Page 65 of When I Accidentally Summoned a Demon

Then she spots a rock, which is far more compelling. She picks it up and immediately toddles toward me, holding it above her head. “Pwecious! Wock!”

I crouch to inspect her treasure with appropriate seriousness. “An exceptional rock, little beastie.”

“Pway!” She grabs two of my fingers and pulls.

I glance at Vesper. Vesper, in turn, looks toward the supervisor. The woman watches Bethie for another moment before giving a small nod.

Permission acquired. I allow myself to be dragged to the sandbox.

It happens repeatedly over the next ninety minutes. Bethie returns to Rick for a brief interaction, then brings me a plastic shovel. A yellow bucket. Another rock of apparently tremendous significance. Each time, “Pway, Pwecious,” until I understand I have been formally conscripted into playground service.

Rick notices. By the third summons, his smile has tightened. “Bethie,” he calls. “Come play with Daddy.”

She looks toward him, then down at the small plastic shovel she has just pressed into my hand. “Pwecious pway.”

Something unpleasant passes across Rick’s face. The supervisor writes something on her clipboard. I find the matter extremely satisfying.

I do not compete for Bethie’s attention. I do not need to. Whenever Rick engages her, I withdraw and let him. But children appear to possess little regard for adult territorial disputes, and Bethie wanders back to me whenever she wishes.

Rick is here for ninety minutes.

I note, with clinical precision, that he spends nearly a third of them on his phone.

* * *

Bethie is asleep before we even leave the park. By the time we pull into the driveway, her head is tipped against the side of the car seat, mouth slightly open.

Rick’s car pulls up behind us just as I open the rear door. “I wanted to say goodbye,” he says as he gets out.

Vesper glances into the back seat. “She’s out.”

I unfasten Bethie and lift her carefully against my chest. She barely stirs, settling into me with a sleepy little sigh while Vesper gathers her bag and the pink bear from the park. Rick watches us all the way to the door.

Once inside, I lower my voice. “I may put Bethie to bed and turn on her sleepy music?”

Vesper smiles softly. “Of course, Big Guy. Never need to ask.”

I start toward the hallway. “Wait.” Rick’s voice stops me. “What’s going on? Why is he here?”

I glance back. “I live here.”

His entire expression changes. “You live here?”

“Rick,” Vesper warns quietly, nodding toward the sleeping child in my arms.

I continue down the hall and settle Bethie into her toddler bed and place Rick’s pink bear beside her. It seems the appropriate thing to do. Before I can straighten, her hand drifts out from beneath the blanket and closes around the end of my tail.

I freeze. She never wakes. She only sighs softly and holds on. My chest aches with something almost unbearable. “Sleep well, little beastie,” I whisper, slipping my tail from her palm.

Then Rick’s voice rises sharply from the other room.

“Don’t,” Vesper says calmly as I walk in. “You don’t get to come into my home and interrogate me about my life.”

His eyes flick to mine, but then he does the thing that gives him away completely: he smiles at her. Warm. Practiced. Manipulative. “Come on,” he says. “You know it doesn’t have to be like this. We had something good, Ves.”

“We did. You ruined it.”

Rick’s mouth tightens. “Come on, Ves. We both made mistakes. I’m not taking all the blame for what happened between us.”