The fuzzy Emma image smiles, one hand nervously pushing her hair behind her ear. She glances away, towards her bedroom door, I imagine, and back to me. Leaning closer, her face fills my screen. “Oh?” Her voice lowers. “And what would we be doing, instead of sleeping, if I was there?”
I give her a somewhat tame version. Not exactly censored, but not enough to scare her, either. The light on her end is too dark to see if she blushes, but her lips part and her eyes widen slightly and she bites her lip adorably and listens like I’m telling her the best story ever.
I don’t know how far she went with Reid. Or with anyone before him, for that matter, though I surmised that there was no one before him, from how frustrated he often seemed. I know far too much about Reid Alexander and his seduction capabilities. Not wanting a full accounting of just how critically I screwed up by not taking her from him last fall, I have no plans to ask her about their involvement. It has no bearing on what I think of her. It has no bearing on us.
“I wish you were here,” she says finally, her lower lip jutting out so slightly I might be imagining it. I run my finger across it on the screen, which she can’t see me do.
“I will be, in a week.”
She groans. “Too long.”
I laugh softly. “I agree.”
A faint scratching comes from my closed bedroom door. “Go away, Noodles,” I call. Cara’s cat is usually asleep at the foot of her bed at 1:00 a.m., not wandering around the house scratching on random closed doors.
Then my doorknob turns, the door opening a sliver before a small face appears. “Daddy?”
“I have a visitor,” I say into the tiny camera at the top of my screen, pushing the laptop onto the bed and padding across the room. “Cara? What are you doing up?” I open the door and she latches onto me, impeded only by the stuffed rabbit clenched in one fist.
Grasping her under the arms, I lift her and settle her in my arms. She sniffles and buries her face in my neck. “Bad dream?” I ask, and she nods, sniffling a little harder.
“Can I sleep with you?” A hiccup follows this muffled request. Emma coughs lightly, the sound coming through the laptop speakers with a scratchy unevenness, and Cara’s head pops up. “Who’s that?”
“I’m talking to Emma,” I say. “Let’s get you back to bed.”
She turns her head back and forth mulishly, her dark eyes intent. “I want to talk to Emma, too.”
Great. Wrestling Cara back into her bed could take me half an hour. She’ll want to tell me her entire nightmare, and she’s quite the dramatic narrator. I fully suspect she adds details as she goes along, just to enhance the story. And then the request for water. The request for a kiss. The need to be accompanied to the bathroom. The checking for monsters in her closet, under her bed and behind her draperies. Another kiss.
I love my daughter, but crap, what timing.
I walk over and pick up the laptop with my free hand, turning it towards Cara and myself. “I might as well let you go,” I tell Emma. “This could take a little while.”
“Hi, Emma,” Cara says, posing for the camera, horrible nightmare forgotten. She’s used to conversing with me this way when I’m away from home and she’s with Brynn or Cassie. “This is Bunny.” She holds the rabbit in front of the webcam. I’m sure all Emma can see is a screen full of worn blue fur.
“Oh, well hello there, Bunny. Are you by any chance… a turtle?”
Cara giggles, snatching Bunny to her chest and replacing the stuffed toy with her own face. “Nooooo.”
“A giraffe, maybe?”
“Nooooo!”
“A doggie?”
“No, no, no!”
“Well, I’m stumped. What kind of animal has a name like that?”
“A bunny!” Cara is dissolving into a fit of laughter, and I can’t help laughing along. She turns to me and points to my bed. “Sit, Daddy.”
I sit with a sigh, torn between shock and elation at Emma’s ability to switch gears. Five minutes ago I was whispering rather wicked details of what I wanted to do to her, and if the look on her face was any indication, she was having no problem following along. And now she’s charming my daughter.
Cara begins to get sleepy quickly, slumping into my lap a short time later, curled around Bunny. It’s inching closer to 2 a.m. “I’m going to go put her back down and hope she stays down. Same time tomorrow?”
“Earlier tomorrow,” she promises. “Goodnight, Graham.”
“Goodnight, Emma. See you soon.” She signs off and the screen goes black.
Ah, God. My life has become more complicated than I ever imagined it could be. I had no real idea what I was doing to myself when I decided to take on parenthood. To cope, I made adjustments I thought I could manage, like forgoing close romantic entanglements. At first, nothing could have been easier, because I was still in love with Zoe.
Once I was finally over her, I realized I’d also grown up, filled out. Girls on campus watched me with shameless curiosity and signaled uncomplicated desires, and my refusals to share any shred of personal information only amplified their interest. I didn’t particularly care if they liked my no-strings position or not. A few drew lines in the sand, and I simply walked away. I never lied to anyone. I never promised anything. I never wanted anything more from anyone.
Until Emma. The friendship we developed was unlike any relationship I’ve ever had. So easy, so companionable, but that physical pull was there, too, from the first moment first I saw her. I refused to believe I was falling for a 17-year-old girl, and I fought it, hard. The first time I kissed her uncovered feelings so compelling that they tumbled over into protectiveness. The resolve came naturally: I wouldn’t touch her—beyond what we’d already done—until she was a legal adult, until she specifically asked me to. For the first time since Zoe, my guard was down.