Center of Gravity (Marauders Book 3)
Page 42
“Princess Prima Ballerina.”
“Princess Prima Ballerina?” he asked, trying to keep a straight face, and she nodded seriously. “Don’t you think that’s a bit much to say every time I talk to you? Princess Prima Ballerina, you need to get up. Did you have a nice time at school, Princess Prima Ballerina? Princess Prima Ballerina, finish your dinner.”
“Okay!” she interrupted him. “You can call me Cupcake.”
“Sure about that, Princess Prima Ballerina?”
She laughed and gave him a big smile. “You’re calling the new baby ‘Grain,’ what did you call me when I was in Mama’s belly?”
“Sprout,” he answered and smiled. “Want me to call you that instead?”
“Maybe. You call Mama Gimp, that’s not very nice.”
“That’s true, but she liked it when I called her that when we met, and she still does.”
“Why?” Alma asked with big eyes.
“This is going to sound strange, and I think you have to be a bit older to really understand, but she liked it because I didn’t care about her leg, and in a weird way I showed her that by calling her Gimp.” He turned to the side and could see how Alma seemed to be thinking about what he’d just said. “It was a long time ago, when she was still sad about not being able to dance anymore.”
“Is it kind of like when we call Bear Bear because he looks like one, but we like that he does?”
Mitch laughed out loud, but nodded. “Kind of like that.”
“So you like that Mama’s a gimp?” Her eyebrows were wrinkled.
“In a way. She wouldn’t have been here in Greenville with me if she wasn’t. She’d still be in New York and dancing, and I wouldn’t have her or you. Does that make sense to you?”
“Yes,” she said after a little while. “I think I understand.”
They sat in silence for a while, and Mitch got lost in thoughts of what life would be like if Anna hadn’t come to Greenville—and how he wouldn’t have had Alma, or the new baby that was on its way. When he cleared his throat, she turned her head and smiled and gave him one of her wide-eyed innocent looks.
“Is the gimp thing one of those things I shouldn’t say when other people are around? People who aren’t club.”
“Cupcake, you may look like your mom, but you’ve got my brain,” he smiled.
“That’s a yes.”
“Yup.”
The dance thing took fucking forever, and the only time he even remotely enjoyed it was when Alma was dancing. Between the dances, she was waiting patiently at one of the chairs alongside the room with her eyes directed at whomever was performing.
The other moms were either eyeing him suspiciously or looked as if they were about to jump him, and given what the other few men there looked like, he couldn’t blame them. Actually, in between Alma’s performances, he concluded that he and Anna were totally the hottest fucking ballet parents with kids in that class.
Alma disappeared to get changed, and he didn’t follow to help her. He’d only made that one mistake once, and the moms had thrown him out like he was some fucking perv. He’d just been trying to help his four-year-old daughter with her clothes for fuck’s sake! These days Anna had some deal with another mom, so Alma came out with her bag in her hand and her tutu under her arm.
“Did you take pictures?” she asked, and he picked her up in a hug.
“Sure did. You were great, the best of them!”
She blushed. “Thank you.”
“Ready to go to Grandpa and Mel?” Mitch put her back down on the ground.
“I wanna bring the clothes inside and show them, so they can see what I looked like.”
“Okay,” he agreed.
When they arrived, he let Alma out of the car, picked up her things, and turned towards the house while he tried to find the key in his pocket to lock the car. Brick’d come out to welcome her, and he was standing on the front porch and laughed when he saw Mitch by the car.
“Sorry to tell you, son, but you owe me a hundred bucks,” he yelled.
“What?”
“Look at yourself.”
Mitch turned around and looked at his reflection in the car, and then he started to laugh.
He had a pink tutu under his arm.
THE END
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About the author:
Lina Andersson was born and raised as far up north as you can go in Sweden. The long, dark winters were made for reading and writing, which is pretty much all she ever did. In her early twenties, she packed up her husband and son and moved to the slightly warmer climate of southern Sweden, where they still live, more than a decade later. When she’s not writing, she’s an avid gamer and film geek.
The Marauders series, books
Book One: Arrow of Time
Book Two: Perfect Collision
Book Three: Center of Gravity
Book Four: Resonance (TBA)
Marauder Novellas:
S-Duality
For more information: http://tfcpress.wordpress.com/