King's queen

chapter 9

~King~

I came home to the sound of girls giggling and music playing, it felt good. It was rare for me to get home before everyone went to bed. I stood in the living room door and appreciated the view. Adelaide was on the couch in an old pair of pajama pants and a wife beater... my wife beater. She must have stolen it out of the laundry. It would have been hanging down almost to her knees, but she had it tied in a knot just under her breast, leaving her smooth stomach exposed.

She was braiding Starr's hair, Nova and Celeste already had their hair done in a similar style.Nightmare sat on the other end of the couch; his hair was not braided. But I'm sure they had tried to get him to let them do it. He knew I was there, acknowledged my presence with the tip of his chin, but didn't say anything.

"Boys are stupid." Nova told Starr who was complaining about a boy from school.

"Amen to that sister." Addy agreed.

"Boys might be stupid, but we grow into men who are not." Nightmare tried to defend our gender. Addy rolled her eyes.

"There is no such thing as a grown man." she said. "Just really big boys. As they grow, so do their toys."

"Hey, that rhymed!" Celeste giggled.

"What toys?" Starr asked. "Daddy doesn't have any toys."

"What would you call the motorcycles then? And the four-wheeler? And the boat?" Adelaide pointed out the window to where my fishing boat was now parked in the driveway for the winter.

"I thought those were vehicles?" I said, moving into the room. My girls jumped up, running to hug me with choruses of 'daddy's home!" Starr had pulled her hair out of Adelaide's grasp before she could put the elastic in, her braid already coming undone.

"We're doing makeovers tonight! See my pretty hair?" Celeste twirled in front of me. "And Addy is gonna do our makeup."

I scooped my little girl up into my arms and hugged her to me. Genetics didn't matter, she was my baby, my heart had known it that first time I held her in my arms. When I had walked into the hospital and found Samantha crying in the maternity room, throwing herself a pity party while her brand-new daughter cried in the plastic bucket that they kept babies in there. I didn't say a word to that woman, I just picked up the tiny little princess and cradled her in my big hands. She stopped crying and looked into my eyes, so innocent and sweet. She wrapped one itty bitty hand around my big finger and just like that she also wrapped my big heart in her little hand.

I had been the one to pick Nova and Starr's names. Back when we had first started dating, back before Sam had shown me her true colors, I used to take her out on my bike to the middle of a freshly mowed hay field and stare up at the stars with her. She was into that astrology crap, so she would point out the constellations and tell me what they meant in her fortune teller mumbo jumbo. So I had thought it was romantic to give our kids astrological names. I decided that I didn't want her, or her sisters, to ever know that she isn't biologically mine. when the nurse came in and asked me what her name was, I said Celeste. Samantha had the good sense to not argue with me for once.

"Daddy! You're squishing me!" she wiggled in my grasp, and I put her down. "Addy is gonna paint our nails next. Do you want your nails painted daddy? Nightmare says we can paint his nails black, but Addy doesn't have any black polish."

I looked up and Adelaide had pulled out a bottle of red nail polish. She gave me a smile and shrugged. "I only bought one color; it'll look good with the dress I'm wearing on Friday."