“I guess she is,” I admitted.
Sam smiled. “You guess?”
“I mean, I’ve been a little busy trying to keep her alive to notice much else.” I tried to downplay how much this little girl already had me wrapped around her tiny fingers.
“You’re doing good, you know,” Sam said. “It’s only been a week. Nobody expects you to have it all figured out yet.”
“Thanks, Sam. I know this isn’t exactly what you signed up for when you took Foster’s room.”
She shrugged her shoulder. “Eh, it’s fine. I knew things wouldn’t be boring living with you guys, and you’vecertainly delivered on that. Anyway, you should try to get some sleep.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “Didn’t you say you were meeting Harper tomorrow? Or later today at this point?”
I grimaced slightly at the reminder. Just the thought of sitting across from her for hours, pretending to be civil, made me tired. And that was saying something, considering how exhausted I already was.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “Should be interesting.”
She patted me on the arm and then headed to her room.
As I looked down at my daughter again, sleeping so peacefully in my arms, something inside me shifted. I started thinking about more than just diapers and feeding schedules and whether I was completely screwing this up.
I started thinking about the kind of man I wanted to be for her.
The kind of man I wanted her to think her father was.
And that led to thinking about the kind of men I’d want her to date someday, and what I’d do to any guy who treated her the way I’d been treating…
Well, the way I’d been treating Harper.
The realization hit me like a puck to the gut.
I’d been a grade A asshole. Not just to Harper, but to a lot of girls over the years. I’d treated dating like a game, relationships like something to avoid, and emotions like a weakness. I’d been the guy who treated hookups like transactions, who kept everything surface level and casual, who made it clear from the start that feelings weren’t part of the deal. Who never let anyone get close enough to matter.
And now I had a daughter.
A daughter who would grow up watching how I treated women. Who would learn what to expect from men based on what she saw from me. Who might someday date guyswho thought it was funny to mess with girls’ heads, or who saw women as conquests instead of people.
The thought made me feel physically sick.
I’d been that guy. Hell, I wasstillthat guy.
But looking down at my daughter’s sleeping face, I knew I couldn’t be that guy anymore. Not if I wanted my daughter to be proud of me, and not be ashamed of the example I was being for her.
Maybe it was time to take Gordy’s advice seriously and end the feud with Harper. If I was going to be the bigger person, that meant stopping all retaliation against her.
I’d fight anyone who ever treated my daughter the way I’d treated Harper. Hell, I’d probably end up in jail if some college asshole pulled the kind of stunts I’d been pulling.
But knowing that and knowing how to change it were two completely different things.
How did I let go of something that had been ingrained in me for as long as I could remember? How did I change patterns that felt like they were part of my DNA or as easy as breathing? How did I become the kind of man my daughter deserved to call her father?
The weight of her in my arms, so small and trusting, made one thing clear—I was going to have to figure it out.
For her sake, if not for my own.
SIXTEEN
Some kind of alien had to have body-snatched Drew Dumontier.
That was the only explanation for why he was currently beingniceto me. Actually nice. Not his usual brand of fake politeness that came with hidden barbs, but genuinely grateful and almost apologetic.
