Page 26 of Sweet Distraction

A little mini-me.

“What-the-ever-loving-fuck am I going to do?” I ask.

“It’s rubber meets the road time,” Vince says, voice level.

Gizmo coughs out a laugh. “Clearly Rocket doesn’t know much about rubbers.”

“Fuck off.” I flip him the bird. “I always use one.”

“Clearly not well enough,” Hawkin jokes.

I laugh, but it dies a quick death.

“If there’s one thing I know from my own experience,” Vince says, referring to finding out he had a son with his high school sweetheart he didn’t know about, “is that you can’t run from this. Jagger was the last thing I ever wanted but fuck, Rock, now I can’t imagine what my life would be like without him.”

He has a point, but Jagger’s mom—now Vince’s wife—has always been the one for him. He’s loved her since high school. This whole thing with Oliva is nowhere near the same scenario. “This isn’t the same.”

“So, what?” Gizmo asks with a judgmental lift of his brows.

My stomach twists. “She’s got my damn eyes,” I whisper. That sucks the air out of the backyard.

“Let’s hope she doesn’t have your stubborn streak, or you’re fucking screwed, dude,” Gizmo says.

“Look,” Hawkin, our problem solver, says matter-of-factly. “It’s simple. You adapt and adjust. The upside is you have a nanny already to help.”

“Willow.” All three heads turn my way. “The nanny.”

“Oh. Right. Willow,” Hawkin continues and shrugs like how were they supposed to know that. “You have her to help you so that’s a start because you’re being thrown directly into the fire. And then you take this break between legs of the tour to figure shit out.”

“It’s not that easy,” I say.

“No one will ever say parenting is easy,” Vince says through a self-deprecating laugh. “But it’s more of a plan than you have. Three, you said?”

I nod.

“Tough fucking age, but like Vince said, you have the nanny who she knows and who will do everything you need her to do to help out,” Hawkin says.

“She’s not talking,” I blurt out. “Because of the trauma of seeing her mom, you know . . . I don’t know why I felt the need to say that.”

Gizmo nods. “Because you already care about her.”

I start to protest but Vince holds up his hand. “Don’t,” he warns me. “She okay otherwise?”

I startle at the question. One I should know the answer to but don’t. Willow would have told me otherwise, wouldn’t she? “Yeah. I think so.”

“Okay. So you go from there,” Hawkin says. “One step at a time. One minute at a time. One hour at a time. That’s all you can do.”

“I have no idea how to be a dad,” I blurt out. It’s the one thing that keeps circling in my head. “I never had one. I don’t have a clue how to be or what to do or how to not fuck her up.”

“It’s a valid fear,” Vince says.

“But you’re not going to fuck her up,” Gizmo says. “We wouldn’t let you.”

“Use us,” Hawkin says instantly.

“Yep. Use us.” Vince taps the neck of his beer against mine. “We’re basically the gold fucking standard when it comes to fatherhood.”

“You mean chaos and bribery?” Giz teases.