Chapter Nine
“When is Starla coming over again, Daddy?”
As if Jared hadn’t heard that question a hundred times in the last week and a half. Ashley finished pulling off her boots and looked up at him expectantly. Mia glanced up as well with her inquisitive brown eyes, interested in his answer, as if this time it might be different. She looked so much like her mother right then, it made him a little uneasy. “I don’t know.”
He’d grappled with the idea himself, even considered stopping by Starla’s work or house to check on her. Like a dumbass, he’d never thought to get her number, didn’t even know if she’d replaced her phone. Though it would be easy enough to look up her work number.
There were so many reasons to leave it alone, reasons he could explain to his daughters. More than he cared to count. Shelly hadn’t said anything further about it, and they’d remained civil if short in the past week. Whatever weirdness had befallen them last week, the girls seemed to be past it. At least kids were resilient, sometimes more so than their parents.
He’d thought about Starla a lot. He hadn’t been lying when he told her he wanted to see her again—he did. To delve a little deeper into the secrets behind those brown eyes. Obviously his girls thought about her a lot too.
“Why can’t she just come over and play with us?”
“She works at night, Ash. I don’t know when she’ll be off again.”
“Ask her,” Ashley said in her best “duh!” voice.
If only things could be as simple as kids made them. It saddened him to think about his girls learning some hard facts of life as they grew up. He wanted them to stay little and innocent and free of conflict forever, but of course, that wouldn’t happen.
“Call her, Dad!” Mia said.
“Yeah, call her.”
“I liked the way she read our story. And I like her hair.”
“She’s pretty.”
“I like her tattoos.”
“She smelled good.”
Sighing, he pulled off his own boots and stripped off the flannel shirt he wore over his black T-shirt. All the recent rain and storms had preceded a significant cold front, and there was a chill in the air outside. Then, with two sets of footsteps pattering after him, he escaped the mudroom and his daughters’ persistent observations about Starla. Yes, she was pretty. Yes, she smelled damn good. He didn’t need reminding.
“I’m hungry,” Mia announced.
“Can Starla cook for us again?”
Okay, he was about to bust out with a no-no word. “I can make something. What do you want?” he asked instead.
“We don’t want what you make. We want Starla to make us something.”
“Cookies!”
“Pizza.”
Jesus Christ. “Girls. I’m not calling Starla to come cook for you. Get it out of your heads.”
“Didn’t you like her?” Ashley asked.
“Yeah, but…” Your mom wouldn’t like her. What the hell was he supposed to do? Stay single forever?
Maybe so. To avoid situations like this one.
He didn’t know how it happened, but later, as the girls were tackling their homework at the dining room table, he found himself looking up the number for Dermamania on Google. Then staring at it for a good five minutes. What could it hurt? She’d mentioned a next time, even offering to bring temporary hair color for the girls. He’d told her he wanted to see her again, and he meant it. But he’d told Shelly it wouldn’t go anywhere. Dammit. And, of course, Ash and Mia would run home and tell their mom about Starla doing their hair. Then they would want her to do it again. And it would start all over. He was fooling himself if he thought it would ever end once it got started.
He dialed the number anyway, lightly banging his head back on the couch and silently cursing himself for an idiot. A girl answered, too chipper to be Starla. Starla had a lower, throatier quality to her voice that he liked. A voice that sounded like it could purr extremely dirty things in his ear.
Somehow, he managed to get his thoughts back on track and ask for her. A murmured conversation transpired as the phone was passed over, then, “Yeah?” was her cautious greeting. For some reason, it brought a smile to his face.
“Hey,” he said. “It’s Jared.”
His smile only widened as her voice brightened considerably. “Oh, hey! How are you?”
“I’m good. I hope it’s okay to call you at work. I never did get your number. If you even wanted to give it to me, I mean.” Shit. He was already making a butchery of things.
“No, it’s fine. That you called me. And that you want my number. I’ll give it to you. But you can call me here too, it’s okay.” He heard her draw a deep breath. At least she sounded as rattled as he felt. “I’m sorry, I just wasn’t expecting to hear from you.”
All at once, shame burned in his chest. He’d told her he wanted to see her again, and then, like an asshole, he hadn’t followed through. He’d broken that trust. Well, never again, everyone else be damned. Clearing his throat, he pushed on. “Listen, you mentioned bringing some stuff over to color the girls’ hair, and they’re asking, so I was just wondering…”
He had to cringe at how lame it sounded, but she bailed him out. “Yeah, sure! Just name a day.”
“Are you off Sunday?”
“Yep.”
“Six?”
“Great. No church?”
“I think we can take a night off.”
“Ooh, naughty. I like it. I’m already corrupting you.” He fidgeted at the tightening in his jeans. The way she said that… Apparently, the sudden blood diversion from his brain to his dick caused a short circuit. His mouth began saying things he hadn’t given it permission to.
“I don’t mean for you to think they’re the only reason I’m inviting you over.”
“Don’t worry. I saw it for the convenient excuse that it was.” She chuckled, and he almost felt guilty for the surge of lust that shot through him. When the hell had this turned sexy? He hadn’t meant it to.
“I’ll see you Sunday, then.”
She gave him her cell phone number, which he jotted down after leaping into the dining room and stealing pen and paper from Mia’s backpack. Both girls watched him with wary Dad-has-lost-his-mind expressions. He and Starla said their farewells, and he hung up, still under the watchful eyes of his daughters.
“What?” he asked them, and they quickly cast their gazes back down to their work. With a grin, he turned and walked out the door with one final statement. “Starla’s coming over Sunday.”
A duet of “Yay!” erupted behind him.
***
She showed up with a homemade pizza and another fresh batch of huge chocolate chip cookies. And, if possible, she looked even more beautiful than she had the last time he saw her. All in black: a long, loose top over tight jeans and tall boots. The stark contrast to her platinum hair, board-straight tonight with its pink and turquoise, was striking. He might have stared a little longer than he should have when he answered the door.
“You didn’t have to do this,” he said as she laid everything out in the dining room, amazed that she had done so. And that she had remembered how the girls had pestered her for pizza.
“I always remember requests.” She laughed as Ashley and Mia both burst into the room, chanting her name and hugging her hips. She squatted and hugged them both back, staying on their level to ask them about school.
The sight of the trio sent an ache through his heart. Rubbing absently at it, he turned back for the kitchen and looked around for something productive to do. Plates. Drinks. The chatter and laughter from the dining room was beautiful, a welcome change from the usual quiet nights at home—it reminded him of having his family together. Of course, those happier moments had been interspersed with darker, moodier moments, and, toward the end, outright fighting. But he wouldn’t let himself dwell on that. The pizza smelled heavenly. He heard Starla telling the girls they couldn’t have a cookie before dinner and chuckling at their groans of disappointment.
Wow. As far as winning his kids over, she was knocking it out of the park. He’d never expected to see it. Even as they ate their pizza, they gazed adoringly at her and hung on her every word. They damn sure weren’t making this easy on him. Or, on second thought, they were making it easy, too easy, which in itself presented new problems.
Pizza and cookies demolished, a hair-and-paint party erupted in his living room. Starla hadn’t only brought hair chalk but some body paints too, to give them the “tattoos” they wanted. He’d never heard such squealing. Neither Ashley nor Mia could sit still while Starla drew elaborate butterflies, hearts, fairies, and abstract designs on their cheeks and arms. She’d barely get one done before they begged for something else. Ashley’s hair ended up in an elaborate, pink-streaked updo, Mia’s in what she squealed was an “Elsa” braid and what Starla called a “Dutch fishtail” of all different colors. He prayed to God that stuff would really wash out, or Shelly would kill him. He’d told her this was happening, and while he doubted she was exactly pleased, she’d seemed okay with it.