Just This Night by Madison Mari

Author:Madison, Mari [Madison, Mari]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2016-02-12T12:41:35+00:00

twenty-eight

MAC

Daddy, Daddy, where’d Beth go?”

The high-pitched voice crashed into my bedroom well before dawn, breaking me from dreamland. At first, I tried to lie still, in a vain effort to pretend I was still asleep, hoping she’d eventually give up and head back to her own room for at least another precious fifteen to twenty. But I should have known my daughter better than that. And a few minutes later she was on my bed, grabbing my face in her tiny hands, trying to pry open my eyelids with her fingertips.

“I’m up, I’m up!” I protested, playfully swatting her hands away. But she just giggled and crawled on top of me, succeeding, of course, in kicking me hard in the stomach in the process. Seriously, I should hire this kid out as an alarm clock. Rip Van Winkle himself couldn’t have stayed in bed with her on the job.

“Be gentle with me,” I begged. “You’ve only got one daddy, you know. Gotta try not to take him out.”

“Sorry, Daddy!” she chirped. “I’ll kiss it better!” She leaned over to kiss my stomach, managing to nearly kick me in the head in the process. Groaning, I grabbed her and wrestled her back onto the bed. She shrieked and giggled. Then she looked up at me with her big brown eyes. “I love you, Daddy.”

“I love you, too, jelly bean.”

“I’m not a jelly bean! I’m a princess!” she squealed.

I let her go, giving her a mock bow. “I’m so sorry, your majesty. My mistake.”

Ashley giggled. Then her smile faded. “Where’d Beth go?” she asked, as if suddenly remembering why she’d come in here in the first place.

“If she’s not in the guest room then she had to go home,” I told her. “Remember, she told you that she might not be here when you got up?”

“Aw,” Ashley said, scowling. “I wanted her to stay.”

I sighed. Me, too, baby girl. Me, too.

I glanced over at the clock. Before going to bed last night I’d set my alarm, hoping to beat Beth up this time and cook her a little breakfast surprise of my own before she had to leave for work. Sure, my culinary skills were noobish at best, but it was only fair to give it a try, I’d told myself, after all the trouble she’d gone through for me the morning before, only to have me rush her out the door.

Besides, we were officially friends now. And friends were totally allowed to cook one another breakfast. In fact, cooking breakfast could be seen as a very friendly thing to do.

But evidently she had already left the building. And it wasn’t even six A.M. An unexpected feeling of disappointment panged in my gut. What time had she gotten up? Or had she slipped out in the middle of the night?

I sighed. I couldn’t blame her if she had. After all, last night had not gone exactly to plan, to say the least. And, of course, it was all my fault. Seriously, what

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.