Page 141 of Hot Shot

My phone rings before the cops even exit their vehicle.

Tate’s voice is tight on the other end. “I’ve got Cricket with me.”

A wave of relief slams into me, nearly taking me down. “Tate’s got her,” I choke, and Cass gasps, then sighs, moving to meet the police. “Where are you?”

“She was riding her bike down 193.” I hear the bed of his truck slam shut. “Where are you? I’m bringing her to you.”

“Main Street. What was she doing?”

“Dunno. Haven’t gotten that far, called as soon as I got her.”

“All right. Okay. Okay.”

“I’ve got her. She’s okay,” he promises.

With a shaky breath, I thank him, and we hang up.

Time is warped as we wait for Tate and Cass talks to the police officer, though I’m not paying attention to him. My eyes are locked on the road in the direction I know they’ll be coming from.

When I see his truck, I have to physically stop myself from running toward him, but the second he pulls in, I rush to his passenger door where Cricket sits.

She’s unbuckled and in my arms in a heartbeat, her little arms around my neck and body quaking with sobs. My face is buried so she doesn’t see the tear I can’t contain. It falls somewhere in her hair, lost. And I whisper that it’s all right, that I’m sorry, squeezing her so tight, I can feel every tiny bone in her ribcage.

“What happened, baby?” I ask, rocking her side to side mindlessly, my back turned to everyone. “Where did you go?”

“I w-wanted to go to Nana and Pops’,” she says into my neck where her head is still buried.

“You coulda told me, bug.”

“I didn’t w-want to make anything else bad. It’s m-my fault. It’s m-my fault Cassie is sad and now she can’t be a teacher. And you got mad at Avery’s d-dad and got in a fight ‘cause of me. I’malways in trouble and I-I broke everything and I-I wish I never came h-here.” The words trail off into a string of sobs.

“Cricket,” I whisper after a moment, my chest full of shrapnel. “Cricket, baby, look at me.”

I shift so she’s propped on my arm as her grip on my neck loosens, and she sits up. Foggy streaks across her glasses stop me from being able to see her eyes, so I take them off. Her little fists press into her eye sockets and twist, her face red and mottled. When she lowers her hands, the biggest, saddest, amber eyes shine at me.

“First of all, nothing is your fault. Not Avery, not Cassie’s job, notanything… You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Her gaze drops, and she sniffles but doesn’t speak.

“The second I first saw you, I loved you. Did you know that?”

She looks up through her lashes at me and shakes her head.

Emotion floods me, tingling up my neck and tightening my throat.

“It’s true. All I ever wanted from that very second, Cricket, was to love you and take care of you. You have never made anything bad. You’ve only made everythingbetter.It’s the best thing in my entire life that I have you. If you’d never come here, I’d never have gotten to love you. How could I have lived my whole life and never heard you laugh? Seen you smile? I never would have known what it was like to be your Daddy.” I stop when the word breaks. The sight of her quivering chin and sparkling tears are too much.

“I love you too, Daddy,” she says on a sob, curling into my chest, her head buried beneath my chin. “I’m s-sorry I ran away.”

I rub her back. “I’m sorry too. Do you still want to go to Nana’s?”

She shakes her head. “I wanna go home.”

It’s too much to hear her call it home like she’s always lived there. To call me Daddy like I’ve always been there. To love me like she’s always known me. But when I think about it, I can’t say it’s crazy.

I feel the same way about her.

When I’ve gotten myself together enough to face everybody, they’re busy doing other things. Cass and Tate are finishing putting her bike in the back, and Cass has Cricket’s little backpack on one shoulder. The cop is back in his squad car with the windows down and waves me over for a brief exchange before he heads off. I thank Tate and tell him I’ll text him. I only let Cricket go to transfer her to Cass when they reach for each other. And I’m smashed and shattered and broken in all new ways when I listen to them cry and comfort each other.

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