Ten out of nine times.
The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for September 26, 2008.
On the day that he managed to convince (blackmail) his daughter into spending one whole day in his company, Spirit makes it a point to comb his whole apartment three times over, to make sure that the general cleaning he did a week back did not miss a single spot. He knows only too well what Maka thinks of his philandering, and really: randomly sitting on vibrators or tripping on frilly lady panties wasn't the sort of thing that a daughter wants to find herself doing when she comes into her father's humble abode.
Maka herself arrives a few hours later, just after Spirit had finishes wrestling with his tie/his hair/his suit/his shoes in front of the bathroom mirror. He's about as overenthusiastic as a puppy before a walk, but the fire dies just a little when he greets Maka with a grin and all he gets is rolled eyes and a look that says Let's Get This Over With even if her mouth's saying Hello. He offers to drive. She says, coolly, that she prefers to walk. So they walk, and Spirit's forced to trail exactly six steps behind her because she gets all edgy and annoyed-looking whenever he tries to walk at her side.
Their first stop is the bookstore, where he's bobbing up from the shelves trying to crack jokes about the titles and she's pointedly ignoring him in favor of the History section. Their second stop is the soda fountain, where he meets one of his old one night stands and spends a good amount of time trying to extricate himself from her arms while Maka looks impassively on with a raised eyebrow and the straw stuck in the corner of her mouth. Their third stop is the basketball court, where Spirit hangs back, watching Maka smile for her Weapon the way she's never going to smile for him as Soul takes a break from shooting hoops with Black Star and Maka putters off to get him a drink. The smile disappears the moment she rounds back to meet her father, and he's forced to pretend that nothing's changed.
Later, just as they're heading up the stairs to Maka's apartment, Spirit looks at the expanse of her shoulders and curve of her back and wonders if it's okay for him to reach out and pat her. Just pat her. No words, no nothing; just a gesture of paternal affection. By the time he musters up the courage to, however, they're at her floor and she's walking back into her unit with a careless See You Later to him over her shoulder, and Spirit ends up mumbling his farewell in return to a closed door.
