“Arabella said you’re interviewing, and the barista role is just temporary.”
I screw the lid on Molly’s snack pot, smirking at the cartoon fruit sticker on it that Sinclair gave her.“I’m searching for berried treasure.”
“Oh. No, that’s Whitney. She does the afternoon shifts now.”
“Whitney?” My grip on the pot tightens and I shove it into Molly’s bag with unnecessary force as warning tingles prick up over my skin.
“Yeah. She’s a kindergarten teacher. Blonde? Tall?”
Tate looks at me like I should know who she’s talking about, and I vaguely recall another blonde who works there. But Arabella told me her friend’s cousin is beautiful. She could have only been talking about Tate. There’s no one else who’s even remotely as attractive…
“Whitney’s a teacher?”
“Yeah. She’s lovely. The kids adore her.”
I place my hands flat on the counter and suck in a deep breath, forcing myself to count to ten.
“You okay?” Tate asks, studying me. She places her bagel down as realization dawns over her. “You told me I was great at my job. You knew I was a barista, right?”
I roll my lips, choosing my words carefully. “I meant how great you are with Molly. I thought?—”
“You thought I was Whitney?” She glances at Molly who’s busy talking to her bagel rather than eating it. “I understand if you don’t want me to watch her anymore. I’m not qualified. I’m not?—”
“I don’t care about some piece of paper,” I bark a little too harshly. Then I look at Molly. “Sweetheart? Can you go and get Baby from your room, ready to take to Grandad’s, please?”
“Okay,” she replies happily.
I plant a kiss to the top of her head as I help her down from her seat.
As she leaves the room, I sit beside Tate and lower my voice, the words coming so easily I surprise myself. My father will be proud.
“I care about the smile on my daughter’s face when shesees you. I care about the way she sleeps better after spending time with you. I care about the way she comes to you if she’s worried or hurts herself.” I reach for her hand and entwine our fingers. “I care about the way you can give her something I can’t.”
I inhale deeply at Tate’s puzzled expression.
“She has Sinclair and Halliday. And she loves them. I watch her blossom from their attention… just like she does with you. Only with you, it’s more. Because you aren’t family. Molly’s chosen you all by herself.”
Tate’s eyes shine as she looks between me and Molly, who’s walking back into the room, hugging her baby doll, preventing me from saying something else that I can’t take back. Something about the way I feel. About what I care about.
Because this isn’t about me.
Emotion makes my throat thicken as I step back into reality from wherever I just went that made me confess those things.
They’re true. Every word.
But their weighted meaning hanging in the air and making Tate look at me like she’s seeing something for the first time makes my chest tighten and my heartbeat crash loudly in my ears like storm waves over rocks.
It’s always been Molly and me.
And that day I saw her left in a box, I promised myself it always would be. I read that note Natasha left, and I knew beyond doubt that everything I did from that moment on wouldn’t be about me.
It wouldalwaysbe about Molly.
She comes first. Not me.
30
TATE
