Free Tattoos & Teacups by Anna Martin Page A

eyes and stomped back up the stairs.
    “Good luck,” Mike murmured, slapping me on the shoulder and wandering back off into the house.
    She appeared with a hoodie with the logo for her cheerleading squad on it and, at my raised eyebrow, threw it on over her head.
    Chloe had taken after her mother in the looks department for the most part; like her mother, she was petite, her eyes too big for her face, giving her a permanently startled, deer-in-headlights sort of look which had always amused me when she was a baby. As she’d grown, so had the lashes framing her rich brown eyes (the color, at least, she’d inherited from me), making her more of a doe-eyed Bambi now.
    “Not that cold,” she said as we headed to the car.
    “Cold enough,” I told her.
    As we pulled off down the street, I looked over at my daughter. “How did the competition go yesterday?” I asked.
    “You remembered,” she said, looking at me like I was an alien. I felt like one.
    “Of course,” I told her. It was a little white lie. Lu had reminded me.
    “We got second place,” she said. “Out of fourteen teams, it was pretty good.”
    “Congratulations,” I enthused.
    “Yeah. Thanks.”
    We went through our normal script of questions: how was school (boring), homework (done), boys (Dad, please ), her mother (fat). I laughed at the last one, and she cracked a smile.
    “She was huge when she was carrying you,” I said. “For such a little woman, it was funny. She was like a weeble.”
    “What the hell is a weeble?”
    “Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down?” I said. “No? Oh. They were toys your Aunty Jilly and I had when we were kids.”
    She shrugged and gave me that blank teenager look that said, You’re old.
    “So, Dad,” she said, her eyes fixed on the road. “Why aren’t you married and having kids?”
    I choked on nothing. “I don’t know,” I said after clearing my throat. “I’m just not.”
    “Don’t bullshit me, Father.”
    “Language.”
    “Tell me.”
    I sighed. “Who have you overheard? I’m not mad, Chloe. I’m just curious.”
    “Mom was on the phone to Aunty Jilly and said something about a boyfriend,” she muttered.
    “Ah. Um. Yeah. Well.”
    “Concise,” she said sarcastically.
    “I’ve been seeing him for a few months.”
    “Oh.” Silence. “How come you never told me before?”
    “It was never an issue. You were too young to understand, and I didn’t want to upset you by trying to explain.”
    “I don’t care,” she said, screwing up her nose and frowning.
    “That I’m… gay?” I asked.
    “No. It’s cool.”
    I nearly swerved off the road. “Are you kidding me?” I asked.
    Chloe rolled her eyes. “Liza at school has two gay dads. They buy her whatever she wants.” She looked at me hopefully.
    “Well, Liza—” The name caught in my throat. “—is lucky. Your gay dad is still just a poor professor.”
    She sighed dramatically. “Well, I think you should marry a rich guy. Then I can be a bridesmaid at your wedding. Blake’s parents got married the other week and they had a huge wedding at the country club and loads of gifts. And cake.”
    “Is Blake a boy or a girl?” I asked, teasing.
    “A girl,” she said, clearly scandalized at my ignorance.
    “I don’t get this name androgyny,” I said. “How are you supposed to know if it’s a boy or a girl?”
    “Not everyone is called John or Jane these days,” she said. “It’s cool. Mom is going to call the baby Columbus or Carter if it’s a boy or Kennedy or McKenzie if it’s a girl.”
    “God help us all.”
    “Dad! Be nice. You chose my name, right?”
    “And you should be glad I did,” I told her. “Otherwise you might be stuck with a monstrosity of a name like McKenzie McKinnon.”
    “You could have been a bit more imaginative, though. Like Khloe Kardashian. She spells her name with a K,” Chloe informed me.
    “Who’s Khloe Cardigan?” I asked her. I was being a dad on purpose, and it