Picture Perfect

Chapter Three: Tyler

On with my beautiful Tyler and his beautiful Saskie. Deepest apologies for the two-day delay, on Wednesday I said aloud 'ah, it's Picture Perfect day today', and then entirely forgot about it until this morning.

CW: mentions of alcoholism and the passing of a grandparent (non-graphic, but please be careful).

Love, Cam

♡

Chapter Two

Sorcha does something very on-brand for her

My fingers flew across the piano easily, tracing the same warm-up patterns I'd been playing for years. I felt the stretch in my fingers; I hadn't been playing much recently. But I'd woken up the morning after talking to Sorcha with a renewed source of hope and energy. I would not be taken down by my husband cheating on me and leaving. I would not let him take my life away from me.

I had taken two weeks off work as an emergency holiday, and fortunately, my boss had been very understanding. But my holiday pay was coming to its end, and I needed to either go back to work, or continue on the pitiful statutory sick pay.

"Daddy! Play!" Saskie gleefully skidded into the living room wearing her fuzzy socks. She liked to wear them to slide up and down the hall. "Play the Bruno song!"

I switched to playing We Don't Talk About Bruno from Disney's Encanto, which was Saskie's first obsession film. I had seen it more times than I could count, and the melody was forever burned into my brain. Saskie sang along, which was hilarious to watch, and danced around the room. I grinned, feeling energised for the first time in weeks.

"Are you back to work?" Saskie asked as she finished her dance, noticing my tie. 

"Yep," I replied, faking a yawn. "Soooo boring..."

She giggled and held out her arms to be lifted onto my lap. I obliged, jiggling her up and down, even though she was getting a little too heavy to do it for long. "Daddy," she said thoughtfully. "Do you have a friend?"

Ouch. "I have lots of friends, cheeky," I poked her in the side.

"No," she giggled, wriggling away from me. "I mean like a friend, like Daddy's friend Andrew."

"Oh," I replied, realising that she meant a romantic partner. A few days ago, that question might have hit me like an arrow, but now it was just a bit of an awkward question to answer. "No, sweetie, I don't have a friend like that. But that's okay - your other daddy was my bestest friend for a long time, and I want to be just me and you for a while, before I think about having another boyfriend. Does that make sense?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"Okay," I smiled, and kissed the top of her head. "If you have other questions, you can ask any time, okay?"

"Okay," she replied, and hopped off my lap. "Can I have Cocoa Puffs?"

I agreed to her breakfast plans, and she dashed off to the kitchen to get her bowl out of the cupboard. Colin had bought her a Disney princess bowl a year ago and even though most of the Disney princesses had been rubbed off by now, it was still her favourite bowl and she refused to eat out of anything else for breakfast.

I got the Cocoa Puffs down from the shelf and turned to pour them into her bowl, but found her holding out one of the plain blue ones instead. I didn't hesitate, just poured them into the bowl and then went to get the milk, but I was reeling from this development. I wondered if she had made the conscious choice to change bowls, or if seeing the bowl just reminded her of Colin.