooting for her.

“So… You’ll do it?”

“Yeah, sure, why not?”

“Exactly. But you should know I have ulterior motives for keeping you here. I like you. I like you a lot, and I haven’t felt this way in a long time. I want you to know that before you commit to staying.”

She turns her head in the snow to face me. She has big, fluffy snowflakes on her eyelashes. They fall onto her cheeks and melt when she blinks. God, she’s so beautiful.

“I like you, too.”

I smile and brush the snow off her cheek. “Good, then it’s settled. You are a college graduate with a full-time job. Pretty impressive if you ask me.”

“Thanks,” she says wrapping her arms around her torso. “My roommate is going to kill me.”

“I’ll pay your half of the rent.”

“Oh, it’s not the money she’s going to be mad about. Her family is loaded. It will be because I went on a sixty-day wilderness exploration and found a hot man. Add to that the fact that I’m leaving her to club hop and shop for clothes alone, and you have a very irritated Freda.”

“How about you tell her you’ll come back for clubbing and shopping on the weekends?” I don’t particularly like suggesting she leave us on the weekends, especially to go club hopping, but if it helps to seal the deal, I’ll bend.

She shrugs. “I guess it could work. Okay, let’s do this.” She sounds resolute and excited even though being a nanny isn’t opening a camp for kids.

“Great, I need to get back to work, do you mind starting your job right now?” I say hoisting myself from the snow and offering her a hand. She takes it, and I pull her up. She’s wearing those purple snow pants again. They’re so sexy. I didn’t even know snow pants could look sexy, but Clover’s ass is magical.

“No, it’s fine. I got her. I think we’re going to build a snowman and go inside to warm up for a while.”

“See you in a while, don’t freeze out here.”

She smiles, and I turn to walk away. I only make it a few steps when I feel a big cold snowball hit the back of my head. I stop and slowly turn to find her with her mitten-covered hand over her mouth, wide-eyed and laughing.

“I’ll get you for that, you just wait. It’ll be when you least expect it.” I wink and turn to leave.

“Sorry!” she sings as I walk away. I raise my arm and wave back at her without looking because I know I won’t be able to resist going back.