“No. I mean, yeah, that shit hurt, but I didn’t cry. I really don’t cry, ever.” She rested her head on my arm as she gazed up at me. “Don’t tell the others I cried.” Her reasons for wanting them in the dark when it came to her breakdown were her own; I wouldn’t judge her for it.
“Then I guess you and I will have to lay here a while, to give my shirt some time to dry.”
Laina let out a hard, long breath. “I’m fine with that. You got somewhere else to be? A hot date maybe?”
Though it wasn’t the time for jokes, I still chuckled. “No hot dates for me.”
“No? How come?”She probably wanted a change of subject.
“I’ve always had other things going on. After Nora left, I shut down for a while. It took me years to find myself again, and when I did I swore I’d never lose myself in someone else again. It’s a hard lesson, to realize the person you thought was everything didn’t care for you half as much as you did them.”
She whispered, “Not everyone leaves. Some people stay. Just because you had one bad experience doesn’t mean you should shut yourself off to other possibilities. You’re a good-looking guy. You could probably get with half the women in this city without even trying. You have real daddy energy.”
Daddy energy.Fuck me sideways. For some reason, the arm I held around her back tightened in its grip, and I asked, “You got someone in mind?”
“Maybe I do, but…”
“But?”
“It’s a complicated situation, a situation a lot of people would probably rather avoid than step in.” Her hand finally stopped gripping the fabric of my shirt, flattening against my chest instead.
The sigh that left my lungs then was legendary. “Yeah, I bet you’re right. I bet any man in his right mind would try to avoid a situation like that. Problem is, I don’t know whether I’m one of those guys anymore, or if I ever was. Maybe I’ve always liked things a little complicated.”
She scooted closer to me, and I responded by rolling onto my side, facing her. I draped an arm around her back and held her close. Her face neared mine but didn’t close the distance. If she tried, I couldn’t say that I would stop her, but… but if I had the choice, I wouldn’t kiss her when she was still recovering from a bout of crying.
“Well,” she murmured, “there’s this girl. She’s a little young for you—okay, like super young for you—but she can’t seem to get you out of her head. She also happens to have three boyfriends, so, like I said, complicated.”
“Interesting. Tell me more about her.”
“Well, she likes the color pink and has a pretty dark, twisted past. She has a thing for torture and her natural hair color is blond. She has her own dark side, too.”
“Yeah? Does she have a name?”
“It’s funny,” she whispered, sounding anything but amused. Given the situation, I couldn’t blame her. “I could’ve been describing Lola, but in this case, I was talking about me. Kieran wouldn’t be happy, but I could probably make him come around. Would it… would it be too weird for you? It’s okay if it would. I get it.”
“You know—” I paused as I brought my hand to her face, tucking some of her pink hair behind her ear. “—believe it or not, I’ve never found myself in a situation like this before. It’s definitely on the weirder side of things where I stand, but maybe it wouldn’t be too bad. Maybe the weirdness would be worth it.”
Fuck. I didn’t even know what I was saying or why I was saying it. It would be so easy to shut this down. After all, every reason I shouldn’t want her, she just listed: she was too young for me, she was dating my son, and she had two other boyfriends besides that. Plenty of reasons for me to end this little talk right here and now.
Though it was the last thing I expected to see, I saw it: the slow, warm smile that spread on her face, the way her eyes seemed to twinkle. That smile, that expression on her face, they combined and did something to me, made me warm in ways that I hadn’t felt in a long, long time.
“Good to know,” she whispered.
“Yeah.” I ran my thumb against her cheek. “I might get knifed in the middle of the night by my son, but what can you do?”
Laina actually let out a tiny giggle. “That’ll happen sometimes.”
It took an ungodly amount of restraint in me to not lean down and kiss her after that. I never knew I had that kind of restraint, never needed it before. This was new territory for me, in many different ways. The absolute last thing I thought, whenI came to the city, was that I’d turn on my daughter and end up siding with the person she seemed to hate above all others.
And I definitely didn’t think I’d start to fall for her, let alone that I’d feel anything for her at all, but here I was, with such feelings I could not ignore.
Laina’s eyelids grew heavy, and I could tell she was close to dozing off. Crying took a lot out of a person, plus the shock and grief; I could imagine why she was so exhausted. I let her fall asleep in my arms, and I held her as she slept. When she woke, I’d make her eat something, even if she didn’t want to.
I swore, though, if that girl called medaddyone more time, I’d put her over my knee and show her just how much of a daddy I could be.
Chapter Twenty-One – Laina
Jason was giving real daddy energy when I woke up. He made me come downstairs with him, and he brought along the takeout Lola had ordered, arranged it on a plate for me, and threw it in the microwave. He also got me something to drink.
