“Who are you texting?”
At the sound of my father’s voice, I jump, and my phone clatters to the kitchen counter, knocking over the protein shake I just made. “Shit.”
Eyeing me warily, he reaches for the paper towels, then picks up my phone to wipe it off.
My stomach churns. Shit, what if he sees JJ’s name?
Heart racing, I try to snag the paper towel out of his hand. “I can do that.”
He chuckles, but he doesn’t let go. “I’m not going to look at your messages. You’re not twelve. You can have secrets.” He cleans it off, hands it back to me, then turns to the sink and picks up the sponge.
“What are you doing here?” I say awkwardly.
He glances over his shoulder, brows furrowed. “What’s going on with you?”
Instantly, I feel properly chastised. It’s silly to act this way, but my father is not going to be happy when he finds out about JJ and me, and I hate disappointing people. It’s the competitor in me, mostly, though there are other factors, I suppose. The whole abandonment thing for sure. I never want to give my dad a reason to leave me the way Drake did.
Shame hits me a second after that thought does. Beckett isn’t Drake, yet I can’t help but worry that one day, he’ll tire of me.
Why do I allow what one person did years ago dictate so much of my life and shape my personality? I doubt the man has so much as thought of us in years. Why does he get to consume so many of my thoughts?
“Can I ask you something?” I say instead of answering his question.
Face softening, he walks over with the sponge and works to clean the rest of my mess. “Of course.”
I take a deep breath. “Was it, um—” I twist my lips, searching for the right words. “Was it hard to get us kids to open up to you when you first came around? Like…did we struggle asking for…” I huff a breath. “When did things get easier for Finn and Winnie?”
He studies me, his green eyes full of curiosity.
When he doesn’t respond right away, I start to ramble. “The kids in this house…they all, well, they’re kind of like we were.” I don’t know why, but my eyes fill with tears. “Half families. With parents who walked away. Who didn’t choose them. Not Dec and Beck, I guess. But the girls.”
I swallow thickly and clear the emotion from my throat. “I want to make things easier and I thought you might know how. Because you’re you, so you must have figured it out. And, well, I don’t know. How do I do that? How do I help Avery not feel like there’s something wrong with her because her mom won’t call her back?”
Dad drops the sponge onto the counter, leaving the mess as it is, and pulls out the stool beside me. As he angles my way, I swear his shoulders take on my burden. Like he’s feeling it with me. Helping me carry it. Then he shakes his head. “I don’t think you can fix that. And I certainly couldn’t fix it for Winnie and Finn. Especially Winnie.” He sighs. “But I want to be very clear about this: I’m a selfish man, Addie. I loved your mother so much. For a very long time. Probably longer than was appropriate.”
I let out a surprised laugh. “Really?”
He nods, his mouth curving into a wistful smile. “Had I known how badly she struggled and for how long, I wouldn’t have hesitated to break up their marriage.” He shrugs, grimacing a little. “I was a bit obsessed.”
My smile grows. That’s not new information. He loves my mother fiercely. She loves him completely, but there’s something extra in everything my father does.
“My point is,” he starts, hands on his knees, “I didn’t want Drake in the picture. I had come in and everything was going well, but I knew that I couldn’t just replace him.” A shock of pain flits across his face. “I wasn’t their father. I could step in and raise them and love them, but they’d always have the scars he left on them. So your mother and I gave him another chance. But only one. He had a choice. Be in your lives or be out. Because the coming in and out whenever he chose would have been catastrophic to them.”
I nod.
“I say I’m selfish because I wept the day he told us he’d give up custody completely.”
I frown. This part of the story is new to me. They never said a word.
“And they weren’t tears of sadness, Little One. They were tears of joy. Because I could finally be their dad.”
“You keep talking about them, but that’s me too,” I choke out.
He straightens, his eyes widening. “What?”
“He didn’t choose me either. I-I wasn’t enough. Or maybe I was thetoo much. I was the third child, and I was barely more than a baby when he left. So maybe it wasn’t them. Maybe it was me.”
His eyes fall shut and he shakes his head. For the first time in my life, he mutters a legitimate curse in front of me.
