Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 137077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 685(@200wpm)___ 548(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 685(@200wpm)___ 548(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
“She was so confident and sure of herself and her place in the world. I wanted to be like that too, so I started looking for things I liked at thrift stores and slowly began collecting. Jewelry is also easier because it doesn’t take up much space in my suitcase, and if I don’t take it off, I don’t even have to worry about packing it in a hurry when I leave.”
“Jesus, Riley,” I hiss, horrified at how awful that sounds. No, not awful… fatalistic. Like leaving is a surety. I understand why she’d feel that way given we’ve both had people leave, but the cavalier manner in which she discusses it makes me want to destroy everyone who’s ever hurt her.
She shrugs, unbothered by it. “It makes me feel like that woman—confident, seen, important. So I always wear them. Especially since you never know who might be watching and thinking they’d love to be that seen too.”
“I love them even more now that I know what they represent to you,” I tell her, pressing a kiss to her inner wrist and several metal bracelets at the same time.
“Do you want to know what I thought of you at first?” she asks, a fiery glint in her eye.
I frown hard. “I’m sure I can guess. Old, uptight asshole?”
She tilts her head, unabashedly saying, “Yeah, but I could tell you loved Grace. That’s the only reason I considered this job. I’ve never worked for a single dad before. Always families, and Bianca was a single mom, but never a single dad. Until you.”
“And look how this turned out,” I joke, pulling her tighter against me and burying my face in her cotton-candy hair again.
We talk late into the night, and I’m painfully tempted to bring her back to my bedroom again, but the idea of her sneaking out in the middle of the night or in the morning before Grace wakes up feels disrespectful. I don’t want to hide her. I want to walk into every room with her at my side, proud to be with her.
But that requires a conversation with my daughter. A private, one-on-one conversation so I can see what she thinks and how she feels about my finding someone because that’s something we’ve never discussed. I never thought I’d need to talk about that with her since it wasn’t going to happen.
Until it did. Until Riley.
So for now, I’ll play the part of the good dad the way I have so many times before and deny myself for Grace’s sake. But feeling confident that it’s late enough that Grace is snoring away in her room upstairs, I pause at the back door.
Unable to stop myself, I wrap Riley in my arms, holding her tight. I tilt her chin up and steal a kiss. Her lips are soft, and when she opens for me, I slip my tongue inside to tangle with hers. But it’s not a kiss with a mission. We’re just enjoying the moment the way she’s taught me to.
Too soon, we both pull back.
“Good night,” she whispers. She understands, even without us saying it. It’s just another sign of how perfect she is.
“Good night,” I whisper back.
We put our mugs in the dishwasher and then stand at the kitchen doorway, delaying going our separate ways. “It feels weird to kiss you and then go upstairs,” she confesses.
“For me too. But it’s only for a little bit. We can figure us out, and then talk to Grace. For now, we can do this… for Grace’s sake.”
She leans my way and pulls me down to growl into my ear. “I seriously love that girl, but she’s a cockblocker.”
I laugh, the too-loud sound coming from deep in my chest, and I can’t help but nod. “That, she is.”
But I didn’t miss the most important part of what Riley said… she loves my little girl.
The little girl who deserves a mother figure. Not one to replace Michelle. That could never happen, and I wouldn’t want it to. But a woman to be here when she’s struggling with friendships and boys and who sets an example for her as she’s becoming a young woman who’s confident enough to be loud in every space she occupies.
And that’s Riley for sure.
RILEY
“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” Janey asks, her eyes bouncing from me to the video image of Emmett on her phone.
I hold up my phone, showing that I also have the monitor app open. Emmett is sleeping peacefully in his crib, his sweet lips pursed and eyes closed. “It’s fine. He’ll be fine. I promise. Go have fun.”
“If you get nervous, we can look at the cameras too,” Cole tells her, standing at her side like a sentinel.
It took some time to get used to it, but the camera-filled house doesn’t bother me now. Well, it took time and a solid reassurance that there’s no video feed from the guest bathroom, because that would a step too fucking far. But now, the fully automated and monitored home makes me feel safer, like if anything went down, Cole and Janey would instantly know.