Page 6 of Property of Indiana

I look up at Harrison through my eyelashes, hoping he can read the displeasure without me having to state it out loud. He tucks his lips into his mouth but I can see the mirth dancing in his eyes as he aims his gaze at me. He shrugs his shoulders innocently and tucks me closer into his chest.

“Live a little, darling.” I melt when he uses that voice on me, and that word, darling, used to make my knees weaken whenever he’d say it in his husky tone. Damn him and his panty melting voice.

I try one more time to sway her. “El, you’ll need to wear those with jeans or shorts, sweetie, which means you can’t wear your sandals that we ordered the other day.”

While she’ll wear pants and what-not, it’s usually only at home. School always has her decked out in skirts and tops, or flouncy dresses. The more over-the-top girly it looks, the more she justhas to have it. Hell, I can hear her saying it in my head, for crying out loud!

“I can wear these on Fridays, Mama,” she replies. “You ordered me some dresses already, and I’ll just have those for the rest of the week.” She shrugs like it’s no big deal, only I know how my morning child is as opposed to this little girl who’s standing in front of me, grinning.

Morning Elodie is a beast. Even if we put her clothes out the night before so we’re ready to go, she often ends up changingher mind. Multiple times, no less. It’s one of the reasons why we get up two hours ahead of the time when we’re supposed to head out.

“Two, we ordered two,” I reiterate. She sighs and shakes her head at me as if I don’t get it.

“They have skirts over here that are jeweled,” Icer, ever so helpfully, points out. “They’d look rad with those tops and there are jackets in different colors we could get too.” I glance over at Harrison to see what he thinks about all of this and notice him comically mouthing the word ‘rad’ to himself and shaking his head in disbelief.

“See, Mama, we’ve got this,” Elodie apprises, dragging Icer over to help her coordinate the tops, skirts, and jackets.

Harrison starts laughing at the expression on my face, so I turn my ire on him. “You’re not helping the situation, you big dummy!” I whisper-yell as I smack his stomach. Yelping when I’m met with nothing but steel hard abs, I glare at him. “Can’t you do something? Like control him?”

He tries several times to reply but has to keep stopping because he’s laughing so hard. Finally, he puts his hand up, takes a deep breath and says, “The Icer y’all are seeing right now isnotthe brother I’ve known for years. Trust me on this, he’s a mean motherfucker who barely tolerates the brothers in the club. Strangers are definitely a no-go for him.”

“Then what happened to have him practically prancing around the mall with a little girl?” I stammer as I watch Icer and Elodie add to her clothing stash. “This is absurd, Harrison.”

“He uh… well, we normally slip him something to keep him calm while he’s out amongst society,” Harrison admits. “Not surewhat the combo was today, but I’ve honestlyneverseen him act this way. It’s why I’ve been taking videos because he might not remember.”

“Childish, Harrison. That’s the name for how he’s acting.” I sigh. “But if this is an outlet for him, and he’s acting differently around my daughter, then I’ll cave. A little, but I think we need to wrangle the two of them in.”

“I can try, but like I stated before, this is a different man than the one I know. I’d rather not set him off and acting like his usual self if I can help it. He has some sort of connection with Elodie, look,” he tells me, pointing out the duo. Icer has his eyes narrowed on a kid and her father as they take the last pink leather jacket in Elodie’s size. “We don’t want to unleash the beast, I can promise you that.”

“Oh, holy hell, go get him. Now, Harrison. Go tame that beast while I grab Elodie.” She’s facing off with the little girl while Icer is nose-to-nose with the dad. “Those two may be a bad influence on each other.”

“Oh,” Harrison expresses, pulling me back. “I don’t think I’m Icer’s tamer, that seems to be your little princesses job. Watch.” Glancing over, I notice Elodie grabbing Icer’s hand and looking up at him the way I look at her when I’m trying to wrench her away from whatever has her tensing up. She’s redirecting him the way I do her by pointing out something different.

“Can we hire her?” Harrison asks. “We can pay, as a matter of fact, I’ll put her on salary.”

“As what? A lion tamer?” I ask, huffing.

“More or less,” he answers, slanting his head sideways as we catch the two jumping up and down when they find the samejacket they were squaring off with the father and daughter hidden behind a stack of shirts.

“Look, Indiana. We found one, someone tried to hide it so they could come back later and grab it,” Icer informs me.

Indiana sticks both thumbs up in the air and says, “That’s great, man.”

“See, perseverance pays off,” Icer schools Elodie. My jaw drops to my chest plate as he educates her on patience—to which he has none, and how you should never give up on what you want.

“How much child support do you want?” Harrison suddenly asks.

“Excuse me?” I inquire, not sure if I understood him correctly.

“I’m going to need visitation rights, Zoey. Icer will never let that girl out of his sight now that he’s bonded with her. She has a new uncle which means she's now officially a club princess. I’m going to claim her as mine.”

I stagger back from him, and when his arms fall from my shoulders I feel bereft, but that’s not something I can worry about right now. This man, the one who completely owned me heart and soul when I was a teenager, just insinuated that he’s ‘claiming’ my daughter. What does that even mean?

“Explain that,” I demand, crossing my arms over my chest, yet keeping a keen eye on my daughter as she and Icer find biker boots and she starts trying them on. I realize that Icer has found the girly-girl version because the ones my daughter is currently sliding on have sparkles running up the sides. There’s no doubt they’re biker boots at all, but they’ve been made to appealto those who embrace their femininity, which my daughter wholeheartedly does.

“This is not what I expected when I woke up this morning,” I mewl, shaking my head.

“I’m not sure what you’ve been running from, Zoey, and you may not have anticipated this becoming your life when you walked out your front door this morning, but babe, trust me, your life just got so much better.”

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