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She looked me up and down, a slow appraisal that left me breathing faster than normal.
I was playing with fire with her. I’d known that from the moment I’d laid eyes on her and yet I couldn’t stop.
“I guess you do,” she said quietly.
“Daddy Zepherin!” Amelia screeched, spotting me from a bedroom just off the main living area which also housed the kitchen. She came running out in My Little Pony pajamas, her red hair almost as wild as her mother’s. She stopped short in front of me and peered up with a wide grin full of cute baby teeth.
“Father Zepherin,” I corrected her gently, high-fiving her and ignoring Lyric’s quiet laughter at her daughter’s slip. “But when we aren’t at school, you can just call me Zeph like your mommy does.”
“Mommy might like to call you Daddy, too, if you keep staring at her the way you did just now,” Lyric muttered.
I glanced over at her with a raised eyebrow of my own, and she laughed some more, holding up her hands in mock surrender. “Inappropriate, I know. I’ll see myself out.”
“How about you see yourself to your bedroom.”
She raised a flirty eyebrow back at me.
Christ. “To sleep, Lyric.” I turned away and gazed down at Amelia before Lyric could notice the blush creeping up my cheeks. “Can I take you to school today, little one?”
“I’m not little.” She shoved her hands on her hips, in much the same way Lyric was fond of, and pouted at me.
“You’re right. You’re not, I only meant it as a nickname.”
“Mommy calls me Slugger.”
“Do you like that?”
She nodded. “’Cause slugs are cute and so I am.”
Lyric ruffled her daughter’s already messed-up hair. “You think I call you Slugger ’cause you look like a garden worm? You’re way cuter than those slimy things. Slugger is just a term of affection. My grandad used to call me that, and I thought it suited you better than a girly nickname like princess.”
Amelia batted her mother’s hand away from her hair but spoke with all the love and affection in the world. “You’re a Slugger too, Mommy. Percival girls are tough.”
“And cute like slugs, apparently,” I added in.
“Did you just call me cute, Father Zepherin?” Lyric brushed past me, her bare arm touching mine and setting off sparks of awareness.
It was lucky the only witness to our exchange was a four-year-old who didn’t understand flirting. Because I wasn’t sure we could have denied that’s what we were doing to anyone else.
“Harry?”
The smile on Lyric’s face fell.
An older woman emerged from further down the hall, cautiously making her way toward us, peering up at me uncertainly.
“Gran, this is Father Zepherin. Zeph, this is my grandmother, Cheryl.”
Cheryl’s face crumpled in confusion. “Harry?” she asked again, ignoring her granddaughter’s introduction. “I haven’t seen you in so long.”
I glanced at Lyric, who seemed bitterly unhappy.
“This is why I can’t just sleep in,” she said quietly, low enough that her gran and Amelia wouldn’t hear. “She has dementia. I’m sorry. Harry was her husband. My grandfather.”
Instantly, the woman’s behavior made sense. While I didn’t have a lot of experience with dementia, I did have some parishioners with the condition. I knew sometimes it was kinder to go along with whoever they thought you were, rather than causing further confusion by correcting them. So, I chose my words carefully. “It’s lovely to see you, Cheryl.”
I blinked in surprise when a tear rolled down her cheek and she wrapped bony arms around my middle.
“Sorry,” Lyric mouthed.
