Funny Feelings (58)

Fee: You’re such a dude sometimes. Even if you do cry every single time you watch it. (Which is adorable, by the way)





The way I feel my face pull into a grin at being called adorable is fucking ridiculous.

Me: So?

Me:…?

Fee: Sigh No, Meyer. I don’t think she feels like you are struggling to connect. I think she just likes the part about the girl getting to do amazing stuff with the support of her Dad. And the cute geese.





Hazel elbows me. “The beginning is over, you big baby.” She says with a smile. “Did you invite Fee over?”

“No, not tonight.”

“Why not?”

I sigh. “I think I’ve been a bit distracted lately and wanted to make sure we got family time before you go to Grandma and Grandpa’s for three weeks.”

“Fee is family too, though.”

I pause at that and stare at her a second, at her determined, serious face. I wonder if she gets it from me, that intensity… Maybe she does, but that wide open heart was just something she was born with. If being a dad has taught me anything, it’s that so much of the good stuff isn’t a product of my parenting at all, it’s pure dumb luck.

“She is family, isn’t she?”

She throws a “duh” face my way before turning back to the TV. I nudge her again, feeling bold.

“What would you think of it if Fee became”— I struggle to find the right wording and translate it in my mind. “—more? More to me?”

She frowns a little, considering. “It would be mostly the same, though?”

“Yes. Just… More.”

“More what?” Her face changes as it dawns on her. “Like Olive’s Mom and Mr. Prestley?”

My heart trips over a beat. “Yes.”

She cocks her head with a blink, the gesture making her look so much older for a moment that I feel an instant wave of panic, like I need to make grabby hands at her and wrap her closer to my side, to demand she stop growing. “I think I would like that. But maybe don’t kiss with tongue in front of me. Olive says it’s disgusting.” Her lips curl downward in a shudder at the thought.

I bark out a laugh. “I can do that.”

She scoots over on the couch and curls up against me, then. No grabby hands required.





26





NOW





FARLEY


Days roll into weeks that fill up with busy. Meyer and I find ourselves together a bit less, texting a bit more, as I attempt to use my personal time to carve, sharpen, and smooth out my set.

Even Christmas comes and goes. We manage to fit in our normal traditions, like visiting our local tree farm. Despite me telling them every year that they can, he and Hazel no longer cut down a real tree since I let slip how allergic I am to them. It’s a flaw that I’m strangely self-conscious about since I love and crave those kinds of traditions. Instead, we created our own a few years back. We pack a thermos of hot cocoa and still go to the farm, spy on the other families and couples arguing over finding “the one”, laughing with them whenever they find it and light up with joy. And we always snag a real wreath and a new ornament for the faux tree.

But… with the time that passes, it starts to feel like we’re in limbo in regards to us. As if not so much has happened that it couldn’t be blamed on adrenaline and need. An itch scratched that we could still step back from. And since I’m the only one that’s been properly ‘scratched’, I don’t want to push him too hard, happy to slow down for the time being, and not force the pace. It settles that fitful feeling in me to know that regardless of those lines getting blurrier and blurrier, we’re still able to laugh and go about life together like we do. There’s no strangeness in our friendship’s place, even if he’s hand his hand down my pants… inside me.

Still, since I want to confirm my interest without pressuring him, I’m trying to walk that line, allowing little indulgences here and there, happily surprised each time he reciprocates heartily. Like when I intertwined our fingers while we watched a family with three little girls clap and squeal over their tree. He immediately swept me to his front, our hands clasped together on my shoulder. I looked over at Hazel nervously, only to find her on his other side, smiling up at me. We watched as the dad worked it to convince mom to go with a ten footer. He was all flirty downward glances, lip biting and hip squeezing, a chubby baby drooling happily from the carrier strapped to his chest. Until mom eventually rolled her eyes with a smile and caved. We all laughed at the sight of their loaded down SUV teetering out of the lot.

Meyer and Hazel left on the twenty-ninth for Ohio, where they’ll spend the week together, until Meyer comes back, and Haze stays behind with her Grandparents for another two. It works out that her school is off track for the month, and she’ll get to visit with cousins and relatives she doesn’t normally get much time with, but I still feel a nagging, hollow guilt over Meyer being away from her for that long. And, truthfully, guilt over my anticipation of that much time together, alone. It’s one of those small things that reminds me just how much I am not a parent, and can’t quite empathize with all the planning that goes into everything, or the constant duplicitousness of the emotions that go along with it.