Hey monkey, just wanted to know if it would be okay with you if we visited Kai’s house tomorrow. - Danno

I read the text twice just to make sure I had read it right.

Sure! I texted back.

His response came back almost immediately.

What?- Danno

ELENA! - Danno

Why are you awake? It’s 1 am! - Danno

Shoot! I looked at the time, 1:34 am. How did that happen???

You texted first Danno! I replied, knowing that if anything I was just making it worse.

Yeah, so you could read it and reply in the morning! - Danno

It is the morning :3 - I sent, holding back my own chuckle.

Elena, GO TO BED! - Danno

:< okie - I wrote, then went back to the video I was watching.

“What are you two laughing at?” Dad asked as he walked out to me and Kai, he was balancing two coffees and a glass of milk in his hands.

Kai stopped laughing and ran to help him. “Nothing. We were just thinking of going for a swim later. Wanna come in with us?”

“Yeah, no thanks, babe. You two go ahead. I’ll uh- just supervise from this chair. Make sure you don’t get my kid drowned.” Dad said as he passed me my glass of milk.

Babe.

It was a word my dad said often, usually paired with my cringing and apologetic face if the receiver of the word looked caught off guard.

Kai looked caught off guard.

Aghhh, dad don’t make things weird with my counselor!

“You just... sit there and look pretty then," Kai suddenly said as he watched my dad settle into the chair. "That shouldn’t be too hard for you though.”

What?

My dad winked at him in reply.

DOUBLE WHAT???

I looked back and forth between them but they didn’t seem to notice me. “So,” I said, “I’m going to go change…” Finally they both looked at me, as if they had forgotten I was right there!

“What is happening?” I let out as I walked into the room Kai had shown me earlier, his sister’s old room. “Are they flirting?”

It was all kind of starting to make sense now.

I came out of the water, honestly kind of impressed with how long I’d been able to hold my breath for, move over Percy, there’s a new hero in town!

“How long was it?” I asked Kai.

“Uhh…” He said, then glanced back towards the house, “Look, Danno’s finally here!”

I turned in time to see dad step into the water, his whole body tensing.

“Come on Danno you can do it!” l cheered him on.

“Yeah Danno, you can do it! We believe in you!” Kai joined me, voice a lot more teasing than mine.

“I hate you.” Danny yelled back, “Not you monkey, Danno loves you. I’m talking to the big dufus next to you.”

Dad might as well have been calling him seaweed brain.

I laughed, glancing up at Kai to gauge his reaction.

He winked at me whispering, “He says that, but really, he loves me.” Then, in a voice loud enough for Danny to hear, he shouted, “Right babe?”

Oh

My

Gosh

“Whatever he’s saying El. Don’t believe him.” Dad shouted back.

Kai made a face, reassuring me that he was right and dad was wrong.

I grinned, laughter escaping out of me.

I never thought I would see my dad dating again.

No matter how many times he told me he was happy on his own, I couldn’t help but still worry about it.

He’s kind of… well, he can be a lot to handle, stubborn and awkward and a little embarrassing at times, but he’s amazing. The best dad anyone could ask for!

And I want him to be happy.

And sometimes, when he thinks I’m not looking, I can see all the stress and sadness on his face, on his shoulders.

I prefer it when he’s laughing. When he’s smiling. He seems to do that a lot around Kai.

“Why is it I never hear the joke but always the laughter?” Dad asked as he reached us in the water.

I grinned at him, unable to express how happy I felt for him. So instead, I said, “Danno, do you want to see my handstand?”

“Are you kidding? Of course, I would love to see your handstand monkey.”

I tried my best, when I came back up both Kai and Danny were grinning.

“Wow monkey, look at you. You’re so good!” Dad said, pulling me in for a hug.

“Robbie hired a swim instructor.” I couldn’t help myself from saying, thinking it would maybe show Danno how much initiative Robbie was taking, how much he was trying!

It seemed to have the opposite effect...

Kai and Dad stared at each other for a moment, then Kai looked at me, “Oh yeah?” he said, “Well, does your swim instructor ever do... this?!”

Then he splashed me and dad!!

Dad got a call from work, asking him to come in. I didn’t want our weekend together to be cut so short, but I tried not to make too much of a big deal out of it, knowing it was out of his control and he hated it just as much as me.

“Well... she could stay here,” Kai said.

“We could do those surfing lessons!” I said without thinking, dad would never let me stay with someone without him, ESPECIALLY not if it involved going into the water without his supervision!

“Which are all going to be on land.” Kai quickly assured Danno, as if reading my mind. “Come on. You know me. I’ll take good care of her. When you get out of work we’ll both be right here waiting for you.”

I held my breath, looking back and forth between my camp counselor and my dad. It felt like they were having a whole mental conversation that I couldn’t decipher, AGAIN!

“Okay.” Dad finally said, I tried to contain my excited shock. “Elena I want you to call me to check-in and so that I can hear your beautiful voice and not feel so stressed out over there yeah?”

I nodded vigorously, "Okay Danno."

“Kay I’ll be back in an hour or two.” He said. THEN HE LEANED IN TOWARDS KAI!!!

I know that lean in!

That’s the kiss goodbye lean in!!!

Maybe I was wrong? Maybe they’re way past just flirting?

But then, why did Kai lean away from him? Why did my dad look so jostled?

Maybe they haven’t talked about how they’re going to tell me yet?

“Kai?” I asked as we cleaned up.

“Yeah El?”

I hadn’t decided what exactly to ask yet.

If they hadn’t even talked about how they were going to tell me, then I definitely didn’t want to blindside Kai with a bunch of questions.

Maybe they weren’t even official yet!

Maybe they are still in the early stages of flirting, or maybe past that, maybe they’re both just awkward about it all because they’re old and forgot how to flirt and date?

Kai looked at me, waiting for my question.

“After our on land surfing lesson, do you wanna watch a movie?”

“Yeah! That sounds fun!”

“How was the surfing lesson?” Dad whispered to Kai.

We were all on the sofa and dad was LITERALLY snuggled into Kai’s arms!!!

I made extra sure to not react in any way so that dad could see that he and Kai could be themselves around me, even if they were still figuring it out.

“Good.” Kai whispered back, “Tomorrow I’ll give you a lesson.”

“Who said we're coming back again tomorrow?” Dad whispered.

“You're sleeping over,” Kai whispered back.

I pressed my lips together, not sure which couple to focus on, the one on the tv or Dad and Kai.

“Oh? Says who?” Dad asked.

“Sshhh,” I couldn’t help myself, their conversation was too distracting.

Dad, I’m all for you having a sleepover with your boyfriend but if you’re not gonna put the movie on pause, talk about it later!

Gotta give props to my dad and Kai, they didn’t make me feel like too much of a third wheel on their date today!

They even won me a big pink fluffy bunny!

I’ve named him Bunno.

Dad and Kai also won each other stuffed animals! SuperSeal and DannoSaur!

It was very rom-com cute, so adorable almost to the point of being gross.

But I can’t help but feel so happy for dad, just like I was for mom when she started dating Robbie.

I highly approve of Kai for dad. They’re both kind of stubborn and crazy in a good way, somehow they balance each other out.