Four Of A Kind-Chapter 134: [3.36] Her Father’s Rules

The final bell rang at three-fifteen, and I made it halfway to the parking lot before Harlow materialized at my side like a particularly enthusiastic ghost.

"Assistant-kun!"

I stopped walking. "That nickname still sounds terrible."

"But it’s cute!" She looped her arm through mine without asking, which had become standard operating procedure. "Are you ready for our super important dry cleaning errand?"

I checked my phone. Vivienne’s instructions were color-coded blue for urgent, with seventeen bullet points about fabric care. The dress couldn’t be pressed with steam. The lapel required hand finishing. The buttons needed special treatment.

All this for one cocktail dress.

"Let me guess," I said. "Your sister made this a three-page document?"

"Seven pages, actually. I only sent you the important parts."

I needed to rethink my definition of important.

We reached the Lexus, and Harlow bounced to the passenger side. The moment I started the engine, she commandeered the radio, cycling through stations until landing on some aggressively cheerful pop song that sounded like it was engineered in a laboratory to destroy my will to live.

I lasted approximately forty-five seconds before reaching for the volume.

Her hand intercepted mine mid-reach, wrapping around my fingers and holding them against the console.

"Nope! My car, my rules!"

"It’s not your car. It’s the household car that I’m driving."

"Semantics." She started singing along to the chorus, loud and completely off-key. The girl had many talents. Musical ability was not among them.

I resigned myself to auditory suffering and merged onto the main road. The dry cleaners Vivienne specified was in Yonkers, naturally, because god forbid we use one of the perfectly functional establishments fifteen minutes away.

Harlow kept holding my hand.

This wasn’t unusual. She’d grabbed my arm, hugged me, leaned against me approximately seven hundred times in the past three weeks. Physical boundaries were a concept Harlow had heard about once and immediately forgotten.

But something felt different.

Her thumb traced the lines in my palm with slow, careful attention. Not fidgeting. Not her usual hyperactive energy transferred into whatever she touched.

This was deliberate.

I glanced sideways at her while waiting for a light. She’d gone quiet, which never happened during car rides. Usually she narrated the entire journey like a travel documentary host on caffeine.

"What’s up?" I asked.

Her thumb stopped moving against my palm. She looked down at our hands, hers small and soft against mine, with those pink-painted nails featuring tiny stars.

"I used to do this with Dad," she said softly. "On car rides. He’d let me trace the lines in his palm and he’d tell me stories about what each line meant. This one’s your life line, this one’s your heart line, this one means you’re gonna be successful someday."

Her voice had gone small. The bouncy girl from two seconds ago had disappeared into someone quieter, sadder.

"He’d make up stuff, obviously. Like this crease here means you’ll meet a talking cat, or this one means you’re allergic to broccoli. Total nonsense, but it made me laugh."

My throat felt tight. I didn’t know what to say. Comfort wasn’t exactly my specialty.

"Sorry," she said quickly, releasing my hand. "I just got caught up for a second. Forget I said anything."

"No, it’s fine."

The light turned green. I drove forward, acutely aware of the empty space where her hand had been.

I never knew my father. He left when I was three, disappeared like smoke, and I learned early that some people weren’t built for staying. But I kept this information locked down. No one needed to hear the sob story of the scholarship kid whose dad bailed.

At the next red light, I made a decision that was probably stupid.

"What else would you do?" I asked. "With your dad. In the car."

She turned to look at me, surprise clear on her face. Then something brightened in her expression, like I’d just handed her something precious.

"We’d play the car color game!"

"The what now?"

"The car color game! Each person picks a color, but it can’t be black or white or gray or silver because those are boring and everywhere. You have to pick an exotic color. Then whoever spots the most cars in their color on the way wins a prize!"

Her enthusiasm was back, dialed up to maximum capacity.

"If Dad won, we’d stop and get roasted peanuts from this vendor he liked near Central Park. If I won, we’d get ice cream. Any flavor I wanted." She paused, her smile turning wistful. "I always picked strawberry."

The light was still red. I found myself turning toward her slightly, and she was still holding my hand. When that happened, I genuinely couldn’t remember.

Her fingers had curled around mine again while she talked, like muscle memory kicking in.

"Alright," I said. "I pick blue cars."

Her eyes went wide. Actually wide. Stars might as well have exploded in her pupils.

"Really?! You’ll play with me?!"

"I literally just said I would."

She bounced in her seat hard enough to make the Lexus rock slightly. "Okay okay okay! I pick yellow!"

The light turned green. I started driving again, and Harlow pressed her face against the window, scanning every vehicle we passed with the intensity of a military reconnaissance officer.

"Blue sedan! That’s one for you!"

"I see it."

"Yellow taxi! That’s one for me!"

"Taxis don’t count. There are ten thousand yellow taxis in Manhattan. You’d win in the first mile."

She gasped like I’d just suggested murdering puppies. "That’s not fair! You can’t make up rules after the game starts!"

"I can if the rules are obviously broken."

She huffed and crossed her arms, though she was still holding my hand, which created an awkward tangle. She untangled us just long enough to properly sulk before grabbing my hand again.

"Fine. No taxis. But delivery vans count if they’re yellow." 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

"Deal."

We played in silence for maybe five minutes, with Harlow calling out every yellow vehicle that wasn’t a taxi and me occasionally mentioning the rare blue car. The score sat at seven to four in her favor, which seemed about right given yellow was a more common exotic color than blue.

At a stoplight near the bridge, she turned to me suddenly.

"Can I ask you something?"

"You’re going to anyway."

"Did you have car games with your dad?"

The question hit different than I expected. I kept my eyes on the traffic light, watching it cycle.

"Didn’t really know him long enough for car games."

Harlow’s grip on my hand tightened.

"Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—"

"It’s fine. Ancient history."

"Still." Her voice went soft again. "That sucks."

The light turned green. I accelerated, grateful for the excuse to focus on driving.

"So who taught you to drive?" she asked after a moment.

"YouTube and stubbornness."

She laughed. Actually laughed, not her usual performative giggle. "That’s the most you answer ever."

"Glad I could meet brand expectations."

"Blue minivan!" she called out, pointing. "I’m winning, but you’re catching up!"

We spent the rest of the drive playing her father’s game, with her calling out yellow delivery trucks and Volkswagen Beetles while I spotted the occasional blue sedan or crossover. By the time we pulled up to the dry cleaners, she’d won decisively at nineteen to eleven.

"I demand my prize," she announced as I parked.

"Which is?"

"Ice cream! Strawberry, obviously."

I checked the time. The dry cleaners closed at six. We had an hour and twelve minutes.

"After we get the dress."

"Deal!"