I sighed. “Yep.”

“Wow.”

I didn’t bother asking if that was a good wow or a bad wow. Honestly, I didn’t care. It was really awkward sitting on a bench with your children’s estranged father, whom you’ve spent the last five years despising, discussing your new boyfriend, who just happens to be the star goalie of your state’s professional hockey team. I felt like I was living in the Twilight Zone. All other Mondays would be forever easy compared to this one.

“Do you love him?”

Zach’s question bounced around my brain like a pinball for so long, he thought I didn’t hear him and he repeated it.

“Do you love him?”

I lifted my head and looked him straight in the eye. “With everything I have.”

Zach smiled and nodded. “Good, I’m glad. You deserve to be happy, Kacie. Always have. As long as he’s good to the girls, I don’t have a problem with it.”

What?

“What?” I glared at him.

He held his hands up in front of him. “I didn’t mean anything bad by it.”

“You said, ‘As long as he’s good to the girls, I don’t have a problem with it.’”

I jumped up and spun around to face him. “Where the hell do you get off thinking you have any sort of say in what I do with my life? Or the girls’ for that matter?”

He stood up and put his hand on my arm. “Kacie, relax.”

“No!” I snatched my arm away from him. “You disappear for FIVE years. Then, by some insane twist of fate, we end up working in the same place. You tell me your reasons for leaving and I get it. I’ll never fully forget it, but I can forgive it.”

“Kacie—”

“But don’t think for one second you have any right to tell me what I should and shouldn’t do with my life. Nor do you have any say in what I do with the girls. They have been my daughters for all that time and they’re staying my girls.”

“I wasn’t trying to tell you what to do—” He stopped talking and looked past me.

I turned to see Lucy and Piper running toward us with their little arms full of leaves. “Look!” they both squealed.

“Wow. That’s amazing, girls. You can take them with you if you want, but we have to get going. Mommy has to work in awhile.” I tried to make my tone as normal as possible.

They both stuck their bottom lips out and pouted.

“Sorry, guys. Come on.” I held my hand out and took a step toward the parking lot.

“Bye, Zach.” Piper waved as they followed me.

A sad smile crossed his face and he waved one hand at them.

I buckled the girls in their booster seats and climbed into the driver’s seat of my Jeep. The engine roared as I turned the key and started backing out of the parking space. Zach and I made eye contact, the tight smile still plastered to his face. He waved once more as I turned the wheel. I turned right onto the little road that passed the park and couldn’t stop myself from looking over at him one more time. He sat back down on the bench and played with the yellow leaf from the girls. My heart broke just a little.

Zach was standing at the counter, filling out some paperwork when I walked into work several hours later. I walked up and leaned on the counter next to him. He looked over at me but didn’t say anything as I stared straight ahead.

“When I came home and saw the note… I can’t even explain how I felt. Words like crushed, gutted, and destroyed come to mind, but they still don’t describe how I truly felt. I ran to the bathroom and threw up. That was just one of many times over the next few days.”

He sighed but didn’t speak.

“I called my mom, absolutely hysterical. I don’t even remember what I said or what she said, I just remember crying. Then, all of a sudden, she was there. She was calling the landlord and making arrangements for me to leave. She was packing up boxes, she was doing all the things I should’ve been doing but couldn’t, because I was either sobbing or puking.”

“Kacie—”

“Don’t,” I interrupted. “Don’t apologize. I know you’re sorry. You’ve already said that.” I finally turned and looked him in the eye. “What I need from you now is for you not to act like I owe you something for all the time you’ve missed out on. That was your fault, not mine. What’s done is done and I want the girls to know you and to build a relationship with you slowly, but you have no right to give me your opinion on what you feel I should do with my life.”

“Understood.” He nodded.

“I mean it, Zach,” I continued, not sure my warning had hit home just yet. “I will date who I want, go where I want, and do what I want and it’s none of your business. If you try to make it your business, we’ll put a stop to all this and do it the ugly way. Got it?”

“Loud and clear.”

“Good. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to clock in.” I turned on my heel and walked away, knowing damn well that he was staring at me as I went.

“What are we looking for again?”

Kacie stood up from behind a pile of boxes and a piece of her hair fell in between her eyes. She blew it out of her face. “A can of clear, sparkly spray paint.”

I looked around the garage at the stacks of boxes and odd tools laying around. “You’re sure it’s in here?”

“Yes. At least, I think it is.” She walked in front of me and bent over to make sure it hadn’t rolled under the shelf.

Tilting my head to the side, my eyes traveled Kacie’s entire backside all the way to the floor and back up again. She sighed in frustration and spun around quickly, totally catching me.

“Were you just staring at me?”

“Me? No. Why would I stare at you? You’re hideous with your perfect round ass and pouty, pink lips. I mean, come on. Ew.”

She stomped her foot and punched me in my arm. “Come on. This is serious.”

“What do you need it for again?”

Empty boxes went flying as she started flinging them off the top of the workbench. “For Piper. She lost her first tooth today at school.”

“I can’t believe this shit. I missed her first day of school the other day and now I missed her losing her first tooth.”

“You didn’t really miss much with the tooth thing,” she disagreed. “The real excitement comes in the morning when she wakes up and realizes that the tooth fairy came to her house. There isn’t going to be any excitement, though, if I can’t find the damn spray paint.”

I ducked as a box narrowly missed hitting me in the head. “Obviously I’m an idiot, but what does spray paint have to do with the tooth fairy anyway?”

“You take the dollar you’re going to leave under their pillow and spray it with the glitter spray paint. It’s clear so they can still use it if they want, but it’s covered in sparkles so they think the tooth fairy really touched it.” A tiny smile appeared on her face as she shrugged. “My mom used to do it with me and I wanted to continue the tradition with my girls. I still have all of my glitter dollars. I never spent a single one.”

“Wow. Your mom has some pretty awesome ideas.”

“She does, but none of it’s going to matter if I don’t find that damn can.” She threw her hands up in the air and turned back to the row of metal shelves that lined the side of the garage.