The last time I checked the clock was about five minutes ago and when I checked it then, it was only 4:30 in the afternoon. It's 4:30 in the afternoon and I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to keep up with the orders being shouted and thrown at me. Usually, I'm pretty good with juggling a bunch of orders at once because I'm freakishly good at multitasking but today for some reason, I'm having a hard time. I think it's because I've never had to bartend when the bar is as full as it is right now. There are thirty-something chairs at the bar and every single one of them is filled. The other tender is on her break so I'm all alone and it's up to me to get 30 drunk men their beers and vodka. I try not to pass judgment on people I don't already know, but I'm finding it hard not to be judgmental when it's only 4:30 in the afternoon and the bar is currently filled. I thought 5:00 was happy hour but when you're dealing with a bunch of drunks, I guess it's never too early to start happy hour. I clocked in for my shift at 12:00 this morning and even at 12:00 noon, it was already packed in here. Around 2:00, the bar started filling up and it's been overwhelming ever since. I've only been working here for a week and five days...I'm not equipped to deal with a full bar by myself.

Bethany, the girl I'm bartending with today, explained to me that today is the start of baseball season and around the sports seasons, the bar is packed at every time of the day. I guess I'm not complaining, considering the fact that I already have about 200 bucks in my pocket and my shift isn't over for another two and a half hours, but it makes me wonder just how these drunks are going to get home when it's not even past 5:00 yet and they're already too drunk to sit upright. Maybe I should stop worrying about it though. I don't know, I just find that ever since everything happened, I'm pretty sensitive to other peoples' drinking habits anymore. I know it's not my business but it kind of irks me when I think about how the other people aren't thinking when they're shoving beer after beer after beer down their throats. I hurry back to the liquor cabinet and pour a glass of coconut flavored rum for the biker guy that's sitting towards the end of the bar. I mix it with a little bit of orange juice from the machine just like he likes it and take it over to him. "Here you are, sir...sorry for the wait." I put down a coaster and sit his glass on top of it. "Anything else I could get for you right now?" I lean against the counter and smile at him.

The man stirs his drink with a plastic coffee stirrer and smiles back at me. "I'm all set right now, babe." He takes a sip of his drink and licks his lips.

"Okay well give me a shout if you need anything." I nod at him and go back to the beer fridge. When I first clocked in for my shift and found out that I was going to be bartending with Bethany for the day, I wasn't all that excited. I had only worked with Bethany twice in the entire week and five days I've been here and we didn't really associate much before today. But she gave me a few tips for bartending and I think we could be considered friends now. First of all, she stood in front of me and unbuttoned the ugly green polo shirt we have to wear as our uniform. I usually wear my shirt buttoned up to my collar but Bethany unbuttoned all the buttons and made it so I'm actually showing a little bit of cleavage. And she lifted my shirt up a little bit so I'm "giving a little hip action". Secondly, she taught me that if I flirt with the guys a little bit, they'll tip me better and if I get them drunk enough, I can charge them whatever I want for drinks. Legally, I'm only allowed to keep whatever the drink costs on the regular menu so if I charge them any overages, I can technically keep the payout. I haven't charged anyone extra for their drinks though. I decided that I'll only charge the dickheads extra and the nice guys, I'll charge them regular price. I haven't really felt the need to charge anyone extra though because for one, every guy I've tended to today has been really nice to me and for two, they've been tipping me freakishly well with just a little flirtatious smile and a wink here or there.

I've overheard a few men today talk to their buddies about how I'm "sexy" and "hot" and I thought that it would bother me more than it does. I'm relatively unbothered by it though. I don't mind them staring at my chest and my butt when I walk away because after they leave, I'll find a $20 tip underneath their shot glass or empty beer can and that makes all the staring worth it. As long as none of them touch me, I don't care that they look. The other thing that Bethany taught me is to put my name tag on the bottom of my shirt so they don't know my name. According to our employee contract, our customers have legal right to know our names so we HAVE to wear our name tags but nowhere in the contract does it say that we have to wear them in a visible location to Bethany says if I'm going to flaunt my body and flirt for extra tips, they don't need to know my name because "that's how you get raped." I don't know if this makes me trashy, but I don't care. I'll flirt with drunk men all day long if it means that I get 20 bucks per customer. I'm trying to save up to buy myself a couch so I need all the tips I can rack up.

I open the beer fridge and grab two Cult 45s. I kick the fridge shut with my foot and run the beers down to the other end of the bar. "Here you are. That'll be $14.00, sir." Like a good little bartender, I crack open one can for him and pour it over his glass of ice. "Is there anything else you need?" I grab a straw from the pocket of my apron and put it next to his glass of beer. He shakes his head and fishes through his wallet. He hands me a $20 bill. "I'll be right back with your change."

"You keep the change, hon." He waves his hand at me.

"Thank you so much." I wad the twenty dollars up and stick it in my apron pocket, making a mental note to remember that only six of it is mine. "If you need anything else, you just give me a holler." I walk towards the register so I can break this twenty and get my six dollars before I forget to do it and end up walking out of here with twenty bucks that doesn't belong to me. I punch my employee code into the register and cash out the twenty. I keep fourteen of it in the register and put six of it in my pocket. I'll count my tips while I'm on my break but I'm pretty sure that I have at least enough to put a down payment on a couch, if not enough to buy the whole thing. I went back and forth, debating whether or not I should get a TV first or a couch first and needless to say, the couch won. I don't make enough money just yet to afford a cable plan so getting a TV would be pretty pointless I guess. There are still so many things I need in my house. Last weekend, I crossed a bed and a dresser off my list. I have a nice little air mattress in my bedroom now and a cheap but decent dresser. I set up the two end tables I bought at the dollar store and I had enough left over from the money my mom sent me to buy curtains and a bedroom set. I had to settle for a cheap one, so I have a purple and silver flowery quilt on my bed with purple pillowcases and I stuck purple curtains up in my room and I think it looks nice. I still need a couch, a TV, cable, internet, a kitchen table, chairs, a coffee table, rugs, blinds for all my windows, curtains for my bathroom and a toilet seat cover. Plus, I'd really like to decorate my house. I think this weekend I'm going to paint my kitchen. It looks so dreary and dead in my house. It needs some color.

I hear the gate open so I turn my head only to find that Bethany's back from her break. I close the register and go over to the soda fountain. I don't get why everyone seems to like bartending more than waitressing. I find bartending to be extremely annoying with the way you're forced to deal with drunks all damn day. I'd rather waitress any day. In truth, bartending does bring in way more money than waitressing but still and yet, I'd rather waitress than bartend. I push the ice button and fill kiddie cup up with ice for myself. I push the Coke button and fill my cup up with coke. The good thing about bartending is that we don't have to pay for drinks when we're bartending. Regular drinks though, not alcoholic drinks. We're not allowed to drink on the job and even if we were, we'd have to pay for alcoholic drinks. We can get free kid's drinks though, as long as we're bartending. When we're waitressing, we're allowed free side dishes but not free meals. I usually just steal a crouton or two from the salad bar when I'm waitressing. I can't eat the food here. It's not that it's nasty because it's actually pretty good but I'm just not into eating things that come from the ocean that's literally in my backyard. I'll get a a chicken sandwich on my break sometimes but I try not to eat too much of this stuff. I think me not being able to eat the food that we cook here is just me being a product of my environment. I didn't have my first McDonald's french fry until I was ten years old, thanks to my health-freak of a mother. I think the whole "no-takeout" rule is just branded in me somewhere.

"Jo, you can go on break." Tony peeks out from the break room just to tell me that I can. He's been back there all day doing inventory with the fishing company that supplies the food for us. Everyone says that Tony is some big asshole but every time I've come into contact with him, he seemed really nice. I think he's just old and finicky and sometimes evil. He's gotta be in his 70s or something like that and sometimes he can be mean but he's nice to me and I don't think he's an asshole. He shuts the break room door when he goes back inside. I untie my apron and stick it underneath the bar counter for safekeeping. I trot back to the break room and sidestep a bunch of boxes and order forms. I clock out for my break and look around. I usually spend my breaks in the break room but that doesn't seem like a good idea today, for multiple reasons. Maybe I'll just go sit outside. I sidestep the boxes and order forms again and walk back out of the break room. It's a Sunday so we're somewhat short staff today but usually when I take my break, I'm sitting back in the break room with other people that I actually talk to, like Luke, Macy, Lucille or Kaylee. Today, it's just me and Bethany in the bar and Chloe and Austin on the floor. I leave out from behind the bar counter and head for the door. A couple of the guys at the bar stare at me when I walk by them so I just politely smile and see myself out of the front entrance.

I walk over towards the benches that are outside of the restaurant and sit down. Well most importantly, my hips haven't been bothering me as much as they were when I was sleeping on the floor. My air mattress is surprisingly very, very comfortable. I think it might actually be better on my hips than a regular mattress since there are no springs. It's literally like I'm sleeping on air and it's so comfy. I actually took my mom's advice too, and I bought something stronger than Aspirin. I got some Excedrin Back and Body pills and they've been working miracles. I'll feel my hips start to ache, pop one of those pills and it takes the ache away within minutes and it keeps it away. I reach in my back pocket and take my phone out to see if anyone called or texted me. I haven't talked to any of my friends in days. I haven't worked with Kaylee in two days, I haven't worked with Macy at all this week and Lucille is still on vacation. Me and Luke were texting last night but I haven't seen him since he drove me home with my mattress and my dresser. Oh, and I haven't seen Alex and Lyla since that day I gave Lyla my giraffe charm. I've been kind of on my own lately. It doesn't really bother me much though.

I look around as I sit on the bench. I've been in Florida for a week and two days and I still have yet to truly explore. I guess that's what I get for not having a car but I haven't even been to the beach yet and the beach is literally in my backyard. I think I'm gonna try and take a trip to the beach soon, just to say I did. There's no way I can live in a city that's less than a mile off the coast of the Atlantic Ocean and not go to the beach. I've been doing a lot of walking around town and I've been seeing these flyers about this big Independence Day celebration they're going to have down at the boardwalk on the beach and since the restaurant is closed on Independence Day, I think I might go to that. I'll ask Lucille or something if she wants to go because I don't want to go alone. I'll wait until it's closer to the Fourth of July to ask though. It's only the beginning of June. I think it'll be good for me to go to that Independence Day thing though. What better way to meet the people of Millerton than to go to a city function?

Maybe it's too soon to say but even though I've only been in Florida for a week and some change, it's already so much better than Chamberlain. Things are really starting to look up for me. The only complaint I have is that I still don't have as many friends as I thought I would have at this point in time but then again, it's only been a week and I still have time to make friends. Sure, I have friends in the people I work with but they're not the kind of friends that I hang out with. The only one I've ever seen outside of work was Luke and that's only because he has a truck and I needed a truck. Everyone just has their own life and I have no life outside of work. Luke has his boyfriend, Lucille is married and just went on vacation with her husband, Kaylee has a fiance and Macy has a boyfriend too. I kind of feel like the odd one out because not only do I not have a boyfriend or anything like that, I also don't want one.

Call me crazy, but I kind of like this. I like how here in Millerton, my only worry is about how I don't want a boyfriend. I don't have to walk around worried about if my house is going to be vandalized and I don't have to walk around worried if people are going to attack me, verbally or physically. I'm sitting here on a bench in front of my job, worried about how I don't have and don't want a boyfriend when everyone else around me does. I never thought I'd see this day. The craziest part about being here is that there are days that go by where I don't even think about Chamberlain and that's the way I like it. I've been in contact with Mrs. Robinson of course, but even when I talk to her, she doesn't mention it. We talk, she asks me how I'm doing, I ask her how she's doing nad that's usually the end of it. I have to remind myself to thank her for this someday because if she would've never told me to get the hell out of Chamberlain, I wouldn't have. I would still be miserable, hungry, probably homeless by now if I had stayed. For the last six...wait, seven months now, I've been stuck thinking about the dumbest decision I've ever made. If someone asks me what the stupidest thing I've ever done is, that's an easy question. But being here in Florida for only two weeks, away from everything with next to no cares in the world, I think I'll finally have an answer when someone asks me what the smartest thing I've ever done is.

I look down at my cell phone to check the time. My break is almost over, so I'd better head back inside now.


Alex's Point of View.

"Okay, sweet girl...time for the hard part." I hold her little arm still and wrap my thumb and index finger around her IV. The little redhead looks at me with dark green eyes and touches the little stuffed bear I have hanging out of my pocket. I can't wait until her parents get a load of the fact that I'm discharging her today but not her sister. They'll be sure to cause an uproar...or they'll cry, whichever comes first. There's no reason for Molly Marshall to stay here though. Her incisions are healed, she's been having regular bowel movements, she's been taking solids and her temperature has been stable for several days now. There's no medical reason for me to keep her so I have to let her go. Her sister on the other hand isn't doing so hot. They used to be conjoined at the hip but they had two of everything. They had their own arms, legs, kidneys, hearts...everything. But they shared the same lymph nodes and Megan got the smaller of the lymph nodes when we separated them and her lymph node is failing, which means she can't fight off infections as well as her sister can and she has an infection in her kidney right now. So Molly can go home but Megan has to stay for a little while longer. "There we go. That didn't hurt too bad, did it?" I put a pink Band-Aid over the place where her IV was. "No, that didn't hurt." I clean up the IV. "Time to go check on your sissy."

I walk over to the other crib. Poor Megan is laying in her crib with tubes up her nose and down her throat. Her temperature is down from where it was earlier though and she actually excreted some urine, so she's doing better but still not 100%. I check her urine output in the bag that hangs down from her catheter. Yeah, she peed a little bit more than she did when I last checked her urine output...and her pee is perfectly clear like it should be. It's not cloudy, bloody or too dark. "How are you feeling, Megs?" I stroke her pretty red hair back. "I'll tell your mom and dad to feed you something good for dinner tonight." Since she's finally peeing, her parents can try to give her some baby food in about an hour. If she can keep that down, we might be looking at sending her home at the end of this week, if not this week then next week for sure. The door to their room opens up and I don't even budge because I know it's their parents. I hook another bag of antibiotics into Megan's IV and adjust her nasal tube. "Good news Mr. and Mrs. Marshall." I mumble, concentrating on making sure Megan's nasal tube is doing what it's supposed to be doing. Once I'm sure that it's working properly, I stop messing with the poor kid and look at her parents. "I'm gonna go ahead and discharge Molly today. She's doing very well, her incision is good, she's taking solids, her temperature is good... she can go home."

Mrs. Marshall squeezes her husband's hand and gasps. Mr. Marshall is the first to notice that I said Molly...not Molly AND Megan. "And Megan? She can come too, right?" He questions me.

"I'm afraid not." I take off my gloves and walk over to the sink where I put the twins' charts. "Megan's kidney infection is getting better but it's still not where I want it to be. She's urinating though...and her temperature is consistently dropping, which is excellent. You guys can try to give her some baby food before you take Molly home. If she keeps the food down, I think we're looking at a discharge next week for her...maybe by the end of this week." I flip to Molly's discharge papers and begin to sign them.

"...She's gonna be okay though, right?" Mrs. Marshall rushes over to Megan's bedside and holds her hand. "She's gonna live?"

"Yeah, she's gonna be fine. She just can't go home with her sister just yet. But I foresee a speedy recovery. She's going to be perfect." I sign all of Molly's papers and close the chart. "She's tough."

"She is." Mr. Marshall agrees with me.

"I'll be right back with Molly's paperwork... until I get back, you should try waking her up...try feeding her if she'll take it. She should be hungry." I pick both charts up and shove them under my shoulder. "I'll be back in a while." I close the door behind myself and take both the charts over to the nurses' station. As I've said before, there are certain days that I love my job. Today is one of the days that I hate it, but not for the reasons one would think. I just keep thinking about how I'm at work spending time with other peoples' kids and my own is sitting in a car shop with my dad today. Today just isn't a good day for me.

"Hey Alex..." As I'm standing at the nurses' station in PICU, I hear Arizona call my name. Even though I'm really not in the mood to deal with her—or anything today, for that matter—I close the chart I was looking at and turn towards her. "I have a bowel resection on a ten year old in an hour...you want in?" She touches my shoulder and smiles in her usual, bright and happy kind of way. I reopen the chart since all she wanted is to know if I want in on her surgery or not. Surgery sounds cool but I have seven kids to discharge, I don't think I have time to scrub in with her. She takes her hand off my shoulder. "Or are you trying to get out of here earlier today? Because I was thinking that maybe you could take down the adhesions for me. You haven't really been doing much surgery lately...you okay?" I nod and pretend to be busy signing off on the chart I'm looking at. I'm really not in the mood today. My mind is spinning off in a thousand different directions and I can't even concentrate long enough to sign off on charts, let alone scrub in on a damn surgery with her. I just don't have this in me to do today. "Alex?"

"Will you quit bugging me? I have seven discharges to do today, nine intakes and no interns to help me. Sorry, but I can't go run off and play with you whenever you feel like it's time to play." I accidentally snap at her and I feel bad after I do it but I can't take it back now so oh well, I guess. I look at her through the corner of my eye and unlike all the other times I talk to Arizona, I can't read her face this time. I can usually tell how she's feeling just by the look on her face but I can't tell how she's feeling right now. "Sorry." I mutter and finish signing off on the chart and sigh. My mind is everywhere right now, starting with the fact that my dad had to work today and he's watching my kid. Something about the thought of Lyla being in an old, nasty, sweaty car shop around a bunch of machinery doesn't set right with me. Plus, around my lunch hour, my dad texted me and told me that he called my mom to see if she would be willing to just come down to the shop and sit with Lyla while he fixes a cracked radiator and apparently, she didn't answer. I don't know what scares me more; the fact that my dad went against my wishes and contacted my mother in regards to my daughter or the fact that my mother didn't answer. She's usually all over things when it comes to Lyla and the fact that she didn't answer either means that she completely washed her hands to me or she's got something else under her sleeve to where she doesn't have to talk to us about Lyla. I'd like to think that she decided to permanently step off when it comes to Lyla but I know my mom and I know that the second scenario is about fifty times more likely than the first.

"Something you wanna share with the class here, Alex?" She puts her hand on my arm. "...If something's bothering you...I'll listen. Otherwise...maybe you should just head home early. Instead of lashing out at the wrong person, you know. Next person you lash out on could be your boss...or something like that." She gives me a half-smile, offering a sign of truce. She has a point there. I did lash out at my boss. "You can head home early if you want..."

"I'm really sorry, Zone." I turn to my side so I can look her in the eye. She's one of my good friends so sometimes it's easy for me to treat her like a friend but I have to try to remember that she's my boss, first and foremost. "My head's just not in it today. But I'll be fine. I'm just gonna go do my discharges. Sorry I can't scrub in with you."

"Why don't you head home after your discharges? I'll get an intern to do your intakes." She picks up the chart I just signed off on. "Is it the same situation that's bothering you?" I shrug my shoulders. I broke down sometime last week and asked her about the process that happens when someone tries to take kids away from their parents. Being a pretty established pediatrician herself, Arizona's seen her fair share of CPS cases. There have actually been instances where she's been the one to call CPS if a kid comes in the ER with a broken arm and the parents can't explain it. She knows how that stuff works so I asked her about it last week and she assured me that my mom can't just go and petition for custody if she doesn't have a reason with evidence behind it. So she knows what's been going on. "I know how scary it is for you, Al. And I'm sorry you have to deal with it. But just in case something does happen, maybe you should spend all your time with her." She looks through the chart I signed. "Who um...who has her now?"

"My dad does, but he has her down at his car shop and I'm not really comfortable with that. She's only three, you know? She could see something that interests her and with all that machinery, she could end up hurting herself. I'm not comfortable with her being down there but I don't really have another choice. I'm scared that if I leave her with my mom, I might not get her back. So what other choice do I have?" I put my hands in my pockets. "It's just fucke—messed up how I'm just trying to make this crappy situation better and my mom just keeps making it crappier than it already is." I change my choice of words, mindful that Arizona doesn't like the "F" word. She has a pretty colorful vocabulary of her own but for as long as I've been working under her, I have yet to hear her drop an "F" bomb. "I know I'm not all that good at being a dad just yet but I'm trying. I...I feed her every day, I play with her, I bathe her, she always has clean clothes...Yeah, she's in diapers, she sucks on a pacifier and she sleeps with me but she's three. I don't really think it's all that bad. And I know the bruises looked bad but she's a kid. She plays rough. I wouldn't hurt her. It just sucks how everyone else believes me and my mom doesn't."

"I wish you'd stop saying how you're not a good dad. Alex, I'm a pediatrician. I work with all kinds of kids. I work with kids that have rich parents, poor parents...good parents, bad parents. Do you know how many bad parents I see on a daily basis? You're not one of them. You're a good dad." She pats my shoulder again. "It sounds to me like the only thing you need is a good, reliable babysitter for when your dad can't watch your little girl. And you do know that there's a perfectly good daycare downstairs, right? A daycare that I highly recommend. A daycare that my own daughter stays in. I could run downstairs and get you the enrollment forms if you want."

"You don't think I thought about that? I think about sticking her in the daycare every day. But you've seen Lyla yourself...she won't even speak to anyone she doesn't know. I can see it now. I stick her down in that daycare and I get calls while I'm in surgery about how she won't eat, won't participate with the other kids. It's best if I just keep her with people she knows. I have to work with her before I just stick her in place full of strangers. She's gonna have to be eased into it and even then, I don't know for sure if she'd be okay with it." I sigh. "But you're right about that. I do need a reliable babysitter for when my dad can't because the only other option is sticking her with my mom and if I do that, I might never see her again."

"Let me talk to Callie when I get home tonight. She has a list of babysitters we use for Sofia when she's sick and the daycare won't keep her. I'll see where she put the list and I'll bring it to you when you work on Tuesday. Okay?"

"Thank you, Arizona." I slouch my shoulders. I really don't want to, but it's looking like Lyla might have to go to daycare. I'm not nervous about how they're going to treat her down there because I know they treat the kids great down there. So many doctors send their kids down there and I hear great things about it. I'm just nervous because Lyla can't even function around people she doesn't know. She gets all clammy and I know that she'll freeze up and not even participate in anything that they do. If there's one thing I know about my daughter, it's that sending her to daycare is a bad idea. But at the same time, sending her to daycare could teach her how to interact with kids her own age. She could make friends and learn how to open up to people. I just don't know what I should do. "I'm gonna go start my discharges...I'll talk to you later." I pick up an electronic chart off the charging dock and walk away from the nurses' station.

X X X

I sit on the edge of the tub and pinch the bridge of my nose, listening to the water collecting in base of it. Today was one of the roughest days at work I've had in a while. Initially, I didn't want to leave work early but when I sat and thought about it, it was probably for the best. I wasn't supposed to get off until 7:00 but Arizona let me leave at 5:30. Part of me wonders how long she's going to give me special treatment...letting me leave early, ignoring my lashing out...all that stuff. I wonder how long she's going to write it off as me going through a hard time. I take a deep breath, stop pinching my nose and reach across the tub to grab the container of pink bubble bath. I unscrew the cap off the container and pour a little bit of it into the water. The bubbles start to rise so I put the cap back on and put the container back. "...Lyla. Come here." I rub my eyes, yawn and wait for her to come in the bathroom. I hear the little pitter-patter of her feet coming. She toddles into the bathroom with me and stands in the doorway, holding my cell phone in her hands. She's already naked. "Come on, bath time." She puts my phone on the floor and walks over to me. I pick her up and put her inside the water. "So tell me about your day with Pappy..." In reality, I just want to give her a bath, feed her some dinner and put her to bed. I'm not in the mood for anything tonight. I'm just in the mood for bed.

"...I help Pappy work a car, Dada." She sits down in her bath water and looks up at me. "I eated hot dogs...I see gammy...gammy gimme ice cream." She sits with her legs straight out and splashes in the water. My dad already told me that my mom came by the shop anyway. He talked to her about what happened between me and her and she said she was just trying to "protect her granddaughter". He said that he told her that she was wrong, that I would never hurt Lyla, all that good stuff. I wish he wouldn't have called my mom at all. I wish he would've just let it go. He should've just kept an eye on Lyla himself and left her out of the equation. I know it's probably not possible, but I never wanted my mom to see Lyla again. I wanted to keep her away from her for as long as I possibly could and my dad just screwed that up. "Daddy...wuss wong?" She stands up on her feet and touches my cheek. "Daddy?"

"Daddy's tired, pumpkin butt." I kiss her on the cheek and rub her hair. I've just been thinking about losing her lately and I can't stand that. Why won't this all just go away? Everything with my mom...I just want it to go away. The fact that my mom feels like she has to protect her from me. Why does she feel like that? She doesn't have to protect my daughter from me. She's my daughter...my reason for breathing. The reason I didn't just lie down and give up after Jenna died. She doesn't have to protect Lyla from me. I squeeze her little naked body tight and press my lips against the side of her head. "I love you, Ly..."

"I lah you too, dada." She puts her hands on my cheeks and smashes them together, giving me a "fishy" face. She puckers her lips and kisses me on mine for a second.

"You don't kiss other boys on the lips like that, do you?" I dunk a washcloth in her bath water and later it up with soap. "You go around kissing boys on the lips?"

"Ewww, no." She giggles and shakes her head. "I only kiss my daddy on the lippies." She takes the washrag off of me and starts rubbing it across my face. "Daddy dirty..."

"No, Lyla's dirty." I take it back and start washing her arms and chest. "'What else did you do today, Ly?" I turn her around and wash her back. I scrub her entire body and make sure I get her neck real good. "Did you play while you were with Pappy?" She nods her head and holds onto my shoulder while I wash her butt. "What'd you play?"

"...I pay wiff...a monkey witch...and Lionel, Spawky and Champy." She starts giggling when I wash her feet.

"You played with a monkey wrench...Sparky, Lionel and Champy? I know Sparky and Lionel...who's Champy?" Sparky is her stuffed poodle, Lionel is her stuffed lion and I have no idea who Champy is.

"...My garaffe that my fwend doe gimme." She closes her eyes as I start washing her face.

"Oh, the giraffe that your friend Jo gave you? His name's Champy?" She nods. I wash behind her ears and get the back of her neck real good. I don't want to wash her hair tonight because her ear is still healing from that nasty infection. "Did you ever tell your friend Jo thank you?" To be totally honest, Jo is the only person I've ever heard Lyla refer to as her "friend". I don't have the heart to tell her that Jo is way too old to be her friend though. "You still have to thank her, honey..." It's been nearly two weeks since Jo gave her that giraffe figurine and although I know she probably forgot all about the fact that she gave Lyla the giraffe, I still want Lyla to thank her. I want to raise her right. "Next time you see her, you have to tell her thank you."

"...Dada, maybe I could...maybe I could give doe my pony? 'Cause her gimme a garaffe...her can have my pony dada." She sees me hang up her washcloth and lunge to unplug the drain so she steps out of the tub.

"Honey, I don't think Jo wants your pony. That's very nice though." I wrap a towel around her naked body and pick her up. "If you give Jo your pony, your other ponies would miss it and it would miss the other ponies too." I take her to my bedroom and put her on the bed. "Why don't you just tell her thank you? You don't have to give her your pony to say thank you, Ly." I start rubbing her dry.

"...We could give doe coopies? Like mummy use a do to Gibby mommy cookies..." She's referring to how Jenna used to bake cookies and bring them to Mrs. Jensen's house for their book club meetings. "We give doe coopies, daddy?"

"I don't know about that, Ly..."


Jo's Point of View.

I poke at the sizzling ground beef with a spatula and try to see if all of it is brown. When I got home from work about...two hours ago, I wasn't hungry at all. I didn't want food, I just wanted to take a shower and lay in my nice comfy bed. So I took the shower and as soon as I got in, I found that I was starving. So as much as I wanted to just lie down and go to bed, I figured starving to death was as cruel way to let myself die so I got off my lazy butt and decided to make myself some tacos. Is it bad that I had to read the back of the taco box to make them? I'm a horrible cook but I think these tacos will be edible...just as long as I cook the ground meat the right way. The back of the taco box said to brown the ground meat...I'm not exactly sure what "browning" ground meat is but I'm trying to brown it nonetheless. I'm pretty smart...I have two Ivy League diplomas...browning ground meat is probably cooking the meat until it's brown, right? I dunno. I put the spatula down on the stove and walk back over to my fridge. I have a tomato, a head of lettuce, cheese and the taco sauce came in the taco kit.

If Mark could see me trying to cook, he'd probably make fun of me and tell me not to. I tried to cook us dinner once. It was when Kathy was out with the flu so she couldn't come cook for us. Mark and I were left to fend for ourselves and I grew up thinking that takeout was the devil, so when he tried to take me out to dinner, I politely asked him if I could cook dinner instead. I was going to bake chicken, make my own stuffing the way my mom always did for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner, make some corn and homemade mashed potatoes. Mark posted up in the kitchen with me like me trying to cook was his own personal entertainment and he got a good laugh out of me trying to peel potatoes. He told me that he loved me but I shouldn't cook. He gave me a kiss on my cheek and ordered Chinese takeout, which I ate because I was hungry. I really tried to cook dinner though...and Mark said that I get a got an A for effort. If he saw me trying to figure out what exactly "browning ground meat" is, he'd laugh at me for sure.

I take the tomato, the lettuce and the cheese out of the fridge and put them all on the counter. I go back to the stove and poke at the ground meat a little bit more. I think it's all brown. I don't want to burn it so I guess I'll just trust my instincts. I pick up the packet of taco seasoning and open it. I sprinkle it all over the ground meat and spread it around with the spatula. I glance at the directions again. Okay, so I'm supposed to put the lid over the pan so it can simmer. Just as I'm reaching for the lid, I hear a knock at my door. I pause for a moment, thinking of everyone that it could be. It could be someone from work, but I doubt it. Everyone from work has their own lives to live and I can't imagine why they'd want to be bothered with me. I look at the clock on my stove. It's going on 8:00 at night, so it can't be the mailman or anything like that. I stick the lid on the pan and walk over to my door. Whoever it is, I sure hope they're not important or anything. Because I'm walking around my house braless, in a baggy white t-shirt and a pair of red plaid flannel jammie pants. I smooth my hair back with my hand and unlock the door. I turn the knob and slowly open it up. What is he doing here?

Alex is standing on my porch, sporting a pair of light gray Nike jogging pants and a black Led Zeppelin t-shirt. He's holding Lyla on his hip and she's wearing a bright pink pair of footie pajamas. I have no idea why the two of them are here. "Hi?" I greet the both of them and I think for a moment. I could invite the two of them in...that would probably be the neighborly thing to do but my house isn't really...nice. So I open the door a little wider and step out onto the porch with them, barefoot and all. This is the first time I've stood next to him before and I never realized how tall he is. He towers over me. Lyla looks all happy and giddy but Alex...he looks embarrassed? Or maybe he's just tired. I don't know which one. I haven't seen the two of them in...two weeks? It's been a while since I've seen the two of them and they're on my porch right now...and I'm in my pajamas. Dear god, I'm in my pajamas. I can't catch a break around this man.

"Go 'head, Ly..." He nudges his daughter and she looks at him like she's afraid of me. He nudges her again though.

"...Here doe." She leans forward off her dad's chest and hands me a clear tupperware container with a blue lid. "Thank you for...um...givin' me a garaffe." Oh my god, she's so sweet. I take the container from her. "I maked coopies..."

"Aw, thank you Lyla." I tell her thank you and she buries her face in Alex's neck. She baked me cookies? Just to say thank you for giving her my little giraffe charm? It's been a while since I gave that to her. I thought for sure she forgot all about how I gave it to her. I thought she might have lost it by now. It's a small little sparkly giraffe charm, for crying out loud. But she baked me cookies to say thank you? She's so adorable. I turn to Alex. "You really didn't have to do this...this is was really sweet of you."

"Not my idea." He shakes his head. No, he's not tired. He's very clearly embarrassed and something about the look on his face tells me that this isn't the first time his daughter's gotten him into an awkward situation. "It was all her idea. I told her to thank you the next time she saw you and she insisted that we bake you cookies." I nod my head slowly. "...Her mother used to bake cookies for the book club and...I guess maybe she just thought that baking cookies is a good thank you...I don't know." I keep nodding pretty slowly. I'm trying to make him think that I think this is awkward. I'm not weirded out by this though. I think this is really sweet and when I did my student teaching, I sat in and observed a kindergarten class once so I know how blunt and forward children can be. I believe him when he says that it was all her idea. "Look, they're probably not that good...I found the recipe online and I'm not a good baker and they're sort of...burned, but if I didn't bring you the damn cookies, I might have had to kill my daughter. So yeah..."

"I'm sure they taste fine." My lips curl up into a very natural smile. "I really appreciate this." I lick my lips and look at Lyla. She's still hiding in her dad's neck. I look at Alex again. His eyes are such a pretty color and I like this hair. His hair looks really soft. I kind of want to touch it. "Well um...my mother taught me to never give containers back empty..." I tuck my hair behind my ear and look at the cookies in the container. They're chocolate chip. "I'm not a very good cook either, so you can either...eat what I put back in the container or throw it out. I won't be offended. But I can't give it back empty. It's just how I was raised."

"No, I understand." He shrugs his shoulders. "Again, Jo...sorry if we disrupted your night. I know it's sort of late and you're busy...but like I said, she really wanted to give you these tonight. She's been talking about her new friend Jo for a while now."

"I'm not busy and believe me, you didn't disrupt anything. I was just...making myself something for dinner, that's all." I shake my head. "...Am I your friend, Lyla?" I put my hand on her back. She nods at me. "That's awesome. I could use a friend to play with around here." She lifts her head up and looks at me but it's still very clear that she doesn't want to be put down or let go. "Can I hug you?" She shakes her head. "No? Well can I have a high-five for the cookies?"

"Give her a hug, Lyla...she's your friend, remember?" He kisses her cheek and my heart melts from the cuteness. "Go 'head and hug her...I'm right here." She leans toward me very, very slowly.

I wrap my arms around her little body and give her a hug. "Thank you for the cookies, honey. I'm gonna eat them all, right before I go to bed tonight." Just when I start to pull away from the hug I'm giving her, she actually puts her arms around me and hugs me back. "Awwww, thank you." I rub her back. "You have a sweet little girl, Alex."

"Yeah, she's sweet...a little shy, but sweet, I guess." He shrugs his shoulders again. He shrugs a lot. I wonder if it's something he does when he's nervous or uncomfortable. Do I make him nervous? "Um...I guess I should say thank you too. For being so nice to her , I mean. She doesn't talk to a lot of people so thanks for being nice about it."

"It's no problem. I...I should be the one thanking her, it seems. I've only been here for two weeks and a three year old has been the nicest person to me thus far." I laugh a little and so does he. I won't beat around the bush and lie about it, this whole situation is a little bit awkward. I've talked to his daughter more than I've talked to him and he shows up at my doorstep with cookies in tow. This is kind of awkward but there's a part of me—and I don't know how big that part is—but part of me wants to keep talking to him. "So is it just...you and Lyla at your house? You two seem pretty close. Or that other guy...the one who came out to eat with you guys. Is he with you guys too?"

"That's my dad. He watches her for me while I go to work but no, he doesn't live with us. It's just me and Lyla. I guess you could say we're close." He's looking at me from head-to-toe like he's sizing me up or something. "What about you? Anybody else here with you?"

"No, just me. I'm from Massachusetts, actually." I tousle my hair with my fingers and flip a little strand of it over my shoulder. I tap my fingers along the lid of the container. "You work up at the um...the Children's Hospital in Pensacola, right? Or...no?"

"Confirmed." He nods once. "How'd you figure?"

"...Lot of chatter around here about you." I admit. "I just thought I'd take the chance to clear up the rumors."

"...What else you hear about me?" He narrows his eyes and lifts his head.

"I hear that you work at a hospital, you're a single dad..." I decide to leave out the part about his wife dying and him being an eligible bachelor...and the part that Kaylee told me a few days ago about him supposedly having a big you know what. "You're a nice guy...you live in a frat house with seventeen other guys...you know, the usual." I shrug and he tilts his head. "...Totally joking about the frat house thing." That makes him laugh; genuinely, laugh.

"It's a shame that you're joking really...the only true thing you said was about the frat house." He mumbles and I laugh so hard that my stomach hurts for a second. "Yeah, I'm actually a single mother..." I laugh again.

"Daddy...we go home right now, kay? Home. I pee peed." Lyla taps him on his cheek. She's so godly adorable, my goodness. "We go home."

"Alright, Ly...we'll go home." He sighs. "I guess we'll see you later, Jo."

"I'll see you guys." I take a step back towards my door. "Bye Lyla, thank you for my cookies." Lyla waves at me. "Bye Alex."

"We'll see you, Jo." He turns to leave but I see Lyla tap him on his cheek again. "What, Ly?" She whispers something in his ear. "...Hurry up." He puts her down on my porch and as soon as she's out of his grasp, she runs over to me and throws her arms around my legs. My heart is melting by the second.

"Bye Lyla...I'll see you later." I put the cookies down on the ground and kneel to give her a proper hug. "I'll see you later sweetheart."

"Bye bye, doe... doe...doe." She says bye to me but starts tapping my arm. "Hey doe..."

"Yes honey?" I can't stop smiling at how cute she is.

"...You come ova...we play wiff my ponies, kay?" She won't look me in my eye but she's talking to me. She's looking at the ground. "I got ponies..." I look up at Alex and he's just shaking his head like he doesn't know what to do with her.

"Alright, honey. I'll come over and play with your ponies one day..." I nod my head. Alex is still shaking his head. "One day..."

"Come on, Lyla." He just holds his hand out, clearly having secondhand embarrassment for his child. I don't know why he's so embarrassed though. Playing ponies with a three year old could be the highlight of my move to Florida.

Looks like I've got me a new friend.