“Can you just let it be?”
“Daddy.” The way she says it was almost comical. Like she wants to sayseriously, but in a grownup way. My little girl is growing up, and I don’t like it.
“You can’t wear flip flops, Ava. Your feet will get stepped on.”
“My thigh-high boots are in my car.”
“For fuck’s sake.” I run my hand through my hair. “You are a pain in the ass.”
“Apple. Tree. Did you expect any less?”
“I cannot believe I paid for you to go to school to learn how to argue your point even better than you already could just a blink ago, when you were two.”
She laughs and takes the papers before I can stop her.
I sit back and watch her look them over, point by point.
“Too vague. Dad, is Robert her lawyer?”
“I assume so, or someone who works for him.”
“Nothing about your businesses. Nothing about the Upstate house or property here, aside from the lake house which, I should point out, has to be at least five times the value of our home based on property value alone. I wouldn’t sign anything. I would have your lawyer add …” She stops. “I will discuss with him the changes that need to be made. If he has any objections, you’ll know he’s working with them. My God, what happened to her?”
“Ava, that’s why I don’t want you involved.”
“Too bad. Bones, get me the number. I’m making a copy of this. I can talk to your lawyer in the car. Then you’re taking me to lunch.”
While Ava makes a copy, I send Jones a text, telling him he is to use kid gloves with my daughter when she speaks to him and to listen to what she has to say and figure it the fuck out. I then ask Bones if he’s heard from Dad, and he tells me no.
I’ll deal with it from home. But first, I am going to take my girl to a late lunch and then shopping for appropriate attire before the concert.
?
Ava and I are on our way to the concert. She’s excited to see Harper’s belly, and I’m nervous as hell about seeing Tessa. Not Tessa exactly, but Jade and Phoebe will be there, and Ava is on high alert in regards to my feelings for Tessa. She hasn’t come right out and said anything, but our shopping trip turned into a haircut and new clothes for me.
Apparently, I should be wearing something besides dress pants and Polo shirts. We bought jeans, and every time I pulled them up to my waist, she told me they were supposed sit on my hips.
“They’re not pulled up high, Ava. My hips are up here, not down there.”
“Dad, trust me; the lower, the better. You have a kick-ass body; you shouldn’t be afraid to show it off.”
“Okay, but I am not of the show-my-ass-crack generation, or the skinny jeans, or the belly shirts. Oh, and FYI, I am a straight man.”
She laughs. “I got the wrong size. I wouldn’t have let you get the belly shirt.”
“A V neck shirt, Ava?”
“You look hot, Dad. From behind, you look just like Logan.”
“Okay, is that supposed to be a compliment? Am I supposed to not wonder just what I look like from the front?”
“I wasn’t being rude. I’m just saying, if I didn’t know you and saw you from behind, I would probably cop a feel of that ass.”
“Cop a feel?”
She laughs. “Yeah, cop a feel, grab a cheek.”
“You seriously have not done that, have you?”