Page 28 of Big Balls
“No!” she yells, then covers her ears. “No, no, no, no!”
And it’s this precise situation that makes my heart ache with missing Zoe. I can’t seem to do anything right with my own kid, even to the point where I feel like I am worse at this than I was before.
I can’t keep going like this, where every single word I say is a landmine that could explode between us, sending Katy to the far, unreachable places in her head.
When Zoe was taking care of her, she was like an entirely different girl. She tried all sorts of new things, and was always smiling or breaking into laughter. It’s the happiness that I miss most of all. Zoe could always find a way to bring Katy to a place of joy, even through the worst of her storms.
“Okay,” I sigh, rubbing my palms against my eyes. “I know we both need her back.”
Katy’s yelling stops abruptly, and she cracks an eye open to look at me, scanning my face like it’s an equation she wants to solve.
“You’d better not be kidding.”
I shake my head, wrung out with the string of defeats ever since I brought Katy home and told her there was no more Zoe in our lives.
“I’m definitely not kidding. She is the very best, and I’m going to get her back.” I clear my throat. “For you.”
Katy frowns, her face sliding into a look of deep skepticism that I know she learned from me. “You’re never going to get her back.”
I pause, drawn up short by the grave tone of her little tiny voice. “I am, though. I’ll tell her that I’m sorry, and then I’ll give her a bunch of money, and she’ll come back and play with you whenever you want.”
Katy’s frown deepens. “Zoe isn’t like that. She doesn’t care about money.”
I snort. “Everybody cares about money. I’ll make her an offer she can’t refuse.” I let my crappy mafia accent drop when Katy’s look of censure is replaced by puzzlement. “Look Katydid, I will go apologize to Miss Zoe and I promise I won’t leave until she says she’ll come back to play with you again.”
Katy clucks at me like a disapproving mother hen. “We’ll see,” she says ominously. Then she abruptly brightens. “Is Uncle Tate going to stay with me while you go see Auntie Zoe?”
I need to get one of my best friends here to keep an eye on her, but I’m reluctant for it to be Tate. He absolutely ripped me to shreds after finding out I’d fired Zoe in the hallway of the hospital. If I called and asked him, he’d likely offer to go see her himself and then they’d end up talking shit about me, one thing leading to another, then he would probably give her a kiss, just to console her—
Where did my mind even go? I don’t have the time to think about that kind of thing. I need to call someone and make this happen before Katy and I both lose it completely.
“I think I’m going to call Uncle Bash.” Sebastian was equally disapproving, but I know he would be on Team Reconciliation if given half a chance. He’d made it clear he thought I was an idiot of the first degree for letting Zoe walk out of the hospital. And he loves being right.
I could already hear the “I told you so” slipping from his mouth. I was still more than willing to blame him for the series of initial decisions that led to Zoe being in our lives, but it turns out that his instincts were right after all. I was never going to live this down with him.
Better to take it like a man. I call him, and he answers the phone with his most sinister chuckle—the one that let you know he sees himself as the predator and you as the prey. “Well, well. If it isn’t my friend, the deadbeat dad. Already throwing in the towel?”
I force myself to remain calm then attempt to ask him politely to come over and hang out with my daughter.
“I wouldn’t miss this for the world. As long as you can sit here and tell me the magic words.”
The series of words that runs through my mind is more profane than whatever he wants from me, so I finally settle for telling him, “Please.”
His laughter is so maniacal that I’m surprised he isn’t a Marvel villain. How am I actually friends with someone with this much capacity for casual evil in his soul?
“Not those words, Big Balls.” Sebastian’s voice dips into that purr that means he knows he’s winning. “Tell me I was right and you were wrong, and make sure you give it to me from the heart.”
Damn him. He knows how much I hate losing, and having to say I was wrong is one of my own personal nightmares.
It’s one thing to try my best and fail, but it’s an entirely different feeling when I’ve miscalculated the risk and lost. I hate losing with every single fiber of my being.
Sebastian waits while I wrestle with my internal demons. “I’m sorry, but did you actually want me to come over or not? I have things to do, sir.”
Katy’s giving me this seriously mistrustful look, like I’ve already screwed this entire thing up when I haven’t even said a single word to Zoe yet. I can’t let her down on something this important ever again.
“You were right, Sebastian. And I was wrong. We need Zoe in our lives, and I’m glad you made me hire her.” The words are so difficult to say, but they feel right. A little bit of the weight pressing against my heart lifts at being able to speak the truth out loud.
We do need her. And I’m going to have to take some serious risks if I’m going to get her back into our lives.
