“What have you been doing in there, baby?” I ask and run my hand through her soft blonde curls.
“Playing,” she says with a smile.
“Playing what?”
“G.I Joes. Mr. Reid told me all the tough guys are Joes. He said so. He wouldn’t play with my Barbie’s, only with the Joes.”
I laugh at the thought of big bad Axel Reid playing with anything close to dolls. “Did he, now?”
“Yup! I gotta go!” She turns and runs back to her room before I can even form another word, let alone ask her if she wants pizza for dinner. It’s our Sunday night ritual to have a pizza and a movie date, but after her sleepover with the Reid’s, I’m sure she’s going to be ready to crash early.
After the night I had last night—the one I still feel with every move I make—I’m just too tired to think about cooking. Dani and Cohen dropped me off in the wee hours this morning after we finished up at the club. I waved off their concern and they left worried, but I needed to be alone. The first thing I did was take the hottest shower that I could stand. Then after a few pain pills, I crashed and the only thoughts that had filtered through my mind were ones of Liam.
I walk back to the kitchen and allow a smile to form when I think about this morning when I went to pick up Molly, despite her whines to stay with Mr. Reid.
I wasn’t the only one that thought it was hilarious that my five-year-old daughter had wrapped him around her small finger. Izzy couldn’t stop laughing. She answered the door with a small giggle and told me to follow her. When I found Molly running a brush through Axel’s hair, I joined Izzy in her laughter. Apparently, my daughter had been giving him a make-over for a good hour before I got there. When he turned, red lips and pink blush were all over his face, and he gave me a wink.
“If you think that’s funny, wait until you see Nate,” Izzy laughed in a hushed whisper.
“Where’s Owen?” I question, looking past my smiling daughter.
“Oh, Dani and Cohen were back before the sun was even up to pick him up. I’m shocked they lasted as long as they did,” Izzy says with a smile.
“I didn’t even have the door all the way open before Cohen was pushing his way in and snatching my boy back,” Axel adds on a grumble from the floor.
“This way,” Molly sings before putting each of her tiny hands on both of Axel’s cheeks and turning his head back toward her. “Do this,” she demands and smacks her lips together. “It’s not big enough,” she mumbles and I laugh when she picks up the lipstick tube.
“Baby, I’m not so sure Mr. Reid will think that is his color.”
My face reddens when I think about the burden she’s been on them. Molly has always been a child that loves easily and loves big, but usually she’s shy around men. She had just turned two when Jack passed away and it’s always been just the occasional babysitter until Dani’s parents started keeping her. Of course, she knows and loves Cohen and Chance, but even that took her months to warm up to them. It shouldn’t be a shock that she instantly connected to Dani’s father, the older she gets the more curious she has become, and she has recently been asking more and more about Jack. My heart squeezes when I think about all the things she’s missed out on.
“Of course it is, right Molly-wolly?” Axel booms. His voice literally vibrates through the room.
“Get ready for it,” Izzy strangely says and I turn to look at her only to have my confusion intensify when she just smirks.
“Where, oh where, is the Princess of Pretty? Oh, Princess! I’m in the need of your magic for I have lost my way! There’s no time to waste! The ball is in minutes, no seconds!”
My jaw drops. Eyes widen. And I have to work to keep the hilarity of this moment from bubbling out.
If I thought Axel boomed earlier I was wrong. Because skipping—skipping on his toes—comes Dani’s older brother, Nate Reid, his voice vibrating through their large living room. All six-foot-something of his muscular frame with a sheet wrapped around his hips as a makeshift dress, and tank top flipped up and folded between his huge pecs to make some sort of weird bra. His make-up is even heavier than his father’s, his green eyes even brighter with the amount of shadow my daughter has painted, in what I can only guess is her best impression of raccoon eyes. His lips look like he was stung by hundreds of bees, the red circle of lipstick going from mid chin to the bottom of his nose. But it’s his hair that makes me lose the fight to keep the laughter in. He has what has to be twenty ponytails pulling his shoulder length hair up in a million different directions.