Page 15 of Finding You

Grace blinked at him. “Right. Dallas, the secret boyfriend. And how long have you two been together?”

“A year. It’s serious,” Kylen went on. In for a fucking penny, it seemed. If he was going to tell a lie, he was going to make it a big one. “I think we’re in love.”

“You think.” She laughed and rolled her eyes. “You’re a pathetic waste.”

“And you’re a bitch,” he snapped back. “The only reason I tolerate you is because you’re not a bitch to my daughter.”

Grace looked hurt. “I’m not trying to be that way, you know. But you don’t give me a lot of room to work on you here.”

“Because I don’t need you to work on me. I’m perfectly happy.”

“With your secret long-term boyfriend named Dallas that no one has ever seen.” She licked her lips. “I’m gonna go. See you tonight.”

She was hurt, but so was he. He wasn’t going to chase her down. He wasn’t going to say sorry. His family had been stomping all over his personal boundaries for years. He was bound to crack eventually.

And if anyone wouldn’t mind being used for a small, white lie, he figured Dallas might be the one.

Chapter Five

KYLEN

“I don’t…I don’t like it.”

Kylen sighed, staring back at the video screen, then at Flora, who was trying to shake the braids off her head. Since she was little, he’d dedicated at least three hours of his week to watching braid tutorials for her. She had Dani’s hair—2C curls that had a lovely coil so long as he kept on top of their care. But her hair was nothing like his own, so he’d done everything he could to learn how to care for it.

And some days were good.

And some days, nothing turned out right.

“Want to leave it down? We can pin back the front with bows,” he suggested.

She looked on the verge of a tantrum, but after a beat, she took in a deep breath, then counted, “One, two, three, four, five.”

He’d seen her do this the other day too. “Baby?” he asked when she was calm. “What’s the counting for?”

“It’s some seconds. It push…um, it just push all the bad feelings out and let all the good ones come in. But it’s okay to have bad feelings.”

“Is that what Mr. Reed taught you?” he asked her as he handed her the bag with all her bows.

She rummaged through. “Yep,” she said, popping the P. “I could be mad or sad or glad or even I could be bad. But I should try not to be bad.”

“He sounds like a smart teacher,” Kylen said. He was looking forward to meeting the guy. He had a picture in his head—older, greying, glasses, maybe even a bow tie. He sounded a little like what he’d always wanted his grandpa to be like.

“He’s gonna see you tonight.”

She hopped off his lap and ran off, and Kylen climbed to his feet. He needed a shower, but he wanted to get out of the house before Grace had the chance to show up and ruin his evening, so he grabbed his keys and phone, then directed Flora to her shoes.

“Let’s go get chicken nuggets,” he said.

She threw her Barbie across the room. It hit the wall with a dull thud, and she burst into laughter before running and skidding to a halt by their shoe rack. “I want sauce!”

“Whatever my princess wants,” he answered her. He hated that he meant it too.

They were halfway through dinner when he got a flurry of calls from Grace, but he sent her to voicemail and got Flora to finish up so they could get to the school. Parent night wasn’t structured. All the classrooms were open, and parents could visit at their leisure. What he wanted was to get there early so he could thank Mr. Reed for being someone steady in Flora’s life when things were a little chaotic.

He wanted to peruse her art and see her little craft table and then get the fuck out before others showed up and wanted to make small talk. He didn’t want to answer questions about his home life, and he didn’t want to get coffee with random strangers whose only connection to him was their kids sharing a teacher.

He would never be a normal dad—not like the ones he ran into.

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