Page 99 of Love Me

“Me and you.”

“Me and you.”

The next few weeks pass in a blur, the three of us falling into our normal routine, except my nights of sleeping on Hannah’s couch are long gone, and I’ve got the two of them in the home that I hope they’d occupy someday. As soon as Hannah gave me her blessing to adopt Charlie, I contacted the attorney and made a plan to move forward. We plan to tell Charlie after we know that it will be possible, and that starts with the paperwork currently sitting in the manilla folder next to me in the passenger seat.

After three hours of major highway, I pull up in front of the stupid-ass Seattle apartment, not feeling a damn thing except annoyance. Last time I was here, the anger overrode logic and all I wanted to do was smash his stupid fucking face in. But now? I’ve got everything and he’s going to go away, with or without a fight. I’ll win in the end.

I jog up the steps, rapping my knuckles on the door and waiting. Levi opens it just wide enough for me to be able to stick my boot in as he tries to immediately close it once recognition sets in.

“Nope, we’re gonna have a little chat.”

“Get the fuck off my property, Hayes, or I’ll call the cops.”

“Yeah, see, that’s not gonna happen. You’re gonna hear me out or I’ll break your fucking face. How many times do you think a nose can shatter before it leaves permanent damage to your breathing?”

“What do you want?”

“Like I said, to have a little chat.” I push my way through his door, knowing the dickface won’t actually call the cops. Levileaves the door open and spins on me but I’m already taking a seat on his couch, dropping the manilla folder on the coffee table.

“This is more than you deserve, but because I’m a man, I’m coming to you like one first. I’m gonna give it to you straight, Jenkins. You don’t want Charlotte. You never have. You’ve never made an effort and she’s just a little girl who deserves more than that. So, here’s your out.”

I slide the paperwork I had my attorney draw up across the table, his stupid fucking face looking at it without touching it.

“What is this? You serving me now, Hayes?”

“Nah. That’ll come next, Jenkins. This is a relinquishment of rights. You see, I’ve been helping raise Charlotte since the moment she was put into her mom’s tummy by your sleazy, ungrateful ass. I’m her dad. I’ve been there every single day. Diaper changes, late night feedings, her first cold, holding her in a steamy bathroom while she had croup, every birthday, her first day of school, her first scrape, her first time on the ice. I’ve. Been. There. Not you.” I pause before I launch myself at this sonofabitch. “I’m adopting her. We’re going to do an easy and quick stepparent adoption and it’ll be like you never existed at all. You sign the paperwork, and you disappear. If you don’t, I’m going take you to court and make sure it is long and painful, and in the end, I’ll still adopt her. It’s your choice how expensive and miserable you want to make this. But I’m her father, and I’m going to see this through.”

Levi fucking smirks at me, and it takes everything I have, the strength of a fucking monk, not to rip his throat out and shove it up his ass.

“You can have her. But you’ll raise her and spend the rest of your life knowing she’ll never truly be yours, she’s got my blood running through her veins, and knowing you have to live with that makes me feel like I fucking won.”

A toothy smile fills my face, and based off the slight tick in his jaw, I’d wager I look slightly unhinged and demonic.

“That’s the thing, I love that little girl so much, I’ve never given thought to what blood she has in her. She’s mine in every way that matters. I wouldn’t change a goddamn thing because I would never change who she is, and if that means she doesn’t share blood with me? Then so fucking be it. You’ll cease to exist in her life, and I’ll get to spend mine knowing I chose to be in hers every day because she’s the most important thing in the world. I’m the fucking winner here, Jenkins. You’re nothing.”

Levi signs the paperwork, his stupid ass initialing all the places I’ve marked. Once I’ve checked that it’s legit, I stand and walk away without saying another word.

CHAPTER 33

liam

I walkthrough the door with brick oven pizza from Barrel House, my excitement over talking with Charlotte tonight through the roof. Hannah is extra emotional, on the verge of happy tears and barely containing them, which is keeping a thick knot in my throat as I get ready to explain this to Charlie.

After dinner, the three of us grab our blankets and move to the couch to talk, Billy and Penny crawling up into Charlotte’s lap just like they always do. For the first time in a long-ass time, I’m nervous. Hannah rubs my back as I lean forward, bracing my elbows on my knees.

“Charlie, can we talk?”

“Yep!”

“Remember the hockey game we went to and the conversation we had before we left?”

“About different kinds of families and how Evangeline should be nicer.”

“That’s right. Well, I left another type of family out by accident.”

“Whatkind?”

“Adoption.”

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