Page 115 of Power Play

Janice nodded.

“Then we’re going to a lawyer and we’re going to work out a child support plan and a custody arrangement. I’m not taking her from you, but I want her in my life in a real way.”

She wiped tears that slipped down her cheeks. “Okay,” she said. “That sounds good.”

“My schedule is difficult,” I said. “It won’t be fifty-fifty all the time, but when it can be, I’d really like it to be.”

If she’d fought me I would have dropped the hammer. The hammer being money. But Janice had made a mistake and she knew it. It was time to fix it.

“Let’s go,” I said, stepping across the kitchen, past her to the doorway to the living room.

She caught my hand. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and I nodded. Tears, man. They really messed me up.

“It’s okay,” I said. “We’re fixing it.”

“You really are the best man I’ve ever known,” she said. I wrapped an arm around her and gave her a much-needed hug. She wasn’t for me. She was right, I didn’t love her. I never had. But she was a good person. An excellent mom, and we would figure out this parenting thing together.

In the living room, Tess put down her book when she saw us and gave me her toothless grin. For the first time since finding out she was mine, I had a spike of nerves. What if she didn’t want me to be her dad? What if this was upsetting to her? We were about to change her life and I knew it was for the best, but she was just a kid.

“Hey bug,” Janice said, getting down on her knees beside the couch. She tenderly touched her daughter’s face, pushing back her hair, careful of the stitches. “We have something to tell you.”

I sat down on the coffee table and smiled at Tess, who reached out and patted my knee. “What?” she asked.

“Well,” Janice said. “Remember how I said some kids get dads and some kids don’t?”

“Yep, and that’s that,” Tess finished.

“I wasn’t being truthful,” Janice said. “And I should have been.” She was getting herself into the weeds with this confession and she needed an assist.

“Whelp, turns out you’re a kid who gets a dad after all,” I said. “Me.”

Tess looked skeptical and she reminded me so much of Kit in that moment it hurt.

“I know. It’s crazy. But it’s true. I’m your dad.”

She looked at me and then at Janice. Back at me. “Really?” she said.

I nodded, words clogged in my throat. She stood up from the couch and put her hands on my cheeks. Her blue eyes looking deep into mine. I didn’t know what she saw. If she saw someone she could love. Someone she could be proud of. Someone she trusted and felt safe with. I wanted her to. I wanted her to see a man who would move mountains for her. Tears filled my eyes because I loved her so much.

She was mine. My daughter. My girl.

She patted my cheek and said, “Cool. Can we get pie for breakfast?”

29

Kit

Three days after being dropped off by Liam I woke up, fuzzy eyed from crying and sick to my stomach. I rolled over and the chip bag I’d comforted myself with last night rustled.

Oh. I had to stop eating my feelings. I wasn’t going to fit into my cat costume.

He wasn’t coming. Of course, he wasn’t. I’d told him not to. I needed to figure out what came next, only what I really wanted was another bag of Doritos.

I stared at the ceiling of my room and felt a disturbance in the house.

The low rumble of a man’s laugh.

The smell of coffee and bacon.

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