Lucky Draw
Negotiation Part II
“Do you need to meet her bus?”
“No. She gets dropped off right at the bottom of the driveway. She told us at the beginning of this school year she’s in grade two now and doesn’t want us waiting for her.” January made a face.
“It bugs you she’s so independent.”
“I love that she’s independent. I don’t love the shit she can get into from the end of the driveway to the front door,” January turned her face to the window where any minute her daughter would be arriving.
“Surely she can’t be so bad.”
“Her nickname from the adults in town is ball buster.” Terrance chuckled as he pushed himself out of the chair and rolled his shoulder out. “I’ll go make her snack or ‘she’s walk in here hangry.”
“She gets hangry? Like her mother,” Gulliver commented with a grin. “Remember the time you were so hungry and cranky you nearly beat the food truck driver to death for
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Negotiation Part II
telling you he ran out of tacos.”
“Shut up Gulliver. We aren’t friends and we’re not sharing stories.”
“Yes my love.”
Lucky Draw
She shot him a furious glare, but his eyes were now moving to the window, his feet, moving quickly to watch as the sound of the bus coming down their street. She watched his face, curious to see what his reaction would be to see his daughter for the first time. There were too many times to count in her mind of exactly this scenario. So many ways it played out in her imagination was making her nervous now, as he stared hungrily out the window as if desperate for the first glimpse.
January hated herself for how much she was staring at his face. Eight years hadn’t diminished how attractive he was. His Grecian features coupled with his English aristocracy, created an incredibly stunning human being. -Bright blue eyes coupled with very dark, nearly black
hair, and a burnished bronze complexion made for a man who turned heads everywhere he went. There was a time she was proud to be on his arm because he made it seem Bike he noticed nobody but her. Knowing it was ie, 12:44
Negotiation Part II
Lucky Draw
everything he did was an act meant to deceive had tainted every memory and every beautiful thought she’d had about him. So why then, hadn’t it tainted how her body responded to how he looked. She surmised it was likely the same way girls in romance novels liked the villains who tormented them. You could control your mind, but the vagina wants what the vagina wants.
Her lips curved at the joke she made in her head, but it slipped away as the expression on Gulliver’s face changed with the swishing mechanical sounds of the school bus doors opening at the end of the driveway. His mouth opened a breath, his nostrils flared and his lashes batted against his reddened cheeks. His tongue darted to lick the dryness off his lips and then his lips disappeared between his teeth as he held them tight there together. He watched her skipping up the short gravel driveway, kicking rocks, and swinging her backpack in a vigorous circle and the hand which had been clenched at his side moved to rub his chest as if his heart were racing as fast as hers always thrummed.
A curse word in a language she didn’t know fell from his lips as the sound of stomping up the front steps and then the door crashing open.
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Negotiation Part II
Lucky Draw
“Mom! Did you see all the fancy cars outside? Is someone having a party? Can we go? Is there cake?” She burst into the room and then came to a complete stop as she noted the two strangers in the room. She grinned a big toothy smile and gave a wave, “hi! Mom, we have company?”
“Hi baby, yeah, we do. Come in.”
Kaylee’s eyes darted in the direction of the kitchen, “what about my snack?”
“Papa is making it for you.”
“I hope it’s cookies and milk. Yesterday Nana made me eat carrot sticks before I could have my cookie. So unfair,” she kicked her runners off with flair and they landed on the mat by the door, and she flung her bookbag onto the chair where her grandparents had been sitting earlier.
The chuckle which bubbled up from the large man in the -middle of the room had her eyes darting back to his.
“What’s your name?” Kaylee bounced in his direction. “I’m Kaylee.”
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Lucky Draw
“Hi Kaylee,” he squatted down so he was eye to eye with her, bending at the knees, a wide smile curling his lips, “my name is Gulliver. This is my sister Thisbe.”
“Gulliver? That’s a cool name! My name is so boring. Kaylee,” she rolled her eyes. “There’s a boy in my class. and his name is Alejandro,” she rolled her r like she was born Latina. “It’s really cool. Someday when I have kids, I’m not giving them boring names like Kaylee.”
“I like your name, Kaylee,” January protested as she grabbed a throw pillow and pulled it to her stomach and sat down on the sofa nervously.
“Do you want to have kids someday?” he grinned.
“Yeah. My mom and my Nana won’t even let me get a pet.”
“I heard you saved a skunk.”
“You heard about that?” she got excited and bounced.
He laughed and held out his arm, “I was with Dr. Ford, and I met your friend Henry and he sprayed me.” 5/7
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Negotiation Part II
Lucky Draw
Kaylee sniffed his arm and then released a loud bellow of laughter, “that’s so funny! I still smell a bit too but only in my hair. My mom has washed my hair a hundred times!” she made wide eyes at him. “My Nana hired people to come clean the house and it still smells.”
He looked up at January, “she’s delightful.”
Kaylee beamed, “I am delightful! My mom says I’m a handful too. My teacher says I talk too much. Today I got in trouble for singing.” She looked at her mother over her shoulder, “there’s a letter from my teacher in my bookbag.”
January groaned and sighed, “we’ll sort it out later. For now, there is something we need to talk to you about.”
“Sure, Mom.” Kaylee moved to sit next to her on the sofa, and she looked her in the face and frowned, “do you have a tummy ache Mom? Your face is all,” she screwed her face up mockingly, “like you need to fart.”
“Kaylee,” the three adults familiar with the child all called her name and she gave a cheeky grin.
You should just let it out, Mom. It can’t smell worse than
Negotiation Part II
the skunk.”
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At that Gulliver threw his head back, laughing so hard he fell on his backside from where he had been squatting, the entire room watched in awe as the giant man fell in love with his child.
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