CHAPTER ONE
ABEL
“Good mornings, sweets.” I snuggle into her long dark curls to kiss her forehead when THWACK! “Son of a…” I stop myself before cussing in front of my kid, but damn. She got me right in the nose and that shit stings.
“Sorry, daddy,” my sweet baby girl says groggily, while I rub my schnoze and make sure it’s not bleeding. “I dreamed you were mommy.”
“And in this dream you were practicing your kickboxing on her?”
Her eyes close while innocently she says, “You told me to take out my aggression appropriately.”
She’s not wrong. I said it in response to Mabel’s therapist deciding the best way to take her anger out about her mother leaving us was to be more zen. Those weren’t her exact words. It was more like, “Mabel needs to learn how to channel her anger into more appropriate activities. Journaling or painting, for example.” I resisted rolling my eyes until we got home and we never went back. Not only could we not find a time that worked with my schedule, I decided to implement my own form of calm.
If Mabel starts getting agitated or angry about May’s abandonment, I let her take some swings on the punching bags at the gym where I work while we talk it out. It seems to work. She gets out some negativity and hyper kid energy, then moves on with her day. But apparently she’s been listening to me a little too carefully if it’s bleeding over into her dreams.
“Maybe cut back on the kickboxing dreams there, killer. You socked me right in the honker.”
Mabel giggles and reaches up to grab my nose. Squeezing it twice, she makes a honking sound with each squeeze. And then her arm flops back down on her blue polka dot bedspread and she tries to snuggle back in bed.
I don’t blame her. Mornings have been brutal since May left to go live with her agent boyfriend in New York who was going to help her become a successful model. Never mind that she was already thirty and had zero experience. “The modeling world is changing, Abel,” she had said. “Doors are opening as we speak, and I’m going to walk right through them.”
As far as I know, the only door she ended up walking through was the front door of our small, three-bedroom townhome on her way to the airport. That was close to six months ago and with the exception of being served divorce papers, we’ve only heard from her sparingly. Mostly through online chats that are centered around her life and very little about her child’s.
It was a rough transition at first. Mabel didn’t understand how her mother could just up and leave, coupled with a lot of justified anger about it. I couldn’t understand how I’d missed all the signs that it was coming, coupled with my justified anger.
To make matters worse, there was the huge fire at Weight Expectations, the gym where I work, which closed the facility for several months. Sure, we all got farmed out to different locations, which was better than the alternative known as “pink slips”. But when part of your salary depends on commission and the clients you’ve built up over the years end up scattered around the city, you find yourself dipping into savings more heavily than anticipated.
Fortunately, that season is over and I have a brand-spanking new building to call my home away from home. But mornings haven’t quite smoothed over yet.
“Come on, baby. We’ve got to get a move on.” Scooping Mabel up, I wrap our heavy blanket around her and carry her to the living room where I proceed to maneuver myself into all kinds of yoga poses until I have her, my gym bag, her school bag, and her clothing bag dangling safely from my arms. Well, Mabel isn’t dangling, although at one point when my gym bag fell from the couch to the floor, it was a close call. Thank goodness I make a living working out or there is no way I’d be able to carry it all at once.
Situated with all our daily supplies, I’m finally able to get us out the door and into the blustering winter weather, hence, the child dressed as a giant burrito in my arms. Locking the door as quickly as possible behind me, I race us to the waiting car.
“Morning’, Abel.” A steaming cup of black coffee is handed to me between the dark blue bucket seats of the 2008 Ford Escort as soon as the passenger side door closes behind me. Actually, steaming might be a stretch. It’s thirty-nine degrees outside, not factoring in the wind chill. And it’s been sitting in a car for a while. Lukewarm is more like it. But it’s a cup of joe. No matter the temperature, it still hits the spot. Especially since old Betsy refused to work again this morning. No matter how sweet I talk to her, or how many times I bang on her, my favorite coffee maker refused to brew me anything. I really should spring for a new one but I’m sentimental about the old gal. Besides, when she does work, her coffee making skills are the best I’ve ever had. But when she doesn’t? Let’s just say, thank God for Marv’s sweet wife and her bleeding heart.
** END SNEAK PEEK **
Cutie and the Beast is coming April 14, 2020