Page 24 of Twister

Daniel

I creaked one eye open when I felt one of my daughter’s fingers dig into my cheek, only to see her resting her chin on the back of her hand that was lying on the mattress in front of me.

The corners of her eyes were crinkled as a result of the shit-eating grin on her face.

“Why?” I whined both distractedly and tiredly when she reached over and poked me in the cheek again, chuckling quietly to herself.

Judging by the angle of the sunlight streaming through the windows, it was way too early to be woken up so rudely, even if I technically should have been awake before dawn.

Why the hell was she up so soon, though?

Of course, that’s when I realized I had Marshall’s warm body pressed against me as he spooned me from behind, his arm draped loosely over my waist and his morning wood nestled rather comfortably between my ass cheeks.

I froze and felt both of my eyes widen in terror, even as a tiny part of my thankful brain registered the duvet covering all our still-naked parts.

What must she think of me being in bed with someone who was a stranger to both of us less than a week ago? What had I been thinking letting Marshall sleep with me? Had I been thinking at all?

Obviously not.

I mentally slapped myself with the surety that I’d upgrade it to physically later when I was more fully awake and upright.

This wasn’t supposed to have happened. I told Marshall that it wouldn’t happen.

And yet it did… and I wasn’t as upset about it as I probably should have been. Embarrassed, sure. But not upset.

“There it is,” Rose murmured happily. “I was wondering how long it would take you to realize.”

“Oh God,” I groaned quietly. “Rose—”

“Hush,” she said, pressing her finger against my lips. “He’s still asleep.”

“Yeah, well, to be fair, so was I until you started poking me with your birdlike talons,” I responded, mumbling around her finger.

I wasn’t sure how coherent I was being, but I was sure she’d intuit my meaning through my disgruntled tone.

“Wait. How the hell did you get in here?” I narrowed my eyes at her.

“I thought I locked the door last night.”

She shrugged and tapped her finger against my lips before she withdrew it and settled it under her chin while she continued to grin maniacally at me. Oh look, now she was waggling her eyebrows. This morning was getting better and better with each passing minute.

“I was wondering if you would mind if I made pancakes for breakfast for all of us this morning?”

I raised an eyebrow at her. Pancakes were usually a reward for when either of us had achieved something. Usually, they were made after her school results came through, but it was summer break. What were we celebrating?

As soon as I asked myself the question, I knew the answer, and I mentally smacked myself again, even as I felt my cheeks flush in embarrassment.

Of course, she wanted to celebrate me and Marshall waking up in the same bed.

Had I really become so sad and pathetic that my own daughter needed to celebrate me getting laid by cooking us all pancakes?

How was this my life?

And how do I get it to continue?

Gifting her a small grin, I nodded. “Why not?” I mean, it had been a while. Maybe I should celebrate it, even if it made me want a sink hole to open beneath me and swallow me down into the pits of being-a-terrible-parent hell.

She raised her arms into a V as she celebrated with a silent woo! Her hands danced above her head like she was at a rave party instead of in our—no, my —bedroom early on a Wednesday morning.

I slapped my palm over my mouth to stop from berating her, remaining content with a glare in her general direction instead.

And promptly froze again when I felt Marshall’s hard cock grind slowly against me as his grip around my waist tightened.

Squeaking in a very unmanly fashion, I waved her out. “We’ll be out soon,” I said quietly.

Casting her eyes behind me, Rose dropped her arms and laughed. A tad too loudly if I was being honest. “Okay.”

Frowning at her, I raised my index finger to my lips to shh her, but she ignored me entirely. “Good morning, Patriarchal Marshall,” she said, no longer in the low tone she’d been using up until now. “Get up! We’re having pancakes!”

And with that, she turned around and swanned out of our— my —bedroom, closing the door behind her.

“Did she just call me Patriarchal Marshall ?”

Slowly, I closed my eyes and prayed to any god that was listening to grant me strength. “Yeah.”

Thankfully, he just chuckled. “At least she didn’t call me Carnal Marshall .” He snuggled into my neck and gently pressed his lips softly to my skin. “Good morning.”

“Good morning.” I squeezed his arm before rolling over to face him. “Did you sleep okay?”

“Mm,” he hummed, and then with his eyes still half closed, he leaned in and swept his lips against mine, his tongue flicking out briefly to lap at me. Even though I tried to deepen the kiss, he pulled back. “Wait.”

Instantly I froze, watching him carefully to make sure I hadn’t done something wrong. “What?”

His eyes had widened. “It suddenly registered what Rose called me.”

I gulped. This should be interesting. “Oh—”

“I get why she calls you Daddy Danny and why she calls your dog Puppy Bucky . It’s kind of self-explanatory.”

I nodded and braced myself for the obvious next question.

“So why did she call me Patriarchal Marshall ?” He frowned. “Why does she rhyme in the first place?”

Choosing to ignore his first question, I chewed my bottom lip as I thought about how to respond to his second.

It’d been a while since I’d had to explain her quirk to someone.

Actually, I was kind of surprised that he hadn’t raised the question before now.

“It was something she began when she was having speech therapy. The rhyming forced her to slow her thinking and her speech down enough that she wasn’t tripping herself up.

It seemed to help her, so we kept it going enough that some of her rhymes stuck long after she didn’t need to do it anymore. ”

“Huh.” He cast a calculated look over my face. “Makes sense. It’s unusual, but I can see how it could work. Does everyone she interacts with have rhyming names?”

Feeling my cheeks begin to heat, I rolled onto my back so I didn’t have to look at him when I answered. “Only those she likes.” Scratching my chin, I wondered if it would be wise if I explained further.

Fuck it.

“She calls Jackson Pappy Jacky , so obviously she still likes him even after everything that happened, though she hasn’t given Brett a rhyming name.

” I frowned in thought. That probably should’ve registered that something was wrong well before things became obvious at the restaurant the other night.

“Oh….”

“Yeah.” A sense of pride welled up in me that she’d so quickly accepted Marshall.

It had surprised the hell out of me the first time she’d done it, but some part of me had thought she might have only meant it in passing.

To hear her keep calling him pet names made my stomach burble nervously.

“Even Gabe at the gas station gets called Gabe Babe .” I tilted my head to the side as I thought back over Sunday’s events.

“Well, when he doesn’t piss her off. Then she drops the Babe portion.

” I chuckled at the memory of Gabe getting all pouty when she told him off and dropped his nickname.

“He doesn’t like it when she does that.”

“And the woman at the gas station?”

“Scarlett? Hers is generally Starlet Scarlett .”

He let out a low laugh. “I guess it’s better than Harlot Scarlett .”

I laughed along with him. “Give it a few more years. I’m sure Rose will introduce that into her repertoire eventually. There’s a reason why she keeps beating me at Scrabble, no matter how much I brush up on words I think she’ll use.”

A warm silence filled the bedroom as I let Marshall take all that in, wondering if he was going to call me out on not answering him entirely.

Sure enough, he eventually stretched his hand on my bare chest, toying with the unruly thatch of hair that insisted on spreading there no matter how much I tried to tame it, before asking, “So… um… why did she label me with Patriarchal , then?” His fingers flinched a little like he was nervous about asking.

“I mean, there are tons of other things she could’ve used instead.

Marvel Marshall . She used Sparkle Marshall yesterday.

Hell, she could even use Impartial Marshall .

Why’d she go with Patriarchal this time? ”

Resigned to my fate, I closed my eyes and sighed, laid my hand over his, and interlocked our fingers so I could squeeze them, prepared that he’d probably freak out. “She actually used it that first night when we were playing Twister down in the storm shelter.”

When the memory registered, I heard him say a soft, drawn-out, “Oh….”

“I think she sees potential for you and me to be more than just a hookup.” I felt him go still next to me, but surprisingly he didn’t try to pull away.

“It’s obvious that she likes you, otherwise you wouldn’t have been given a rhyming name at all.

And it’s possible that she’s trying to will you into staying in Rockdale through positive thinking, and her choosing Patriarchal is one way of trying to bond with you, in addition to the games we played yesterday. ”

I turned my head just enough to open an eye and peek at him. Remarkably, he wasn’t freaking out. Or if he was, he was doing an incredible job at internalizing it.

“Or I could be entirely wrong,” I said as I shrugged.

“She’s twelve. The older she gets, the harder it is for me to figure out what goes on in her extraordinary mind.

I’m sure there’s a reason to it, but it might only make sense to her.

You could ask her if you’re really curious, but there’s no guarantee that she’ll give you any answer outside of just laughing at you. ”