Page 18 of Sweet Distraction

His Adam’s apple bobs as he closes his eyes for a beat. “I don’t want—”

“You’re not going to disturb her. She’s three and three-year-olds sleep like a rock.”

“I just,” he says, but his eyes flutter up and then over to Poppy.

I loosen my hold on her now that I can use the back of the couch for support. Her body turns more, and her hair falls back and off her cheek.

Rocket’s breath hitches when he sees Poppy’s face for the first time. “She’s still asleep,” he whispers, his voice rougher now. Hesitant.

“She is,” I say. “She’s had a rough and very confusing few days. Nightmares. Tantrums. Missing her mom. Sleep is good for her.”

He grunts but his eyes never stop running over the little girl on my lap. It’s a stretch of time. Of questions in Rocket’s expression that he doesn’t voice aloud. It’s in the bob of his Adam’s apple and the shaking back and forth of his head like he still doesn’t believe she’s real.

If this moment feels like forever to me, I can’t imagine how it feels to him.

“Do you have any questions?” I ask.

A muscle tics in his jaw before he chuckles self-deprecatingly. “Oh, I have a shit ton of them, but not a single one pertains to you.”

I nod. “Understandable. Just remember that whatever those shit ton of questions are, Poppy here is caught in their crossfire and can’t give you a single answer. She’s innocent in all of this.”

His expression shifts—offense, confusion, something wounded just beneath the surface. “Glad you assume I’d blame her.”

“I don’t assume anything. I’m simply stating—”

Unknowingly, Poppy steals the moment when she releases my shirt for the first time to rub her eyes. She emits the cutest little yawn before those thick lashes of hers flutter open.

Her body stiffens as awareness hits her that she’s in yet another new, foreign place. Her emerald-green eyes flicker around before landing back on me. It’s then and only then that a slow, sleep-drugged smile crawls over her lips.

“Hi, sleepyhead,” I say to her. My smile is as automatic as the shrug of her shoulders and the refastening of her hand to my shirt. But it’s the quick intake of breath that Rocket emits on the opposite side of the coffee table that owns the room.

Poppy follows my glance to where Rocket sits, face pale, almost as if he’s trying not to fall apart.

Something shifts behind his eyes. And momentarily, I see a man who’s terrified. Of her. Of this. Of what it might mean to love someone when you have no clue how. Or am I projecting?

“Rocket?” I murmur.

“I—I need a minute,” he says, voice low, raw.

CHAPTER SIX

Rocket

I walk out of the room like I’m heading for a wall to slam into. Or maybe I’ve already hit it and am still staggered from the blow.

I can’t get away fast enough and the minute the door to my office shuts behind me, I press my hands to my knees and struggle to drag in a breath.

Christ.

She looks just like me.

Not in the vague, might-be-yours, could-be-a-coincidence way. No. More like in the way that punches the breath straight from your lungs.

Same green eyes—wary and watchful and way too fucking serious for someone her age.

Same messed up eyebrow that I have where the end feathers up some like my dad’s did too.

And she’s so small.