Once she sees me, she stops abruptly and pulls the cups to her chest. “Don’t you dare. If you want coffee, you’re on your own.”
I make a disgusted face. “I don’t drink coffee.”
Zoe stares at me. “So you were just born with energy?”
I shrug. “I’ve always been a little hyperactive.”
“Or insane,” she mutters.
She walks closer to the bed while mumbling under her breath, “Doesn’t drink coffee…what a psycho.”
Teasingly, I reach for her cup. She sends me a glare that rivals a wolf but quickly wipes the look off her face when the doctor walks in.
“Aw.” She smiles at Charleigh resting against my chest. “Looks like Daddy is all you needed.”
Zoe’s coffee sputters from her mouth.
The doctor leans backward and grabs onto her pager, like she’s ready to let the trauma team know they have a choking patient in the ER.
“Are you okay?” she asks Zoe.
“She’sfine,” Reese seethes.
Zoe slaps her chest a few times, her face red. “Coffee went…” She pauses to cough. “Down…” Another cough. “The wrong tube.”
I bite down on my tongue to keep myself from laughing.
The doctor walks over to Charleigh on my lap and gently lifts the bandage to inspect the stitches. “These look great. I think we’re ready to discharge her.”
I sit up a little taller. “Any precautions for the night? No concussion, correct? Allowing her to sleep is okay?” I rattle off questions one by one, not caring if Zoe is going to make fun of me for being overprotective later. I mean, the doctor did refer to me as her father, so I might as well act like it, right?
“Correct. There is no concussion. Just a bad tumble on the stairs that led to a nasty cut. I’ll get your discharge papers.”
As soon as the doctor leaves, I turn toward Reese. “She fell down the stairs?”
Damnit, I should have gotten one of those gate things.
She immediately looks elsewhere, hiding her face from me. “It was just the first two. I only looked away from her for a split second. I had just moved her away from the stairs, and by the time I looked over, she was on them again. IswearI was watching her, Malaki.” Her explanation is rushed, the words flying out of her mouth at record speed.
“Hey, whoa.” I pull on her hand to get her to look at me. “You don’t think I’m mad, do you?”
Reese peeks at me with too many hidden emotions for me to even begin to decipher. “I…no? I don’t know.”
Zoe chimes in. “It’s because Benedict would use this against her if he knew. Blame her and make her feel awful for it.”
I let go of Reese’s hand and touch the side of her cheek to turn her to face me completely. “I am nothing like Benedict, Reese. My only thought was how I should’ve gotten a baby gate for the stairs.”
She blinks several times, her eyelashes fluttering back and forth like the wings of a butterfly. “Oh.”
“As a matter of fact…” I pull my phone out of my pocket, while making sure not to disrupt Charleigh watchingMs. Rachel, and type in the wordsbaby gateinto the search engine. “I’m buying one right now.”
Reese’s warm laugh brushes against my skin. “You don’t have to do that. This is my responsibility–”
The words die on the end of her lips when I flick my eyes in her direction. She shuts her mouth instantly and turns away with her dimples showing.
Doesn’t she understand that she and Charleigh are my responsibility now?
Or at least, I want them to be.
