“Daddy.”

Brian groaned and put a pillow over his head. Fuck, why couldn’t Lily sleep in just a little bit longer? Maybe if he ignored her she would give up and go back to destructing her room rather than his sleep.

“Daddy. Daddy Daddy Daddy!”

Lily must have anticipated his plans to deny her presence. The kid has always been pretty smart. And stubborn. And sadistic. She’d have to be to straddle his chest, lift the pillow off his head, and pry open his eyelids.

“Daddy, are you awake?” she asks curiously, “I want you to play with me!”

“I’m still asleep,” Brian tells her as his eyelids fight her small but strong fingers to close.

“No, you’re not,” Lily argues calmly as she shakes her head, “You’re talkin’ so that means you’re not asleep and if you’re not asleep then that means you HAVE to play with me.”

Brian barely suppresses his growl as he turns his head to look at the alarm clock.

“Sweetheart, it is 5:45 in the morning.”

“I know,” Lily shrugs, “I can read it. I don’t care. I want you to play with me all the time.”

Okay, that softens Brian a little.

But not that much.

“Go. Back. To. Bed,” he commands softly as he puts his hands on her hips in an attempt to lift her. But she outsmarts him by linking her arms under his own and locking herself to him.

Jesus Christ.

“Daddy, I really want to stay. I want to pla-”

“Lily, I really need the rest. I worked longer hours this week and we had trouble getting back from Emmett’s last night. I’m tired. You should be tired too.”

“But I’m not,” Lily insists as she lies on top of him, digging her elbows into his chest as she props her head up to stare at him, “I’m awake. I’ve never been this awake in my whole entire life.”

Brian can’t hide the growl this time.

“You need to either go back to bed for at least two more hours or sit here silently and wait for me to wake up. One or the other. Pick.”

Lily stares at him with contempt, biting her lip as she goes over her options.

“I want you to play with me,” Lily finally tells him in a small but defiant voice.

Brian shrugs, “Off to your bedroom it is then. Bye.”

“No no no!” Lily panics as she quickly sits up on her knees between Brian’s legs, “I’ll stay here and be quiet, okay?! Does that make you happy, Daddy? Does it?!”

Brian huffs out a laugh, “Just ecstatic. Now shhh…”

Brian lets out a breath and lets his eyes close. He does feel Lily shuffle a little and he really hopes that means she’s just getting herself comfortable so that she can fall asleep as well. God knows she needs to rest too. Changes to her day to day routine have been known to cause insomnia with that kid. With Eric away, she’s been waking up at least once every night or early in the morning, asking him lie down next to her as she falls back asleep or for a drink of water or wanting to stay in his bed due to a nightmare. He was sympathetic but it was so exhausting. So he’s hoping she’ll stay by his word. She seems to be so far. She stays quiet long enough for him to drift off, almost into a regular sleep again.

Until she puts her cold feet under his shirt to touch his stomach.

“Lily!” Brian wakes up with a start, swatting at the cloth covered feet instinctively, “What are you doing?”

“I’m getting my feet all nice and toasty,” Lily informs him seriously, “Your tummy is so warm and so SO soft. Like a bear’s.”

Brian freezes and lifts his shirt up to examine his abs. Lily is so full of shit. There’s still not a bit of hair and, while he might not be as toned and skinny as he was when he was 29, he still looks pretty fucking good.

“Will you play with me now?” Lily asks, pursing her lips with impatience.

“No,” Brian reiterates.

“But I have no one to play with,” Lily whimpers, eyes becoming moist with forced tears, “My little sister won’t be here for a long time and my papa won’t be here for almost as long. I have no one. Except for you.”

“Oh, are Vernon and Bianca nothing to you?” Brian scowls, put off by the guilt trip.

But Lily wins the guilt contest with her hurt brown eyes gazing down at him. God damn it.

“I’m not getting up,” Brian warns her as he flips her off him and onto the bed before standing up to slide open the doors to the entertainment center, “I’m letting you watch a movie. When it’s over, then you can wake me up and we’ll go down and have breakfast.”

Lily sits cross-legged on the bed and eventually nods her head, “That sounds like a plan.”

“Does it?” Brian mumbles as he flips through Netflix, “Did you see this one?”

Lily stares at the picture on the screen before standing on her feet to jump up and down on the bed.

“Nuh uh!” Lily tells him excitedly, “We didn’t get to see that one, remember? I wanted to SO bad because she has curly dark hair and I have the same so I wanted to watch it and I never did-”

“Home it is,” Brian quickly interrupts as he presses play, “Now settle down and shut up.”

“That’s not nice to say,” Lily says with a glare as she bounces down on her butt, “If Papa was here, he would be mad at you.”

“But he’s not,” Brian shrugs, “So shush.”

Brian goes to lie back down and reaches in the bedside drawer to put his sleep mask on, just for effect. It seems to send the message well enough because Lily leaves him alone. Sure, she giggles a few times, even hysterically so. But it doesn’t annoy Brian. All it does is make him smile as he falls back to sleep.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Dadddddyyyyy. Daddy, the movie is over now.”

Brian is startled awake when a wet tongue licks his cheek, warm, small, and honestly unwanted.

He throws the mask off his eyes and looks at his daughter in disgust, who just looks up at him with innocence and love. Sighing, he forces himself to diffuse.

“What was that for?”

“I was pretending to be a puppy,” Lily tells him before she starts to pant.

Brian rolls his eyes and brings her to his chest, “It’s too early to play that. You’ll end up making me chase you around the house.”

“Arf arf!” the human puppy exclaims before she starts to crawl around the bed. Brian closes his eyes, thinking that he may be able to get a few more minutes of sleep in, before Lily comes back over to him.

“You’re really tired, huh?” she guesses.

“Mm hmm,” Brian hums with exhaustion.

“I could tell that,” Lily insists, “You were snoring so loud. So loud that I could barely hear my movie!”

Brian’s eyes pop open and he turns to glare at the little girl, “I was not.”

Lily looks at him with pity and nods her head, “You were too. It was very loud, Daddy. I tried to put my fingers up your nose and you kept on sleepin’ and snorin’.”

Brian stares at her, bewildered, and she pats him on the cheek.

“It’s okay, Daddy. I still love you. Now, come on! Let’s go play!”

Standing up to jump on the bed once more, Lily stays consistent in her ability to annoy people into doing what she wants. With a groan, Brian sits up and plants his feet on the floor, finally accepting he won’t get back to sleep any time soon.

“Alright,” he gives in as he stands up, “Go brush your teeth. I’m going to get a shower and shave.”

Lily nods vigorously, “Good idea. You are very scratchy today.”

Before Brian can reply, Lily is dashing out the door and into her room.

Maybe she’ll settle down, but Brian has a gut feeling that she’ll be wearing him down all day.

He would take his time in the shower, jerk off and just stand under the hot stream of water. But knowing there’s a hyper four year old that could be trying to make herself breakfast unsupervised keeps time to a minimum so he pleasures himself quickly before washing his hair and body. Lily is waiting outside his bathroom door impatiently by the time he gets the shaving cream on his face so he slips a clean pair of boxer briefs and a pair of jeans on and lets her sit on the closed toilet seat to wait for him.

“Why do you have to put the white stuff on your face?” she asks curiously.

“It keeps me from cutting myself,” he answers as he swipes the razor up his jaw.

“Why would it cut you?”

“Because it’s sharp.”

“Why is it sharp?”

“So it can cut the hair off?”

“But sharp things can hurt you!”

“Not if you’re really careful.”

Lily nods, finally understanding, “Will I have to do that with my face when I’m old?”

Brian snorts, “I hope not.”

“How come?”

“Women tend to not grow as much body hair. Most of them shave other places on their body.”

“Where do they grow it at?” Lily asks.

Brian closes his eyes as Lily waits there patiently for her answer. Brian finally turns to her and gestures down to her swinging legs.

“Mainly their legs. Under their arms...and another place but I’m not going to get into it right now. Aunt Cynthia can talk to you about it,” Brian answers. And he’s NOT getting into that right now. It’ll just bring up a whole slew of more questions.

“But I want YOU to talk to me about it,” Lily insists.

Brian groans but ignores the request as he takes the last bit of stubble off his chin and and washes his razor and face off.

“Legs. Under arms. And someplace else. One, two, three,” Lily counts out on her fingers before glaring up at her father, “Hey! That’s not fair!”

Brian looks at her, baffled, “What’s not fair?”

“You only got to shave one place but girls have to shave three. That’ll take all day!”

Brian barks out a surprised laugh, “I guess it’s not fair. But they don’t have to do it, I suppose. But most women shave at least two body parts. Some get rid of the hair on the third if they want to.”

“Still unfair,” Lily shrugs, knowing that she’s right.

“Okay,” Brian gives in, letting his daughter’s point be the last, before quickly changing the subject, “What do you want for breakfast?”

“Hmm...eggs!” Lily answers as she hops back up to her feet, “I want them like Papa makes them though.”

“What, you don’t like how I make them?” Brian asks, pretending to be slightly offended.

“Not as much as I like how Papa makes them,” Lily admits, “But you can make your eggs for yourself. I won’t mind.”

“How courteous of you,” Brian murmurs.

The two of them head downstairs and Brian makes them eggs like she wants them, fluffy, scrambled, and slightly browned with shredded cheddar cheese, pepper, and sea salt for taste, along with some toast and a mandarin orange. Lily eats it all without complaint, which is rare for her. She’s not that picky of an eater but she usually has one thing on her plate that she doesn’t want or only takes a couple of bites of.

“All done, Daddy!” Lily tells him as she surprisingly takes her plate and fork as well as his and stands up on her step stool to rinse them off.

“Good job, Lily,” Brian commends her, surprised, “What do you do after that?”

Lily puts the plates on the counter and opens the dishwasher, “I put them in here and wash them!”

Brian nods, “You’re right. We’ll wait until we fill it up a little more though to turn it on. It’s pretty much empty now. So just stack them in.”

Lily nods her head as she puts the dishes in the washer and shuts the door, “Good idea. We’ll have more time to play that way too. Come on!”

Lily grabs his hand and pulls at it until he stands up before leading him to the living room.

“We’re gonna play Monsters and Fairies,” Lily informs him, “I’m gonna be the monster and you have to be the fairy.”

Brian stares at her and waits for her to tell him she’s joking but that never comes. She just waits there patiently until he answers.

“...How do you play?” Brian finally asks.

Lily tsks in disappointment and Brian raises a brow.

“What? Am I supposed to know?”

Lily groans, “I made it up this morning while you were sleeping. But I don’t see why you can’t just get it.”

The little girl takes a few calming breaths before explaining the rules to her father.

“You are the fairy and you have to protect your castle. I’m the monster and I want to eat you so I can have your castle. And you have to grant wishes and fly around. And I have to stop you because I’m bad.”

Brian nods, barely following, “Okay. Why can’t I just be the monster?”

Lily groans again, “Because I am the monster!”

“But what if I don’t want to be the fairy?”

Lily glares, “Why don’t you want to be a fairy? Fairies are the bestest things ever. You can even be a fairy princess! Everyone wants to be a fairy princess!”

“I don’t.”

Lily lets out a sad and aggravated sigh before collapsing on the floor.

“Why won’t you listen?” Lily mumbles into the hardwood as Brian stares down at her, “All I want us to do is have fun.”

Brian shakes his head and squats down next to her, “I just don’t think I would be very good at it. Maybe if it were the other way around it would be easier for me.”

“But I want you to be the fairy princess,” Lily tells him in a sad voice.

Brian rolls his eyes and stands her up, “Come on. Upstairs.”

Lily pulls away, “I’m not taking a nap!”

“I never said you were,” Brian points out as he leads her to the second floor, “I want you to get dressed.”

“But why?” Lily asks, “I’m comfy just the way I am.”

“Because I don’t want you getting wet in your pajamas.”

“Wet?” Lily asks, confused, “Why would I get wet?”

Brian just shrugs, “Get your bathing suit on and we’ll find out.”

Lily gasps and runs up the stairs, giggling maniacally along the way. Brian takes the steps a bit more slowly and sanely and follows Lily to her room.

“I don’t know which one to wear!” Lily laments she tilts her chin over her dresser drawer, “All of them are just so pretty!”

Brian peaks over before reaching in and tossing it to the side, “That one is from last summer so it won’t even fit you anymore. That narrows it down a little.”

“But I love that one,” Lily pouts before brightening up, “We can save it for my baby sister.”

Brian smiles, “If you end up having a baby sister then that’s fine with me.”

Lily nods her head, “I will have a baby sister, Daddy. You’ll see.”

“If you say so,” is all Brian says before reaching in the drawer to pick out a yellow bathing suit, “What about this one? You are one of the few people I know who look great in yellow.”

“I really do,” Lily admits as she takes the swimsuit to hold it in front of her torso, “I love LOVE the white polka dots and yellow is my favorite color. It’s so pretty, huh?”

“Sure,” Brian tells her as he takes a hold of one of the thick tie back straps, “Now off with the PJs and on with the suit.”

Lily quickly gets undressed so that Brian can help her step into the one piece.

“Lift up your hair,” Brian orders as he pulls the straps back, ready to tie them.

After Brian makes sure all of Lily’s curls are out of the way before tying the straps back into a bow, an action that has to be repeated four times in order to achieve Lily’s desired tightness (“But not too tight, Daddy,”) she is barely containing her excitement and keeps bouncing as he puts sunscreen on every visible patch of skin. Believe it or not, that’s less annoying than her whining outside of his bedroom door as he gets changed into his trunks.

“Daddy, you gotta hurry!” Lily exclaims as she pats the door with her hands, “Please!”

“Would you calm down?” Brian calls out before heading to the door to see Lily holding two beach towels.

“Here you go, Daddy,” she tells him sweetly as she hands him the bigger towel, “Now let’s go to the pool!”

“No pool today,” Brian tells her as they head down the stairs and she stops in place.

“What?” Lily asks in a flat and unamused voice.

“It’s hot, it’s Saturday, and the pool will be crowded with a bunch of people,” Brian reasons.

“But I like the pool,” Lily whispers, “I like people. I like Saturdays.”

“Don’t get all upset,” Brian warns, “I’ll take you tomorrow if you are good today. I’ll even talk to Emmett and Drew about Duncan spending the night tonight or picking him up in the morning so that the three of us can go. We can even go to that big pool we saw in Astoria if we get an early enough start.”

Lily takes a deep breath and Brian is able to interrupt her before she starts squealing.

“But you have to be good,” he reminds her.

“Oh, Daddy,” Lily says, “I’m always good.”

“Are you?” Brian smirks, “I guess I have hallucinated a few times and it made me think otherwise.”

“I guess so!” Lily agrees, despite not completely understanding, as she skips down the last five steps, “So if we aren’t going to the pool, where are we going to go? We can’t go to the store like this!”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Brian replies, biting his lip in amusement, “We’re just going to the backyard.”

“To swim in my kiddie pool,” Lily guesses.

“Sure. I have a few other things in mind too.”

With that, Brian walks to the back of the house as Lily yells, “Daddy, wait for me!” The sounds of quick small footsteps get louder as the little girl catches up. Brian slides open the back door and walks down the steps leading from the sunroom to their yard. Underneath the sunroom, he attaches the hose to the house before he judges the pool and how heavy it might be. It’s about half full due to the splashing Lily and Duncan have done for the past month. It would be nice to have someone give him a hand because, even with it being half filled, the pool is pretty heavy. But their small Brooklyn yard is actually doing him a favor since he only needs to drag it about four feet to get it underneath the slide.

“No going on the slide until I say,” he orders.

Lily gives him a look before shrugging and running over to her swings. Brian drops the hose in the pool and lets the water fill it up some more. Looking over, he sees that Lily is concentrating more on pumping her legs than what he is doing. Brian smirks at her unassuming ways as he goes over to the sliding door underneath the sunroom, gets the bag of shit he bought a few days ago, and takes it to the spigot on the side of the house, right out of Lily’s line of view.

He fills up a couple of water guns, ones he bought on a whim from the small toy store a couple blocks up. The weather is warm and sunny for the foreseeable future and he had figured that Lily deserved a fun surprise when he saw that they were on sale.

But he is still Brian Kinney. He’s going to make it fun for himself too. And that’s why he invested in the Nerf Super Soakers.

“Lily!” He calls out, peeking out from behind the corner of the house, “Get off the swing and come over here!”

Lily looks over in confusion before slowing the swing down a little to jump off of it. She walks at a normal pace as she says with a smile, “What is it, Daddy?”

And he really should feel bad about it. But he just can’t stop himself. He brings the water gun out from behind his back, fully pumped and ready to spray, then pulls the trigger and lets the stream hit her from the chest down. Lily screams with shock and something akin to terror before letting out a cry and running up the ladder to her tower.

“Lily…” Brian urges, exasperated, as he sees her angry and heartbroken face peek out through the glass free window, “I was just messing with you. Come back down.”

“No!” she wails, crocodile tears falling down her face, “You’re a meanie head! A meanie POOPY head!”

“My heart is broken,” Brian sighs sadly, dramatically hanging his head in shame.

“I’m glad!” Lily yells, “I’m glad it’s broken!”

Brian stares at Lily, surprised by the words, before holding his hands up and setting the water gun down in the grass.

“I put it down,” he informs her calmly, “I won’t spray you if you don’t want me to. I thought you would think it was funny and you didn’t. I’m sorry.”

Lily sniffles a couple of times, “Humph!”

Brian holds back a groan. So that’s how it’s going to be.

“I bought a few water guns,” Brian tells her, gesturing to the side of the house, “I got one for me. I got one for Papa for when he comes next weekend since it will still be hot. I even got one for Duncan. But the best one is the one I got for you. It’s purple and yellow. I filled it up already. If you want to spray me with it, then I will just have to accept that. A meanie poopy head like me probably deserves it.”

Lily takes a few deep breaths, “You do. You do deserve it!”

Lily’s anger towards him shockingly doesn’t keep her from listening to him. She keeps his word by not going down the slide and instead climbs back down the latter and runs over to the side of the house. Coming back around, she holds her water gun in her hands, expression filled with grim obligation and purpose.

After a few seconds of standing there, Brian realizes that she doesn’t really know how it works.

“Pump the stick by moving it in and out, then aim and put your fingers on the trigger,” Brian instructs, motioning with an invisible water gun of his own.

Lily mimics his movements and her eyes fill with pure joy when she hits Brian right in the stomach with a jet of water.

“Oh! I’ve been hit,” Brian groans as he starts to collapse to the ground.

Lily giggles hysterically and runs over to spray him over and over and over again.

“Wat...Watch the face,” Brian says faintly as Lily laughs louder and louder, “You...don’t want…to wake...the creature from the Black Lagoon!”

Lily screams with glee as Brian takes a hold of her and sits back up, pretending to chow down on the side of her neck as she laughs so ridiculously hard.

Mercifully, he lets her go and she stumbles away, still laughing and trying to catch her breath.

“D-Daddy, you’re really silly!” Lily laughs, putting her hands on her knees.

“I like to think of myself as quite dignified,” Brian answers disinterestedly as he brushes the stray pieces of grass off his legs.

Lily takes a few steps back and looks at Brian’s water gun with excitement.

Brian follows her line of vision down to it and raises an eyebrow.

“Are you challenging me, little girl?” he asks, reaching slowly for the water gun.

Lily lets out a high pitched squeal as she runs to the other side of the swing set, squirt gun in hand.

“You can’t get me!” Lily sings out, “Daddy, you can’t get me!”

Lily squeals again when Brian purposely shoots the spray a foot away from her arm before she starts running again. Lily gets a few shots in, hitting him in the leg, pec, and waist and he sprays her back and shoulder blades in return. She doesn’t cry about it this time, thank god.

They’re so absorbed in chasing each other around the yard, yelling and laughing and probably making their neighbors wonder what the fuck is going on, that Brian doesn’t realize the pool is full until the surface of the water is maybe two inches from the top of the wall. Brian walks over, takes the running hose out of the pool, and lets out a yelp when Lily comes up from behind him and sprays the rest of her water into the small of his back.

“You win, you win,” Brian surrenders, putting his gun down and taking a hand to lower his daughter’s toy.

Lily, still high on adrenalin, takes heaving breaths and looks wildly around the yard, “What are we going to do now?”

Brian walks over, turns off the spigot attached to the hose, and bends down to dig Lily’s life jacket out of the bin. He motions for her to come over and Lily skips over to her father and holds her arms out so that Brian can slip the device on. He buckles up the straps and makes sure the vest is tight and secure. Usually she’d be okay without it. They usually drain the water to about rib level for Lily and Duncan and they keep a close eye on them anyway. She has been doing well with swimming in deeper water as well so he really shouldn’t worry about it.

But if she actually acts on what he has planned, then he’d rather be safe than sorry.

“I want you to come in the pool with me, Daddy!” Lily tells him has she takes his hand and leads him over to the pool.

“I’ll sit in there for a while,” Brian gives in as he steps over the wall and sits in there with her, tipping out a bit of the water in the process.

“Can you show me how you do the freestyle stroke?”

Lily nods and swims to him across the pool. The vest makes the movements awkward but her determination and ability to to keep her face in the water except for when she needs a breath is admirable.

“Good job!” Brian smiles as she swims into his arms and hugs him as she sputters water at his chest, “You deserve a kiss for that.”

Brian gives her a loud kiss on her cheek before releasing her so that she can swim back to the other side of the pool and turn around.

“I’m gonna swim to you again, okay?” Lily gasps out.

“Okay. I’ll be right here.”

Lily swims back to him once more and this time gives him a kiss on the cheek, one that is wet but so sweet that Brian can’t help but melt a little even though he may not admit that out loud.

“Let’s play a game,” Lily says as she sits on Brian’s knees, facing him as she ponders, “Let’s play the color game!”

Brian sighs, “I suppose you won’t be it first?”

Lily shakes her head enthusiastically, causing the excess water to drip off her curls.

“You gotta go underwater first, Daddy!” she tells him as she points at him, “You just got to!”

Brian rolls his eyes and sighs before letting his body sink so that he’s underwater. A few seconds later he comes back up from the surface, takes gulping breaths just to make the kid laugh, and guesses a color.

“Uh...Red?”

“Nope!” Lily shakes her head as she pushes on Brian’s head.

Brian goes back under the water for a second and comes back up with a new color.

“Brown?”

“Daddy!” Lily giggles, as if that’s preposterous, “No.”

Lily dunks him again and Brian comes up once more.

“This is a hard one. But is it...yellow?”

Lily nods her head vigorously, “Yes, that’s it! You got it right. Good job!”

Brian bites back a grin. Most of the time it is yellow.

“Now we should-”

“I have an idea,” Brian tells her as he stands her on her feet and steps out of the pool before turning around, “You can stand, right?”

Lily nods, just her head and neck above the water.

“And you won’t drown on me if I have my back turned for 10 seconds?” Brian presses.

Lily shakes her head, “No, Daddy. I am a good swimmer.”

“Alright then. Wait here.”

Brian crosses the yard and goes back under the patio to turn the spigot back on. The hose comes to life in the yard, water pouring in the grass.

“Daddy, what are you doin’?” Lily asks from the pool as he comes over to pick up the hose.

Brian says nothing and climbs up the ladder of her tower. Despite all of the times Lily had asked him to come up here, this was the first venture he made. He’s actually disappointed in himself. Lily is way too short to notice, at least without Eric’s help, but she actually has a pretty great view of lower Manhattan from up here. He’s glad Eric didn’t put a roof on it like he originally thought about doing.

“Daddy, you are getting my tower all wet!” Lily warns him as she watches the water seep through with worry.

“It’ll be fine.”

Brian bends down and lets the hose sit on the slide so that the water runs down into the pool. Lily looks up in confusion and Brian just smiles a little and comes back down. Lily stares at him and he stares back before gesturing towards the slide.

“Well? Go on.”

Lily looks at the slide. Then looks at him. Before looking back at the slide and looking back at him.

“Is that,” Lily starts, “Did you make a water slide? Like at Sandcastle?”

Brian shrugs, “It’s not as fancy but it’ll have to do.”

Lily starts to jump up and down in the pool as she cheers before losing footing and finding herself on her back, kept afloat by her life jacket.

Brian lets out a laugh and picks her up to set her feet on the ground. Lily runs up to the ladder, climbs up, and peeks out in front of the slide as she looks down at the pool.

“Daddy…”Lily trails off as she turns to stare at him with pleading eyes, “Daddy, I’m scared!”

Brian raises an eyebrow, “You? Scared? The Lily I know will slide down any bannister, climb up to stand on the highest chairs, and ride any roller coaster she’s tall enough to go on. She doesn’t get scared.”

“But I am!” Lily insists as she looks down at the water with fear, “It’s really high and I’ll go really fast!”

Brian looks at her, “You want me to catch you?”

Lily thinks on it for a few seconds before nodding her head, “Yes. Yes, I would like that.”

“Alright,” Brian tells her as he steps back in the pool. He stands on his knees, high enough to catch his daughter without any problem and low enough to let her land in the water. Lily looks down at his outstretched arms, takes a deep breath, and nods her head.

“You ready?” Brian asks, trying to get her pumped.

“I think so,” Lily answers uncertainly.

“On the count of three. One. Two. Thr-”

Lily whooshes down the slide and if she were much heavier, she would probably have Brian stumbling backwards. Lily looks in every direction as soon as she figures out that she made it into her father’s arms and starts laughing joyfully.

“I did it! Daddy, I did it!” Lily exclaims, holding onto the man’s arms.

“You did. You were pretty impressive, I’ll admit.”

“Again, again! I want to do it again!”

Brian picks her up and stands her right outside the pool. Lily runs back up to the top of the slide and smiles so widely as she looks down.

“Catch me again, okay?” Lily requests as she prepares herself for her launch.

“Alright.”

The four year old slides back down and lands in Brian’s arms once more. Lily puts her own arms around Brian’s neck, kisses his nose, and lays her head on his shoulder.

“I love you, Daddy,” she tells him softly.

Brian feels his grin widen he wraps his arms around his little girl and holds her close, “So does that mean I’m not a, and I quote, meanie poopy head?”

Lily leans back a little and stares at him with such tenderness and love, “You’re not right now.”

Brian bites his lip and puts his forehead against Lily’s, “I love you too, sweet girl.”

“I know,” Lily tells him before slapping at his shoulders to tell him she wants to go on the slide again.

And it only takes a couple more tries before Lily is landing in the water on her own. Soon, she doesn’t even want Brian to stand in the pool, although he can’t help but hover close by.

He’s not like Eric, who gets reminiscent when Lily takes a huge step in independence or growing up. Brian knows it’s a fact of life that kids grow up and don’t need their parents for every little thing. Maybe it’s because it’s only the two of them in the yard, but for some reason he can’t help but feel a little reminiscent this time around.

That feeling stops as soon as Lily grabs the hose and sprays him with it but it was nice while it lasted.

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Lily swims and slides for over two hours but, since they got an early start, it’s not quite when they get back inside. He’s glad she didn’t put up much of a fight. It had been past time to reapply sunscreen and the sun started shining more in their yard around 10 or so. She looks fine and usually tans anyway so he thinks his relatively minor negligence will go unnoticed. She usually doesn’t swim that early so Brian thinks it must be Pavlov’s theory in effect when she goes over and waits by the freezer door, expecting something out of it, as if it is 2 or 3 o'clock in the afternoon and not an hour before lunch.

“You should probably wait until after lunch to have a popsicle,” Brian comments from the other side of the kitchen.

Lily shakes her head and stares at the freezer once more, “I’m hot, Daddy. I gotta cool off. I just got to.”

Brian rolls his eyes and leads her away, “Lunch first.”

Lily purses her lips but doesn’t fight him, “I’m hungry now though. Swimming makes me so SO hungry.”

Before Brian can answer, Lily looks at him with her big brown eyes and holds his right hand with both of hers.

“Will you go out with me? We should go out for lunch.”

Brian smirks, “You’re asking me out? Me?”

Lily nods, “Yes! I want us to eat lunch outside.”

Brian shrugs, “Okay, I’ll make us a couple of tuna sandwiches and we’ll sit out on the stoop.”

Lily gives him a look of horror, “Ew! I don’t want tuna sandwiches. I don’t want to sit on stoops. I want to go out with you!”

“Fine,” Brian sighs, “Where do you plan on taking me?”

Lily taps her chin, “Hmmm...Manhattan!”

“Manhattan? How will we get all the way over there?”

“The subway!” Lily exclaims with a jump, “We’ve just got to brunch, Daddy. We’ve just got to.”

Brian looks at her bewildered, not sure where she got the idea of brunching, but goes along with it.

“Alright. We can do that if you really want to. We need to rinse out your hair and put some leave in conditioner in it before you go anywhere.”

“Why?” Lily asks, “I just got water in it. I think it looks pretty.”

“Your papa knows more about caring for it than I do. He says the chlorine in the pool will dry your hair out. The floating duck filter you love so much is your worst enemy, I guess.”

“No, the pool makes my hair wet!” Lily insists.

Brian closes his eyes, realizing Lily’s not going to get it, before taking her hand.

“Come on,” he tells her as he leads her up to the bathroom, “It won’t take that long.”

Lily groans and drags her feet upstairs. He doesn’t bother washing the rest of her off. He figures she can get a quick bath tonight if anything.

Lily stands in her shower, bathing suit and all, and leans her head back so that Brian can spray her hair with warm water to rinse it out. He lets his fingers run through her curls a few times, making sure she is still tangle free since yesterday, before letting her step out of the tub. He squeezes some of the excess water out of her hair but leaves it wet like Eric has told him to do if Lily wants to wear it down. Putting a bath towel on her shoulders and sliding her bathing suit off, he wraps her up and follows her back into her room.

“I want to wear a beautiful dress,” Lily informs him as she walks over to her closet, “We are going to a nice place so I just got to.”

“Where are we going?” Brian asks her as he watches in amusement.

Lily groans, “Some place nice! In Manhattan! I told you.”

The little girl suddenly turns around and looks at Brian.

“You gotta look handsomer, Daddy. You look handsome now but you gotta wear nice clothes and look even handsomer.”

“More handsome, you mean?” Brian tries to correct.

“That’s what I said. Now, go on,” Lily dismisses, “I got to get dressed. I’ll shout if I need help and you shout if you need help too, okay?”

“...Okay,” Brian finally agrees as he can’t help but think about how fucking weird she is.

Brian leaves Lily alone and heads to his bedroom, hoping she doesn’t look like a complete clown by the time she’s dressed and ready. The few times he and Eric let her dress herself without any assistance whatsoever she’s actually done a decent job. It helps that they both tend to keep her outfits together so that she knows what goes with what but she does like to insist on mixing and matching and that doesn’t always look the greatest.

Focusing more on himself, he chooses a nice pair of jeans and a black t-shirt because he’s not going to pull fucking tux just to look handsomer. Lily will have to suck it up if his choices aren’t acceptable.

After he puts his clothes on, Brian goes back down the hall and softly knocks on Lily’s door, receiving a, “Just a second, Daddy!” from the little girl in return. Thirty seconds later, she lets him know that he can come in so he slowly opens the door.

“Do I look pretty, Daddy?” she asks hopefully as she laces her fingers together.

Brian gives her a once over and he has to admit he’s impressed. The whole outfit matches, for one thing. From the yellow pleated, 20s inspired sundress with its rhinestone embroidered neckline matching the silver rhinestones that line her black flip flops. And okay, the chic black floppy sun hat that Emmett bought her because it was so ‘classic and tasteful’ is a little dramatic, especially for a four year old, but it does work with her outfit and it will keep the sun out of her eyes so he can’t complain.

“You look absolutely gorgeous,” Brian tells her as Lily beams with pride, “And you picked that out all by yourself?”

Lily nods, “Yes, I did. And Bianca and Vernon didn’t help me at all.”

“Well, I’m sure they couldn’t have done a better job,” Brian smirks, “You’ll have to take the hat off so I can spray your hair though.”

“Okay, but I have to put it back on after,” Lily tells him seriously.

Brian has her sit between his legs on the bed as he starts to spray and shape her curls. He gives her his phone to keep her occupied, which leads her to FaceTiming Emmett which then leads to her talking to Duncan, both of them giggling over the strangest things for the duration of the conversation. Brian does get Emmett’s permission to take Duncan for the night, mainly because Lily asks him herself.

“We’re going to Scott’s tonight for dinner. He has a daughter who is just a year younger and she’s crazy about Duncan. But I can drop Duncan off around 8, if that’s alright?”

“Yes, that’s perfect!” Lily interjects before Brian can answer first.

“That’s fine,” Brian confirms after he shoots a warning look at Lily, “We’ll be here.”

“Well, he’s jumping up and down so I think he’s pretty excited about it,” Emmett laughs as he looks over his shoulder before turning back around, “Brian, did you just get out of the shower?”

“No, he took a shower this morning,” Lily tells him, “He’s all wet from me spraying him with the hose.”

Emmett laughs loudly at that, “Getting slow in your mature age, are you?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Brian retorts.

“Brian!” Emmett scolds, “Language!”

“Daddy told me to shut up this morning,” Lily taddles, “And then he started snoring really loud.”

“Bye Emmett,” Brian says pointedly before hanging up and looking down at Lily, “Remember my warning? You have to be good if you want to go to the pool.”

“I am being good!” Lily exclaims, jumping up to her feet.

“Uh huh,” is all Brian says as he gives her a once over.

Lily purses her lips and just looks off to the side, “Can I put my hat back on now?”

“Fine. Ready to go?”

“Yep!” Lily tells him as she skips to the door, “I’ve never been this ready ever in my whole life.”

“Lead the way then.”

Lily dashes down the stairs and Brian follows her at a slower pace as he watches her hop from the second to the last step to the floor. And really? Thank god that he did. Because at the speed she’s going, her dress flies up just enough for him to see her bare ass.

“Stop,” Brian warns, “No going outside.”

Lily turns around and pouts, “But we need to-”

“Did you forget something?” Brian interrupts.

Lily looks around, genuinely confused, before shaking her head, “No, Daddy. I got everything I need to start my day.”

Brian snorts, “What about something that goes under your clothes.”

Lily just keeps staring at him and tilts her head.

“Your underwear, Lily.”

Lily’s eyes widen as she runs back upstairs and takes his hand.

“I almost forgot! Come on! Help me get them on extra fast!”

Brian tries to not judge her too much but he can’t help but smirk a little when she frets over what underwear she should wear. She ends up going with a yellow pair to match her dress because apparently she’s a fashionista.

But once she gets them on, they’re on their way. And he doesn’t know why he is letting her make the majority of the decisions today. Usually he is more balanced or even on the authoritative side. But, after the books Eric has been pressing him to read now that they have another kid on the way, he figured there should be an occasional day here or there where he should let Lily and eventually the new kid lead the way. So he just goes with it and follows her wherever she wants to go. They take the long way, walking along the promenade as Lily oohs and ahhs over the sights and asks why they can’t swim over.

“No idea,” Brian comments, staring over at the Statue of Liberty, “What train are we taking?”

Lily thinks on it, “The green one!”

“That’s on Court Street. You ready to walk over?”

“Yes, Daddy. So ready.”

When they get to the train station, Lily asks which trains go where and Brian explains the notion of uptown and downtown and that, since she wants to go to Manhattan, she’ll want to head uptown from Brooklyn. So they get on the next uptown train that comes on the greenline and Lily seems pretty satisfied.

“Which stop are we getting off at, Daddy?” Lily asks as soon as the doors close.

Brian shrugs noncommittally, “I don’t know. You tell me.”

Lily stares at him, “I just pick any?”

“Yep.”

Lily claps her hands and waits for a few stops and smiles at the women who coo over her and that damn hat.

“Oh, how adorable,” one woman around Brian’s age comments, “I love that hat!”

Lily smiles sweetly, “Thank you!”

The train doors open to with the sound of a ding, live instrumentals playing on the other side.

“My daddy and I gotta go now,” Lily tells the woman, standing up as she does so, “Bye!”

“Bye!” the woman replies, surprised at Lily’s initiative.

“Yes, this is perfect,” Lily says as she looks around the station as Brian takes her hand, “There’s an escalter here!”

Brian glances around, “Oh. An escalator.”

“That’s what I said,” Lily insists, “Come on!”

Brian and Lily walk to the escalator and take it up to the street. Brian has to admit that he’s surprised how far Lily walks them around. It’s at least a few avenue blocks and they’re not even in Union Square by the time Lily really starts considering places. It’s when they’re on Saint Mark’s Place that Lily spots a restaurant and walks towards it.

“This is perfect!” Lily exclaims, startling a couple of people at the nearest table, “We can sit outside here. Can we eat here, Daddy?”

Brian glances down at the glass protected menu to make sure they have a couple things that Lily at least might like. Turns out they do and their selection sounds pretty good so Brian nods.

“Cafe Orlin it is,” he agrees before taking her to the entrance to ask for a table for two outside.

The two of them sit there in relative silence for a minute, Brian reading the menu and Lily reading the words she can pronounce and pretending to read the rest. Brian reads a few choices out for her and she picks one with relative ease and tells him she’ll order it once the waitress comes.

“Hi, I’m Hillary. I’ll be your server today,” the waitress greets as she approaches their table.

“Hi, Hillary! I’m Lily and this is my daddy,” Lily answers, “Do you like my hat?”

The waitress lets out a laugh, “I absolutely love it. And your dress! You look very pretty.”

“Thank you,” Lily states shyly, looking quite pleased.

“Do you know what you’d like to drink, sweetie?” Hillary asks her as she gets out her pad and pen.

“Hmm, let’s see…” Lily ponders, tapping her chin as she often does, “I would like...chocolate milk!”

“I think we can make that,” Hillary nods before turning to face Brian, “And what would you like, sir?”

“Water’s fine,” Brian answers.

“And I want spaghetti and chicken,” Lily tells her, “But no mushrooms because we’re brunching.”

Brian just shrugs at the amused look the waitress throws him and goes ahead and picks the sesame salmon. After the woman leaves their table, he’s tempted to comment to Lily that neither of them ordered brunch but he doesn’t want to burst her bubble.

“Daddy, let’s talk like we’re grown-ups,” Lily suggests as she sits up straight and puts her napkin in her lap, “You go first.”

Brian manages to hold back the laughter and gazes at Lily quite seriously, “How was work today, Lily?”

Lily lets out a dramatic sigh and shakes her head, “Evan got the colors wrong and Daniel came up with a stupid ad. AND I had to make them do everything all over again! And then I had to build the tallest building in the world. And then I watched Netflix. What about you, Daddy?”

Brian just says the truth.

“I was woken up by a little girl at 5:45 in the morning and eventually got up to make her breakfast. We swam all morning and we’re going out to lunch now. I’m having a wonderful day.”

Lily’s shoulders slump, “Daddy, you’re supposed to make something up.”

“A chocolate milk for you,” Hillary interjects as she puts down a cup with a lid, “And a glass of water for you. Your food should be out in about 10 minutes. Do either of you need anything beforehand?”

“We’re good, thanks,” Brian tells her.

“Yes, thanks,” Lily copies as she looks up and tries to make eye contact through the floppy rim of her hat.

“Alright,” Hillary smiles, “I’ll be back soon with your meals.”

The two of them chat about a variety of things both before and after they get their meals. Lily has always been one to ask a lot of questions so the topics range from trains to books to My Little Pony to Donald fucking Trump. Both of them agree that they don’t like him much. Brian’s met the man a couple of times in the past and even he didn’t expect how batshit the fucker was. Lily just hates him for his hair.

“It’s so ugly!” Lily fumes as she pounds her fist on the table to drive her point home, “It looks so bad and he doesn’t fix it so that means he won’t fix other stuff too!”

Brian has a hard time composing himself after the resulting fit of laughter.

“Why are you laughing at me?” Lily pouts as her lip wobbles.

Brian wipes his eyes, and manages to keep a straight face, “I’m just really deliriously happy we have similar political views.”

Lily nods then says, “What are we doing for dinner, Daddy?”

Brian scoffs, “You’re worried about dinner? You haven’t even finished your brunch yet.”

Lily shrugs, “Yes, but I have plans, you know.”

“Do you?” Brian asks with an eyebrow raised.

“Uh huh! Daddy, I really want to play Sous Chef later.”

Brian groans. That fucking game. Eric took to letting Lily cook this summer, meaning she got to pick out all of the ingredients for her meals, meals that tended to turn out interesting at best and disturbing at worst. She also operated the kitchen tools to make the meals, and Eric only took over when something needed cut up with a sharp knife or fire was involved. Their friends and family thought it was fucking adorable. They only knew about it because Eric made Brian film them so he could edit it later. But it wasn’t even the cooing and the domestic jabs Brian received that made him hate the game. It was the fucking mess it left afterwards.

“Please, Daddy. I love playing Sous Chef. I’m so good at it,” Lily informs him with pleading eyes.

“Hmm,” is all Brian replies with.

“Let’s go to Whole Foods!” Lily gasps, “Papa LOVES Whole Foods! And you can’t say that it’s far far away because I saw it and it’s close close away.”

“Papa needs to stop being a hipster,” Brian mutters.

“I don’t know what that is,” Lily says, shaking her head.

“You don’t know what a Sous Chef is either yet you keep saying it,” Brian points out.

Lily glares, “I do know what it means! It’s the name of my game.”

“Eat the rest of the meal you already have,” Brian orders, “If you do that, we can go to Whole Foods and you can pick some stuff out. But only if you finish.”

Lily stares at her plate, determined and ready to conquer.

And Brian can’t even say he’s surprised when she finishes the very last strand of pasta. The little shit always has been stubborn.

“All done, Daddy!” Lily tells him with pride as she jumps down from her seat, “Let’s go to Whole Foods now!”

“We have to pay first, remember?” Brian reminds her.

“Oh yes,” Lily recalls as she leans into his leg and looks at him hopefully, “Daddy?”

Brian sighs, “Yes?”

“I want to sit in your lap,” Lily requests, “I want you to take a picture of how pretty we look and send it to Papa.”

Brian softens a little and lets the little girl climb up onto his lap and sit down.

“Say cheese,” he teases her as he takes a picture of the two of them.

“It’s so beautiful,” Lily states, “You should post it on Facebook for likes and comments.”

Brian snorts, “That’s okay. I don’t need to post a bunch of pictures just to get some praise. I know I’m hot.”

“But Daddy,” Lily argues, “They don’t know how pretty I am!”

“Believe me, your papa posts pictures of you almost every day.”

“But why don’t you?” Lily asks sadly.

Brian stares into her eyes and finds himself tapping on his Facebook app soon after. She’s so manipulative. If she didn’t get it from him, he’d complain more about it.

Lily beams as she watches him upload the picture and tag Eric in it before slipping the phone back in his pocket. He ignores the almost immediate vibrating notifications as he pays for the bill in cash, leaves his tip, and picks Lily up as she waves goodbye to Hillary and assures the woman they’ll be back soon.

“So soon!” Lily adds with her promise.

Brian puts her down when they are about a block away from Whole Foods. Unfortunately, she hasn’t forgotten about that.

“There it is, Daddy!” Lily exclaims as she points across the street, “It’s right over there!”

Lily stares at the store as if she is about to go to a fucking Disney World attraction.

“I see,” Brian murmurs, “And you’re sure you want to go in?”

Lily nods her head vigorously, “Yes. I got to go get my ingredients. I’ve just got to.”

“You usually do ‘just got to,’” Brian teases, but subtly enough so that Lily doesn’t catch it.

Brian starts second guessing the relatively passive parenting day when he sees that the place is fucking packed. He grabs a large pop out basket and lets Lily hold a smaller one then grips onto her hand as they force their way further into the store. They are okay for a while. Lily picks out everything from chocolate to tomatoes to rice to beef in a damn can and who knew you could find that at Whole Foods. It’s when they hit the specialty goods that things get really hectic. It’s loud and consuming and people are pushing others out of the way. It’s like Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Pretty much every part of his body it being touched and he’s just focused on getting the two of them to an aisle away from the commotion.

So it’s no excuse at all that he doesn’t know how long he hasn’t been holding Lily’s hand.

As soon as he realizes that she’s not next to him, that his little girl can’t even be seen in the swarm of people, he feels ice flood through his veins and panic grip at his heart.

“Lily?” he chokes out, looking wildly for a black floppy hat or a yellow sundress.

“Lily?!” he shouts, staggering back over to the swarm of people, barely heard over the voices of hundreds of others.

“LILY!”