Page 12 of Hot Dad Summer

Wes looked too.

His jaw went granite. He reached across the island, slow enough that I could’ve stopped him, and turned the phone to face him. I watched his eyes track over my sister’s social media feed, and I watched the muscles twitch in his cheeks.

“How often do you look at this?”

“I don’t.” His eyes lifted to mine again, and my lie curled up and died. “At night. When it’s quiet. I just. I check.”

“Delete the app.”

“Wes.”

“Delete the fucking app, Daisy.” There was no meanness in it. It came out closer to a plea than an order, which was somehow worse for my heart. “You’re in here teaching my kids that a fallen cake isn’t the end of the world, and then you spend your nights grading yourself against her?” He slid the phone back across the island to me. “She got Tyler. Congratulations to her. She’s spent her whole life taking what you built and calling it luck. You’re better than her. You’ve always been better, and I’ve thought so since the first weekend Tyler brought you up here. Every person in this family can see it except my idiot brother. So delete it.”

Nobody had ever said that. Not once, not my parents, not a teacher, not a boyfriend of three years. You’re better than her. I stared at him and he stared back, arms crossed again, breathing intensely.

“There.” My voice came out unsteady as I deleted it from my phone. “Happy?”

“Getting there.” He nodded at the oven. “How long on the new cake?”

“Twenty minutes.”

“Good. I haven’t eaten since lunch.” He walked over and settled onto a stool beside me and flipped open his ledger like the earth hadn’t just tilted. Then his arm brushed mine and didn't leave. He turned a page. Another slow drag of his skin against my skin. Nobody had ever made accounting feel filthy before, but there I was, gripping my whisk like a lifeline.

The screen door exploded open right before I was considering jumping into his lap.

“AUNT DAISY!” Charlie stood breathless in the doorway, flanked by Poppy and a very smug dog. “Hank pooped, and the butter paper came out whole, and Poppy says it’s a miracle and I say it’s gross, and Hazel is doing the tally chart, and I am having the best summer ever, and can we have cake?”

Wes didn’t look up from his ledger. “Wash your hands first. All of you. The dog too, somehow.”

I turned back to my mixing bowl, smiling so hard my cheeks ached, lighter than I’d felt in weeks. The first cake had fallen. The second one was starting to rise.

9

***Daisy***

Ilet out a scream as Charlie took off at a run and jumped off the cliff we’d been walking by. My heart dropped to my feet and I just knew I’d just killed one of the Calloway kids. I was already mentally halfway to the airport to get back to a job that I was good at when Poppy’s laughter broke through my panic. I looked down at the little psycho with wide eyes and wondered if being Max’s kid had given her a very dark sense of humor. That was when I registered the splash that’d happened right after Charlie jumped.

Rushing to the edge, I glared down at the boy who was grinning up at me, mischievous little face twisted with glee. The cliff had looked significant but up close I could see that it was just a three-foot drop to the waist-deep water below.

“You’re a menace.” I pressed my hands to my heart and blew out a deep breath. “Remind me to never show you Dennis the Menace.”

“What’s a menace?” Charlie splashed as he swam away from us. “Are you coming in? Let’s swim!”

Poppy let out a loud whoop and shoved Hazel in before jumping in herself. I tried to ignore the fact that she sounded like a wine mom in her fifties and put my hands on my hips. “You’re a menace. And the three of you are all lucky I put on my swimsuit this morning.”

Hazel wiped her eyes and stared up at me. “Do you think Hank will come in when he’s done with his snack?”

“He does seem to like the water…” I’d already pulled my dress over my head and let it drop when her words clicked in my head. “Snack? What snack?”

I looked around wildly for my demon dog and instead of Hank, I spotted Max standing outside of his workshop, thick arms crossed over his chest, eyes on me. More specifically, his eyes were on my body. A burning flush stained my skin immediately and I had to fight the urge to cover up. I wasn’t a small woman and it’d taken years for me to be comfortable in a bathing suit but feeling Max’s gaze on me made me want to jump off the baby cliff and hide. I didn’t, though.

My bathing suit was as vintage inspired as the rest of my wardrobe. The high-waisted sailor blue bottoms stopped a few inches below the white halter top that cupped my breasts like it was made with military precision. It looked vintage and sexy. It felt like a well-made suit of armor, holding me in where I needed to be held in. I knew my curvy body looked good to men who could appreciate curves. I never would’ve known that Max was one of those men until that moment.

I slipped out of my pumps and reached up to roll my curls up into a clip. The whole time I could feel his eyes on me and I couldn’t stop looking back at him. We were far enough apart that not speaking wasn’t strange but close enough that looking without speaking felt like a bigger statement than I wanted to make.

“Care to join us?” My voice came out huskier than I meant for it to and it made my cheeks heat even more. Thankfully, Hank came bounding towards me at that exact moment. I saw the determined look in his eyes and held up my hands. “Hank! Slow down!”

He let out a happy bark and his tongue rolled out the side of his mouth, stained blue, before he jumped and landed on my chest with all four feet and a hefty amount of pure orneriness. I stumbled backwards, arms windmilling, and then I was falling over the edge of the little cliff, landing in the shockingly cold water with a yelp and a splash.