Hot Summer Night

4 - Declan

Everly's eyes may have rolled when she saw me standing in the front row, cheering her on, but when the ceremony was over, she ran to me instead of her mother—and let me tell you, that felt fucking good. Either it was because she saw the flowers I brought her, or she does love me. I'm hoping it's the latter, but if not, I'll still be happy if the flowers had her rushing to me before going to her mother.

"Thanks, Dad!" Everly cheered, immediately taking the flowers from my hand, quickly bringing them to her nose, and smelling the floral fragrance.

My arm affectionately formed around her, and I pulled her to me, lowering my mouth and kissing the top of her head, saying, "You're welcome. Congratulations on graduating from the fifth grade. How do you feel?"

"Nervous," she said, her eyes flickering up to mine. "I heard secondary school is much tougher. And that the kids are much meaner. Especially when girls start getting boobs and pubic hair."

Okay...

My forehead and armpits quickly perspired. This is not the conversation I want to discuss with her this second.

I'm not ready for it—she's only ten. Thankfully, she didn't bring up her curiosity about sex. That... I'm definitely not prepared to discuss with her.

I handed her the card, saying, "It's okay to feel nervous going to a new school. And don't worry about what the other kids will do or say once you grow into a woman. Not all of them are mean or bullies."

"I heard the eighth graders like torturing the sixth graders on their first day of school—kidnapping them, bringing them into the bathrooms, and giving them swirlies. I was told they do other horrible things to them, too."

My lips stretched into a wide grin, and I chuckled, squeezing her tighter against me. I remember my eighth-grade days and the shit we pulled with the sixth graders. At the time, I thought it was funny. But it isn't so funny anymore. Now that I have a child, I don't want to see or hear her going through what my friends and I did to the innocent sixth graders. "Don't worry about your first day, hun. I taught you how to defend yourself, should it ever be needed. So you've got that. But I'm pretty sure they won't mess with you, anyway. It's usually the boys the eighth graders go after."

I must have done something right—she's actually conversing with me without giving me an attitude. And that made my chest feel tight, and my heart grew happy. From the corner of my eye, I noticed Felicity standing with her husband, who was not far from us, and she had that lovely scowl I love so much on her overly-painted face.

Not wanting to acknowledge that my ex-wife was waiting to talk to our daughter, I ignored her pulled face and the ugly daggers in her eyes and looked at Everly, asking, "What are you doing after this?"

She shrugged. "Nothing that I know of. Why?"

"Would you like to go to dinner with me? I'll bring you wherever you want to eat. Even if it's McDonald's," I offered, grimacing at the thought of eating fast food—I hate processed food, but I'm at a point with my daughter that I need to do whatever it is to make her like me more than she does at the moment. I need her to see I'm not this terrible guy her mother turned me out to be. So, I'll give up eating real food for food that hasn't molded after twenty years if that's what it'll take for Everly to have dinner with me on a night that's not my night to have her.

I'm desperate...

She looked surprised by my offer of taking her out to dinner, even though she knew it was her mother's night. "Let me see what Mom says," she said.

"Of course," I said, already knowing Felicity's answer. No.

She's a bitch like that. If it's not my day to have her, she refuses me any time with Everly. Every. Fucking. Time.