I blinked a couple of times, slicing my gaze to my daughter. I was grossly unequipped to deal with women my own age, so taking care of Luna always felt like shooting a goddamn arsenal of bullets in the dark, hoping something would find the target. I frowned, searching my brain for something—anything, any-fucking-thing—that would put a smile on my daughter’s face.
It occurred to me that social services would scoop her ass up and take her away from me had they known what an emotionally stunted dumbass I was.
“I…” I began to say. Sonya cleared her throat, jumping to my rescue.
“Hey, Luna? Why don’t you help Sydney hang up some of the summer camp decorations outside? You have a great touch with design.”
Sydney was the secretary at Sonya’s practice. My daughter had warmed up to her, seeing as we spent a lot of time sitting in the reception area, waiting for our appointments. Luna nodded and hopped down from her seat.
My daughter was beautiful. Her caramel skin and light brown curls made her deep blue eyes shine like a lighthouse. My daughter was beautiful and the world was ugly and I didn’t know how to help her.
And it killed me like cancer. Slowly. Surely. Savagely.
The door closed with a soft thud before Sonya trained her eyes on me, her smile fading.
I glanced at my watch again. “Are you coming over to fuck tonight, or what?”
“Jesus, Trent.” She shook her head, clasping the back of her neck with her laced fingers. I let her have her meltdown. This was a reoccurring issue with Sonya. For a reason beyond my grasp, she thought she could tell me off because she sometimes had my dick in her mouth. The truth was, every ounce of power she had over me was because of Luna. My daughter worshipped the ground Sonya walked upon and allowed herself to smile more in her therapist’s presence.
“I’ll take that as a no.”
“Why don’t you take it as a wake-up call? Luna’s love for seahorses is a way to say—‘Daddy, I appreciate you for taking care of me’. Your daughter needs you.”
“My daughter has me,” I gritted through clenched teeth. It was the truth. What more could I have given Luna that I hadn’t already? I was her dad when she needed someone to open the pickle jar and her mom when she needed someone to tuck her undershirt into her black ballet tights.
Three years ago Luna’s mother, Val, had put Luna in her crib, grabbed her keys and two large suitcases, and disappeared from our lives. We hadn’t been together, Val and I. Luna was the product of a coked-up bachelor party in Chicago that had spun out of control. She was made in the back room of a strip club with Val straddling me while another stripper climbed on top of my face. Looking back, screwing a stripper bareback ought to have awarded me with some kind of a Guinness record for stupidity. I was twenty-eight—not a kid by any stretch of the imagination—and smart enough to know what I was doing was wrong.
But at twenty-eight, I was still thinking with my dick and my wallet.
At thirty-three, I was thinking with my brain and my daughter’s happiness in mind.
“When is this charade going to end?” I cut Sonya off, getting tired of running in circles around the real topic at hand. “Name your price and I’ll pay it. What would it take for you to go private with us?”
Sonya had been working for a private institution partially funded by the state and partially funded by the likes of yours truly. She couldn’t have made more than 80k a year, and I was being extremely fucking optimistic. I’d offered her 150k, the best health insurance on the market for her and her son, and the same amount of hours if she’d agree to come work with Luna exclusively. Sonya let out a long-suffering sigh, her azure eyes crinkling. “Don’t you get it, Trent? You should be focusing on getting Luna to open up to more people, not allowing her to depend on me for communication. Besides, Luna is not the only child who needs me. I enjoy working with a wide range of clients.”
“She loves you,” I countered, plucking dark lint from my impeccable Gucci suit. Did she think I didn’t want my daughter to speak to me? To my parents? To my friends? I’d tried everything. Luna wouldn’t budge. The least I could do was make sure she wasn’t terribly lonely in that head of hers.
“She loves you, too. It will just take more time for her to come out of her shell.”
“Let’s hope it happens before I find a way to break it.” I rose to my feet, only half-joking. My daughter made me feel more helpless than any grown-ass person I’d ever dealt with.
“Trent.” Sonya’s voice pleaded when I was at the door. I stopped, but didn’t turn around. No. Fuck it. She didn’t talk about her family much when she came over for a quick fuck after Luna and the nanny were already asleep, but I knew she was divorced with one kid. Fuck normal Sonya and fuck her normal son. They didn’t understand Luna and me. On paper, maybe. But the real us? The broken, the tortured, the curiosities? Not a chance. Sonya was a good therapist. Unethical? Maybe, but even that was debatable. We had sex knowing there was nothing more to it. No emotions, no complications, no expectations. She was a good therapist, but, like the rest of the world, she was pretty bad at understanding what I was going through. What we were going through.
“Summer break has just started. Please, I urge you to make room for Luna. You work such long hours. She’d really benefit from being around you more.”
I twisted in place, studying her face.
“What are you suggesting?”
“Maybe take a day off every week to spend time with her?”
A few slow blinks from my end were enough to tell her she was grossly overstepping. She backpedaled, but not without a fight. Her lips thinned, telling me she was growing tired of me, too.
“I get it. You’re a big hotshot and can’t afford the time off. Promise me you’ll take her to work with you once a week? Camila can watch over her. I know your office building offers a play room and other amenities suitable for children.” Camila was Luna’s nanny. At sixty-two, with one grandchild and another on the way, her employment with us was on borrowed time. So whenever I heard her name, something inside me stirred uncomfortably.
I nodded. Sonya closed her eyes, letting out a breath. “Thank you.”
In the lobby, I collected Luna’s Dora the Explorer backpack and stuffed her toy seahorse into it. I offered her my hand and she took it. We made the silent journey to the elevator.
“Spaghetti?” I asked, glutton for disappointment. I’d never get a response.
Nothing.
“How about FroYo?”
Nada.
The elevator pinged. We strode inside. Luna was wearing her black Chucks, a simple pair of jeans, and a white tee. The kind of stuff I could imagine the Van Der Zee girl wearing, when she wasn’t busy mugging innocent people. Luna looked nothing like Jaime’s daughter, Daria, or the other girls in her class who preferred frills and dresses. Just as well, as she found zero interest in them, either.
“How about spaghetti and a FroYo?” I bargained. And I never bargained. Ever.
Her lax hold of my hand tightened a little. Getting warmer.
“We’ll pour the FroYo on top of the spaghetti and eat it in front of Stranger Things. Two episodes. Break bedtime routine. You can go to bed at nine instead of eight.” Fuck it. It was the weekend and my usual willing bodies could wait. Tonight, I was going to watch Netflix with my kid. Be a seahorse.
Luna squeezed my hand once in a silent agreement.
“No chocolate or cookies after dinner, though,” I warned. I ran a tight ship when it came to food and routines in the house. Luna squeezed my hand again.
“Tell it to someone who cares, missy. I’m your dad and I make the rules. No chocolate. Or boys—after dinner or otherwise.”
A ghost of a smile passed on her face before she frowned again, clutching her bag with the stuffed seahorse to her chest. My own daughter had never smiled at me, not even once, not even by accident, not even at all.
Sonya was wrong. I wasn’t a seahorse.
I was the ocean.
WEIGHTLESS.
The feeling never got old.
Floating on a fat wave, becoming one with the ocean. Curving it skillfully—knees bent, stomach tucked in, chin high, focusing on the only thing that really mattered in life—not falling.
My black wetsuit clung to my skin, keeping my temperature warm, even in the briny water at six in the morning. Bane was charging on another wave in my peripheral, riding it the same way he did his Harley—recklessly, aggressively, ruthlessly. The ocean was loud. It crashed against the white shore, deafening my negative thoughts and tuning out nagging hang-ups. It switched off my anxiety, and for an hour—just for one hour—there was no drama and no financial worries and no plans to be made or dreams to be shattered. There were no Jordan and Lydia Van Der Zee, no expectations and no threats dangling over my head.
Just me.
Just the water.
Just the sunrise.
Oh, and Bane.
“Water’s fucking freezing,” Bane growled from his wave, squatting down to prolong every moment of gliding on one of nature’s most arduous forces. He was much taller and heavier than me, but still good enough to go pro if he really put his mind into it. Whenever he rode a sick wave, he cleaved to it with bloody claws. Because surfing was like sex—it didn’t matter how often you’ve done it, every time was different. There was always something new to be learned, and each encounter was unique—wild with potential.
“Not a good day for hang eleven,” I grunted, my abs flexing as I rounded the edge of a wave to keep the ride alive. Bane liked surfing naked. He liked it because I hated when he did it, and making me feel uncomfortable was his favorite pastime. Seeing his long dick flapping in the air, on the other hand, was distracting and annoying.
“You’re going to eat it, Gidget,” he said, rolling his ringed tongue over his pierced bottom lip. Gidget was a nickname for small female surfers, and Bane called me that only when he wanted to piss me off. His balance was already stuttering, and he’d barely hung onto his wave. If someone’s board was going to snap, it was his.