Page 60 of Power Play

“Is it okay if I sleep on the bed this time? I’m a little too old now to be sleeping on the floor,” I say with a smile.

She smiles through her tears, nodding as I walk toward her, climbing into the bed and pulling her into me.

I pull her head to my chest and tell her to cry. Let it out.

Except, tonight—unlike four years ago—I can kiss her and tell her that tomorrow will be better. Because it will be.

“Let out that breath you’ve been holding for four years, baby,” I tell her. “I’m going to take care of you.”

CHAPTERTWENTY

lo

I wakethe next morning to sunlight streaming in through my window—something that doesn’t happen often with a toddler that wakes up before the sun. I blink a few times, my cheek pressed up against Levi’s bare chest. I draw in a long breath, remembering the events of the night before, and let it out, knowing that it’s over.

“Good morning, baby,” he whispers. I tilt my head up, and he kisses me.

“Hi,” I say back.

“Get up, lovebirds!” we hear my dad call from downstairs. We smile. “Breakfast out back in five!”

And in five minutes, we’re sitting on the back patio again, finishing off a fresh stack of pancakes that my dad made and watching Harper on her swing. Tate dropped her off early, but my dad let us sleep. God, I love my family. Levi has his arm around me, and when my dad walks out, he doesn’t move it.

But my dad doesn’t even flinch. It’s almost like he expects it.

“Hey, Harper,” Levi calls as he claps the crumbs off his hands and pushes his plate to the center of the table.

“Yeah?” she says as she hangs upside down from the bar on her swing-set.

“Can you come here for one sec? I need you to do me a favor,” he says. She flips off the bar and comes prancing up the lawn, her princes dress tripping her up along the way. She smiles as she gets to him, and he holds his hands out. She jumps into them, and he sets her on the table in front of him. “I need you to call Uncle Ty for me. Can you do that?” he asks. I raise an eyebrow as she grabs the phone excitedly. He presses Tyson’s name and puts it on speaker.

“Hey,” Tyson says, breathy, and we can hear the clanking of metal in the background.

“Hi, Uncle Ty,” she says.

“H-hey, Harp,” he says. “What are you doing with Levi’s phone?”

“I asked her to call you,” Levi says. “Sorry to interrupt your workout. I just wanted to see if you were busy tomorrow night.”

There’s a pause.

“No…” Tyson says, suspicion in his voice. Levi leans forward and whispers something in

Harper’s ear, and I can’t help but smile at how comfortable she is with him now.

“All of us?” she asks with enthusiasm, her big brown eyes wide and full of excitement. He nods. “Levi says we can all go to his hockey game tomorrow! All of us! Even me,” she says, clapping her hands and dropping the phone on the table, forgetting she was holding it in the first place. He looks at me, smiling, and picks the phone back up.

“Did you catch that?” he laughs.

“Fuck yeah, I did!” Tyson says. “Oops, sorry, Harp.”

“She’s back to playing,” Levi says.

“Okay, good. Fucking yeah! What time do we go?”

“Well, you’re gonna come pick up your dad, Harper, Tate, and Demi around four and head downtown.” I shoot him a confused look. “Lo and I are heading downtown tonight. We will meet you guys at the game.”

My eyes widen.

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