Against Reason

Chapter Seventeen - Late Night Talking

Finishing the dishes, the two of us go grab the girls and Daphne takes them for a bath while I clean up their rooms a bit. I know their young, but the mess they make never fails to amaze me and they never seem to care. 

"Daddy!" Bridie runs into her room fully naked and catapults herself onto me. From the surprising force she jumps onto me, I fall backwards and she giggles. 

"Bridie," Daphne laughs, shaking her head. Daphne throws me her frog themed towel and I wrap her up so she doesn't get cold.

"You cheeky monkey," I blow a raspberry onto her neck and then onto her belly. She lets our a shring of hysterical bubbles of laughter that leave her breathy and red.

While Daphne deals with Bridie, I go into Hallie's room and she sits under her covers scanning a line of her stuffed animal toys - probably contemplating which one she wants to sleep with tonight. Unlike Bridie, she sleeps with one or two toys at night, Bridie sleeps with the whole damn zoo. 

"Daddy," Hallie calls and I sit on her bed, taking the toys she didn't choose and placing them onto the ottoman at the end of her bed. 

"Yes, sweetie?" I question. 

"Can Lolli be our new mummy?" she asks and I freeze. 

I smile at her begging eyes. "You really like her, don't you?" 

She nods. "I do too, but it's not a very quick task to make her your new mummy," I tell her and she frowns. 

"Why?" she questions. If you only new. 

"There's just a few things daddy has to take care of, but we'll get there," I whisper, and press a bunch of kisses all over her face until she pushes me away all puffed out. 

"Night night, my sweet," I tell her, pressing a kiss to her forehead and turning off her side lamp off. 

She mutters a sleepy 'night daddy' before snuggling into her covers and pillow. I leave her room and head into Bridie's where she's already fast asleep - completely passed out - so I just press a feather kiss on her forehead and pull the covers up to her shoulder. 

I shut Bridie's bedroom door, then make my way back downstairs where I see Daphne wiping down the island counter. The girls can be messy eaters sometimes and tonight was pasta night, so you can imagine - little girls + pasta sauce = messy night. 

"Hey," I say when I enter the kitchen, her head perks up and she smiles softly. I always like when the girls have gone to bed and its just us two awake, we don't normally do much, maybe just lounge around on the couch and watch the news or do our own thing. But I don't want to do that tonight. 

"Hey," she greets, and I walk around to the alcohol cabinet and pour myself a glass of whiskey. 

"I'm gonna sit out on the deck for a while, care to join me?" I ask, and she seems taken back by my offer for a moment. 

"Sure," she smiles. 

"Want a drink?" I ask.

"No, I don't like alcohol," she states, and from her distant reaction to the bottle of whiskey I wonder if somewhere in her childhood alcohol played a bad presence in her life. 

I just nod and we both make our way outside to the deck. We take a seat in two of the lounge chairs that sit next to each other. It's dark outside, the moon and stars the only form of light along with the distant yellow from the kitchen brings a kind luminescence to us outside. 

It's silent between the both of us as we just relax into the cushioned chairs, and look up at the midnight sky full of stars. 

"I always loved looking at the stars when I was little," Daphne says, her eyes focused on the flashing lights in the sky. "They gave me hope and peace. I would always wished upon the first star I saw in hopes.." she drifts off.