Page 79 of My Mistake To Make

‘Fun time over?’ I ask softly, smiling slightly, and he meets my gaze.

‘I’m sorry.’

I shake my head. ‘Don’t be. You have to do what you have to do.’ And right now, he has to be a dad.

I’m In The Photo Too

Doug

I’m pissed off. Wewere having a great day, and as though she’d been summoned from the depths of hell by the mere mention of her name, Jessie had to text and ruin everything.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say again as I kiss Cara on her doorstep.

‘Doug, go. It’s fine.’

It’s not fucking fine. I lean in to kiss her again, and she laughs.

‘Do I need to call Bree and have her remove you from the property?’ She pushes gently on my chest, smiling that sweet, genuine smile she’s had all day. ‘Go.’

I step back, taking another look at her standing there, the door open, the bags of things we bought for the house behind her, then turn and head for my truck.

‘Where were you?’ Jessie snaps as I climb out of my truck in front of my house, and I take a breath to calm myself. Bo is right behind her.

‘Hey, honey.’ I smile at my baby as she runs to me, and I scoop her up to give her a kiss.

‘I asked you a question.’

I glare at Jessie for a moment before putting Bowie down. ‘Go and see Grandma,’ I say, and she runs into the house. ‘You need to stop this,’ I hiss, and Jessie laughs.

‘Not until she’s eighteen.’

I look up to the sky, praying for an intervention, a lightning strike, or for the ground to open up and take her back to where she came from.

‘You didn’t answer me.’

‘You’re not my mom or my boss, Jess. It’s none of your business what I do with my Saturdays.’

I see the fire in her eyes. I need to put it out before she blows. The frustration of having my day cut short has me pushing her in ways I usually steer clear of, but I need to stop and play the game a little longer.

‘I was working.’

‘You weren’t. I went up to that ridiculous house, and you were not there.’ She pops her hip and grins, thinking she caught me in a lie. ‘It’s ugly if you ask me, that stupid white kitchen and the blankets in front of the fire. Is that what she does for fun, sits all alone and watches the fire burn.’ She releases a laugh that Iknow is intended to point out that she’s making fun of Cara, but I heard it all through high school when she was the mean girl I refused to see at the time.

‘It’s private property, Jess. You don’t get to go looking in windows.’ I hate the idea of her anywhere near that house. It’s become my safe space, and it’s the place I get to hold Cara in my arms. If Jessie feels she can just wander up and start getting an eyeful, that safety goes away, and so does what I have with Cara.

She sucks her cheeks in and flares her nostrils in frustration that I’m not rising to her or bowing down to her.

‘You didn’t answer me. Where were you?’

‘I did answer you. I told you I was working. Not all the work I need to do is up at the house. Why are you here, Jessie? Bowie is with you this weekend. That was your choice.’

‘I changed my mind. I got a better offer.’

‘Jessie.’ I sigh and look at her, pleading. ‘You can’t keep doing this.’ I step forward, closing the gap between us a little, and I see the way she glances up at me, wondering why I’m getting closer to her than I have in years, the flicker of something behind the confusion in her eyes. ‘We can do better than this.’ I reach out to hold her arms, and her lips part, a little crease forming between her eyebrows. ‘Why don’t we sit down and work out a better way to do this, to be her parents? We’ve known each other forever, Jessie. We were everything to each other once. Can’t we work together on this?’

I don’t know where that came from. I haven’t tried to plead with her this way, tried to work with her on this, since she abandoned that tiny girl into my care so that she could go and party before I’d had the chance to accept that I was a father, but I can’t keep fighting with her. I can’t keep living in fear of pissing her off.

We maintain eye contact for a moment until she shakes her head and steps back out of my hold and away.

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