“Nope,” Mickey replied, rocking the loveseat with me beside him, curled into him, legs up under me, one of his arms around me, the other hand around the neck of a bottle of a beer he took a tug from after he answered.

“Does she open up to you?” I asked.

“Got no clue how to talk to an almost fifteen-year-old girl with a drunk for a mom,” he replied.

“Is she…does she have moods?” I pressed carefully.

“If you mean, has she started her period? Then yes,” he told me. “That happened last summer. Her mom took care of that. She comes home with boxes of shit Rhiannon gets her. I saw Midol on her dresser, made sure there was more in the bathroom. Didn’t have any sisters but did have a wife for fourteen years, so I got a clue when those kinds of moods strike. Ash gets ’em. This is not one of those.”

“I’m not sure I’m at that place where it’s okay for me to talk to her,” I noted.

“I hear you,” he muttered.

“But we can keep an eye on the situation and if she doesn’t open up to you, regardless if I’m at that place, if you want me to, I’ll go in.”

His arm tightened around me, tucking me closer. “That’d be good.”

He wanted me to.

That made me snuggle even closer.

I did that and took a sip of my wine before I asked, “Do you think they know what’s happening with you and me?”

“On the deck havin’ a drink with you and you’re over a lot. Close with the Gettys that live next door because they moved in when I was eight and never left. They’re welcome here any time. The kids love ’em. But I don’t walk them home, sit close to them on the couch or out on my deck at night, havin’ a beer.”

“Do you think that’s what’s troubling her?” I went on, even though, in the early stages, she seemed to hope her dad and I would get together.

“Again, no clue,” he said.

“You want to meet my kids, Mickey, perhaps you should think on sharing what’s happening with Cill and Ash in an official way,” I suggested. “If it’s out in the open, you can discuss it with her.”

“Great. My Sunday plans look only slightly better than my Friday night plans did.”

I grinned, lifted my head from his shoulder and looked to his jaw. “It’s not like we’re not used to this road being rocky.”

He didn’t look down at me.

He said to the dark night, “You’re right. The fuck of it is, you grow up thinkin’ things are gonna be a certain way and then they end up mostly fucked with moments of decent and flashes of really fuckin’ good.”