Page 49 of Tessa

“Yayyy!” Tessa cheered again.

Her enthusiasm was infectious. “You like that, huh?” Ditching the plain-blue pocket tee he’d been wearing, he pulled the polo over his head, straightened the collar and struck a pose. “How do I look?” he asked with a wink.

“Um tuck it in a little, just in the front,” she said with a scrunched-up nose, describing a French tuck.

“Like that?” He did as instructed and looked to her for approval, getting a solid thumbs-up in return. “Okay, little one. Your turn!”

He shook the dress and the matching diaper cover off the hanger and walked over to her, pulling it over her head with a yank. Helping her to her feet on the floor, he straightened the dress, helped her into the diaper cover and nodded his approval. “Beautiful. And now we are ready to go.”

Once again, Tessa shrieked with laughter, the joyful sound easing some of the tension in his shoulders. “Not yet, Daddy! I need to do my hair, and we both don’t have shoes on!”

“What?” Dax looked down at his feet and pretended to be surprised. “Well, shoot. Thanks for telling me! I was about to go out barefoot! Imagine how dirty and stinky my feet would have been by the end of the day!”

Tessa just shook her head, clearly no longer buying his act.

“I need a headband,” she instructed, pointing to the bathroom. “And my white jelly sandals.”

Dax came back with both, handing her the headband, and helping her slide her feet into the shoes before sitting on the edge of the bed to put on his own socks and sneakers. “Okay, now we’re ready!” he announced. “I think. Wait… are we?”

Tessa rolled her eyes and grabbed his hand, dragging him toward the door.

“Come on, Daddy. Quit being silly. I’m starving!”

Tessa

Something was off. On the surface, Dax seemed like his usual goofy self, doting on her just the way a Daddy would, but there was a sort of pain behind his eyes that she couldn’t place.

It was stressing her out. But whatever it was, Dax seemed determined not to share or even to dwell on it, so she had no choice but to make the same decision.

As they stepped into the summer sun, Tessa looked up and down the strip, the anticipation of a good day bubbling up inside her. She loved the city she lived in and she knew she and Dax would have a great time, even if they just spent the day people-watching.

“Where do we go?” she asked, looking from right to left. If Dax had a breakfast place in mind, he hadn’t shared it.

“This way.” Taking her hand, Dax pulled her to the left, several blocks down the strip and into an alley that was really like its own secret hidden Vegas neighborhood. When they reached the restaurant, Tessa’s jaw dropped open, and she jumped up and down. He’d brought her to Maxie’s, an underrated hole-in-the-wall diner known for its ginormous Benedict boxes and things like cotton-candy pancakes and Fruity-Pebble French toast. She’d always wanted to come there, but when they were homeless, she hadn’t been able to justify it, and since Baze had taken them in, she’d just never had the opportunity.

“Oh my goodness!” she cried, even as the hostess whisked them to a table in the back and handed her a menu. “I’ve always wanted to come here!”

“It’s a personal favorite of mine,” Dax confided. “Get whatever you want.”

Having received all the encouragement she needed, Tessa laid down the menu without looking at it. “Cotton-candy pancakes and a chocolate shake!”

“A chocolate shake for breakfast? That seems like a lot of sugar.”

“You said I could have whatever I wanted!” Tessa exclaimed, fashioning her lips into a pout and blinking fast to flutter her eyelashes. Whether it worked or whether Dax had planned to give in all along, she wasn’t sure, but he just sent her an indulgent smile and shook his head.

“You’re right, I did say that.”

When the waitress came to their table, Dax ordered for both of them. “Two orders of your cotton-candy pancakes and two chocolate shakes,” he said with a wink at Tessa.

“Is that your favorite too?” she asked with a gasp when the waitress walked away.

“Truthfully, I’m partial to the Benedict boxes myself, but I figured why not. Our outfits match; why not our breakfasts too?”

“Yesss! And next time I’ll try your favorite,” Tessa vowed.

“Deal.”

They shook on it and after a few minutes, the waitress returned with two huge Instagram-worthy chocolate shakes, each topped with a pile of whip cream and two cherries.