Damon Lawrence took his sweet time answering the door. He had just gotten out of the shower, and he was getting ready for a date when he heard the knock, then another. Eh, whoever it is can wait. he thought, tending to his long, curly locks of charcoal hair, then tying them back haphazardly-he had never learned how to tend to his hair, he usually shaved it but in the past few years he’d had to learn to do his daughter’s hair and you picked a few things up with that process.
Margaret Emily Lawrence was 9 years old, and had a steadily growing collection of various reptiles and amphibians in her bedroom. Dad had given her the bigger room when she’d complained of not having enough space for her friends, whom she loved more dearly than any human. She had taken her emerald tree boa out-a tiny little thing she’d gotten from an expo that she hoped would grow quite big-when she heard a knock at the door.
Maggie ran to the door, boa around her shoulders and trying to slither into her braids when she opened the door. The man on the other side… looked a lot like the old pictures of her father she’d been shown, when she was just six years old. Maggie didn’t forget things, especially not important faces like this. “Daaad! It’s the cheating little bitch!” she shouted, which sent Damon running.
No, not like this, it couldn’t be like this. he fretted, tripping over one of Maggie’s shirts she’d left strewn across the hallway, then picking himself back up to run faster still down to the door in only his bathrobe, which had been a gift from his surrogate mother. When he got to the door, he barely recognized the man before him, and breathed a sigh of relief. But he could hardly recognize himself too after nine years, and so he did what he did best. Did what he’d done to keep him and Maggie safe.
He lied. “Margaret Emily Lawrence! We do not speak to people that way! I’m so sorry sir, I don’t know what’s gotten into my daughter, she can be very nice sometimes when she wants to and I certainly wish she’d have chosen to be kinder on this occasion.” his stress-worn face curled into a slightly wrinkled frown, age was setting in and both of them knew it. “Now, what is your business here? Are those flowers, pardon my asking, from Mr. Hughes? or are you simply at the wrong address?” he was scrambling, his brain firing off like bullets in rapid succession trying to cover himself and Maggie.
“Dad, it’s him! I know it mmph-!” Damon covered Maggie’s mouth, pushing her aside and betraying himself by giving her a small nod. She scrambled away, and left Damon alone with just his long lost lover and his thoughts.
