Page 56 of The One

Keep following her.

Trista

For my own sanity, I need to ask … how much longer are you going to have me on this job?

Me

Until I tell you to stop.

“Uncle ’Ett,” Daisy said, turning her upper body toward me while she sat in the pedicure chair, “you need pink sparkly toes, just like me. I want to be twinsies.”

Her feet were in the water, and flowers were floating around her ankles while the nail tech wrapped her shins and knees in something gold and leafy.

Daisy only got the best.

I made sure of that.

“You wantmytoes to be pink?”

Every time I hung out with my niece, which was as often as Ridge would let me have her, she somehow convinced me to get my toes done. When I tried to just be a spectator and not participate, that wasn’t good enough. If Daisy was getting a pedicure, she wanted me to get one too.

“Not just pink. Sparkly pink.” She smiled and giggled.

I looked at the chick who was sawing my heels with a stone. “We’ll have matching toes.”

She whispered something I couldn’t hear to the woman doing Daisy’s feet, and the two of them laughed.

I didn’t blame them. I didn’t exactly give off pink-toe vibes.

While Daisy sipped her strawberry milkshake that was left over from lunch, I said to her, “I can’t believe you started first grade. You’re growing up way too fast, my girl.”

She pulled back from the straw, and a smear of pink ice cream was somehow above her top lip. “I’m so old.”

I wiped it off, dunking my hand in the soapy water after. “Yes, you are. Don’t get any older on me, all right?”

“I want to be a big girl, Uncle ’Ett, so Daddy can buy me a car, and I can go to the beach whenever I want.”

“You’re never driving—do you hear me? You’re also never going to the beach without your father or me. Or dating. Or—” I cut myself off, positive I’d made my point.

But it wasn’t enough because the thought of my little one being around dudes—dudes like me—was something I couldn’t fucking handle.

“Uncle ’Ett, but I want to have matching cars with you. I’m going to paint mine pink, and you’re going to paint yours pink, and we’re going to go everywhere together.”

“A pink car?”

I hoped to hell she never asked for that. As much as I’d like to think I wouldn’t drive a car that was that color, she could convince me to do just about anything.

“Pink everything.” She giggled again.

There were curls—in her eyes, bouncing on her forehead, sticking to her cheeks.

God, she was adorable.

“Do you think, someday, pink won’t be your favorite color?”

“Nope.”

“What about purple?”