Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 117201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Unreal.
She was pissed. Or trying to be, anyway. Mainly, however, she was confused.
And also . . . what? Intrigued?
He’d gone out of his way to help her at a cost to himself. After all, if she hadn’t been able to find an affordable room to rent, there was a possibility she would have had no choice but to crawl back to Burgess and take his offer of a locked bedroom door, thus landing him an au pair and freeing him from the tedious job of interviewing new ones.
But could his motive really be her safety? Coupled with his own guilt?
If so, were his actions controlling or . . . a misguided attempt to be helpful?
Tallulah didn’t know, but she was going to find out.
Meaning, she’d be seeing the Goliath single father again.
And her stomach wasn’t elevating with excitement over that fact.
Definitely not.
Chapter Four
Burgess watched the French braid tutorial on the screen in front of him, wondering how in the hell it could grow more confusing each time he restarted the video. Simply put, his fingers didn’t move like that. Thumb cradling the bulk of the hair; pinkie hooking here, there, everywhere; middle and index weaving in and out as if they were totally independent from the disembodied hand. What the fuck.
“Dad,” Lissa wailed from her position face down on the couch. “If we don’t start soon, I’m going to miss my bus.”
“I need to watch it one more time.” He dragged the dot back to the beginning. “The method has to click eventually.”
“It won’t!” She sat up and glared at him, the shoulders of her school uniform wet from the dripping ends of her dark hair. “The look on your face is the same one you had when I tried to explain bra sizes.”
“Someone needs to burn that system and start over.”
“It makes sense to us!”
“Oh yeah? Then why are eighty percent of women wearing the wrong bra size?” He stabbed the pause button. “Read that interesting tidbit in the pamphlet they sent with your bra order. Eighty percent. No one gets it.”
She slapped a pillow over her face and screamed into it.
Burgess wished he could do the same. He was exhausted from a late practice, after which he’d driven to Westford to pick up Lissa from her mother’s house. By the time he got home with his daughter in tow, he’d been too tired to talk to her about anything important. To try and connect, like he always promised himself he would try to do. Mental and physical exhaustion always seemed to get in the way now. He didn’t recover from practice the way he used to in his twenties. Recovery now required ice and ibuprofen, neither of which he’d had time for last night. The throb in his lower back was a constant reminder that he’d lost a step.
That he’d probably lose another one every season until he retired.
Sighing over the unwanted thoughts, he hit play again on the tutorial, though he wasn’t really seeing it now. He was thinking about Tallulah—again—wondering if she’d connected with Chloe and started the move-in process. He’d searched crime statistics in the neighborhood and done a Google street view of the building, satisfying himself that it was safe.
Did she like it, though?
“Dad, can you just try?”
He dragged two hands down his face. “Why the sudden need for this complicated hairstyle?”
“It’s not complicated. We have a volleyball scrimmage today and everyone on the team is going to have their hair French braided. I was the only one who didn’t have their hair braided last time.” She plucked at the black hairband around her wrist. “I don’t want to be left out again.”
Sympathy nudged him in the chest. “Did they plan it without you?”
Her face turned red, eyes suddenly full of tears. “Why would you ask me that?”
“I don’t know. Sorry.” Christ, he didn’t understand his own daughter. Every time he opened his mouth that became more and more obvious. He’d had no sisters. No siblings at all growing up. His youth was nothing but hockey, as was the entire life that followed. French braids and training bras and the politics of elementary school girls were an alien language to him that became more indecipherable by the day. Whenever it was Burgess’s turn to have Lissa, she grew more unreachable. Or he grew denser. It was hard to say which.
“All right, let’s do it.” He stood up and circled the couch, accepting the comb she handed him. “Trial and error is obviously how I’m going to learn, because Braiding Besties on YouTube isn’t cutting it.”
Lissa turned so her back was propped up against the arm of the sofa, muttering, “It doesn’t have to be perfect.”
Guess what? She was lying.
Yes, it fucking did have to be perfect.
Burgess watched his blunt, crooked fingers move in an unnatural pattern, attempting to weave hair into something resembling a braid, but one section went misplaced every time. The three pieces were uneven, leaving him without enough hair to complete the braid. Or bumps. Bumps appearing out of virtually nowhere. And bulges. Plus, she kept pulling out these little strands around her temples on purpose.