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His eyes search mine for answers that I don’t have the heart to give. We can both snuggle in this bed with Astria and be civil about it. It’s fine. It will be fine. We’re adults. Mostly. Most days I don’t feel like an adult at all. I stare at Astria at least once a day and wonder how I’m keeping us both alive.
Ugh. I can’t turn him away, and Astria has a grip of steel on my tank top.
“Okay, tonight we can have a family snug. Only tonight. Okay?” I repeat, and I don’t know if I’m saying it for Astria or as a reminder to Damien and me that we can’t blur the lines. I can’t risk my heart that way. I won’t risk our family.
“You sure?” Damien watches me from the edge of the bed with hesitation.
No. I am absolutely not sure.
What’s the worst thing that could happen? Astria will make sure she takes up every available spot between the two of us. She’ll fall asleep. Damien will lay her down in her crib and then go to his room. Easy enough.
“Yeah, it’s fine.” I give in.
Astria yanks me back down with the strap of my tank, and Damien climbs in next to her.
She can’t leave any room for me on the small bed when it’s just the two of us, but she has ample room for Damien to join us. I see how it is. Again, no surprise here. She’s a daddy’s girl through and through.
The bed dips with the weight of his large frame, as I try to make myself smaller, curling into the wall at my back.
“Daddy and Mommy snug!” Astria giggles and curls into Damien, who has to be teetering precariously on the edge of the small mattress.
Damien wraps her up under his muscled arm. His fingers find the skin of my shoulder, where he rests them. He stretches out beneath my sheets and his bare foot brushes against mine. He touches me from top to bottom, and my stomach swirls with flutters. I want more than anything for this to be our reality.
I scoot closer to the wall, but it’s no use. There’s nowhere else to hide.
“Story!” Astria requests, and for a moment I’m thankful she didn’t ask for a song.
Damien doesn’t move to get a book from her bookshelf though. Instead, he settles in, sighing in thought before he finally begins to speak, his tone soothing even to me.
Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess.
This princess wasn’t just any ordinary princess though, she was a magical princess. You see, she had a special gift. She could see things that most people could not. She saw beauty in even the ugliest of ogres.
Astria giggles at the word ogre, and the sound melts my heart.
One day she got lost deep in the forest. She was scared, but she didn’t cry. She was the bravest princess in all the land.
She searched and searched for her path home, but she had no luck. The sun was starting to set. It would be dark soon. She was starting to worry that her family would be mad at her if she were lost.
Astria gasps quietly. I watch the two of them in the faint light of her lamp enraptured by the story that Damien weaves for her. I sit in awe of the man that fathered my daughter.
I don’t recognize this story as one I’ve heard before.
Along came the biggest, ugliest ogre of the entire forest. All of the townspeople feared him. Everyone except the princess.
He was nervous to approach her.
Damien brushes his thumb along the skin of my shoulder, slowly, as he takes his time.
The ogre had been warned to never speak to humans, especially the princess. Her magic was sacred. She wasn’t like the others.
When he noticed she was in danger, he knew he had to stop her. She was wandering too far into the dark forest. Not even the ogres go there.
Danger. Something in the way he says that one word triggers a memory buried somewhere in my mind.
Suddenly Damien’s story begins to feel familiar.
Despite every warning, he approached the beautiful princess.
