Page 67 of Her Hat Trick Daddies
“Shane—”
“Wait.” I raise my hand, needing to finish. “If I could take back what I said, how I reacted, I would in a heartbeat. I was wrong. You didn’t deserve that."
A moment of silence hangs between us.
"I’ve wanted a kid of my own for as long as I can remember. So I could give them the kind of love I never had. After Callie, I gave up on that dream. I buried it. And when you told us about Luna… it shook me. I had to dig deep, drag all that hope back out of hiding. The promise I made to my future kid.”
Leighton’s fingers twist in her lap. Her eyes shimmer with conflict—hurt, sympathy, sadness, all tangled up. She looks down, biting her lip, like she’s holding back words she’s not ready to let out yet.
Finally, her voice breaks the silence, soft but strained. “I don’t even know what to say.” Her shoulders rise and fall with a shaky breath, the air between us feeling too tight, too fragile to hold everything we’re both carrying.
“I want to make it up to you. We all do. To both of you.”
Her gaze lifts, guarded. “Both?”
“Yeah. You and Luna.”
Her spine straightens a little, her eyes narrowing just enough to remind me she’s not about to let me off easy. “I get her. But why me?”
I open my mouth, then hesitate. The words matter too much to just throw them out there. “Because… I can’t be part of Luna’s life without respecting you first. You matter in this.”
She exhales slowly, nodding once, but her expression stays wary. “She’s the priority. That’s all that matters right now.”
“And I get that. She needs me… but the truth is, I need her, too.”
Her arms fold across her chest, protective but not shutting down completely. “That’s a good start. For her. But this is going to take time and patience, Shane. A lot of it. We have to go on her timing.”
Hope stirs, faint but real. “I’m ready for that. For whatever it takes.” I meet her eyes, my voice dipping. “And… I meant it when I said I want to make things right with you.”
David steps in, calm and sure. “We mean it.”
Leighton’s eyes flick between us. “And what does that even mean? ‘Make things right.’ It’s easy to say. A lot harder to do.”
Andy’s voice softens. “It means we want to take care of you, darlin’. And Luna.We all did this together. It only feels right that we be in it together.”
Her jaw becomes rigid. “I’ve been doing fine on my own. We don’t need rescuing.”
David steps forward carefully, not wanting to crowd her. “We know. We’re not here to be heroes. You’ve done everything, and you’ve done an incredible job.But… you don’t have to do it alone anymore. Not if you don’t want to.”
Her eyes flash with something, vulnerability, maybe? Andy steps in closer, adding quietly, “And you know there’s something between us. There always has been. We’d be crazy not to at least give us a chance.”
She sighs, caught between temptation and responsibility.
I reach for the bag I’d set down by the chair when we walked in, my hands suddenly feeling too big, too clumsy. “These are for her,” I murmur.
She hesitates, but takes it, pulling the tissue paper back slowly. Her fingers brush over the soft fabric, and then she freezes.
She lifts out the first tiny jersey, unfolding it with a kind of quiet reverence. It’s so damn cute, smaller than I even pictured, our team colors bright and bold, my name stitched across the back in bold lettering. Her fingers linger there for a moment before she pulls out the next one—Andy’s. Then David’s. Each one custom, each one made just for Luna.
She presses them to her chest like she can’t help it, her breath catching hard. Her eyes shine, and she blinks fast, like she’s fighting to hold it together, but her fingers keep stroking the fabric, again and again.
“She’s going to drown in these,” she whispers, her voice thick, shaking with something deeper than just surprise. “But… they’re so perfect.”
I swallow the knot in my throat, my voice rough. “I had them made special. One for each of us. So no matter where she is, she knows we’ve got her back.”
She remains quiet, and suddenly, it feels like the whole room holds its breath.
Finally, her voice breaks the quiet. “This… this is a lot. And I don’t know where it will lead. But I need to do it for Luna.”
