“Hello?” a sleepy voice answers.
“Hey, stubborn.”
Chapter 28
Mae
“IsNaomiokay?”Iask him, half-asleep yet awake enough to know something is very wrong.
“Did I wake you up?” he asks.
“That doesn’t matter, Coop. Is she okay? Are you okay?” I ask him again.
There’s a pause, and I almost think the phone call dropped.
“Yes, Naomi is safe, but I don’t know,” he rasps. I can hear the exhaustion in his voice, and I wish I could hug him.
“What can I do?”
He chuckles dryly, and tears prick my eyes. I hate this. I hate that I can hear the pain of regret in his voice. My instant reaction is to help, to comfort, but that would also mean I’m past the shallow end and I’ll have to start swimming.
“I don’t know,” he says.
“I know I have no ground to stand on when I say this, but … you shouldn’t beat yourself up. You thought this was best for Naomi.”
He takes a long breath and doesn’t answer.
“It’s hard not to. Did I mess her up with her screwed-up mother?” he asks.
The answer is maybe, but that doesn’t help at the moment.
“You did what you thought was right. You were giving your sister another chance. That means something.”
“A lot of good it did,” he sighs.
“She’s safe in her bed, unharmed. Focus on that.”
“You’re right, stubborn. See, that’s the perfect name for you. You’re stubborn evenwith good things.”
I smile to myself and draw shapes on my sheets. The nickname annoys me, yet I have to admit it’s fitting.
“What would be even more helpful is you lying here next to me, telling me I’m not a screw-up father,” he says.
I smile to myself, imagining being next to him, but the last thing Naomi needs is to have her world shaken up again by finding her father with a woman she barely knows.
So video chatting is the closest we can get.
“Answer the video,” I tell him.
He pops up on my screen, and I take in his tired face with a small smile and heavy eyes.
“You’re not a screw up father, Cooper Hayes.”
“Would you tell me if I was?” he asks.
“I wouldn’t be talking to you if you were.”
“Fair.”
