Page 5 of Winning You
“I think she’ll appreciate having you both around. I’d like to keep it on the DL as much as I can though, okay? I don’t want people creeping around, trying to get into our business.”
Fallon looked confused, but Fenton nodded. “Yeah. Fuck everyone else.”
It was not what Frankie would have said, but he appreciated having a brother who didn’t hold back or pull punches.
“This is it,” he finally murmured. “This is life now.”
“At least it’s not sucky,” Fenton said. “She’s pretty cute.”
Frankie chuckled and shrugged. “Yeah, she is. Just hope that’ll make all the difficult toddler years worth it.”
CHAPTER ONE
FRANKIE
“Daddddddddeeeee!”
Frankie pinched the bridge of his nose as he turned the corner in the hallway and found Elodie stuck in her doorway. It was a new, fun game for her she’d started after they moved into the new place a few weeks ago. The doors were more than wide enough for her walker, but she always managed to turn at an angle to ensure the handle and wheel would wedge in the jamb and stick.
“Straight, remember?”
“Nooooo.”
He sighed and took the handles, rocking her back and forth until it dislodged from the wood. She laughed her head off when she rolled back, and he straightened her out. Her eyes, massive from behind her thick glasses, shifted restlessly back and forth.
“Okay. Forward. And hurry up, Bugs, or you’re going to miss the bus.”
That was a lie, of course. Her bus pulled right up to their apartment building, and an aide took her from the door to her seat. Even if it took them a half hour to answer the knocking. But it was his god-given right to say those things as the parent to a toddler.
Or, well, an almost-parent. The adoption motion had been filed since his mom finally agreed to give up her parental rights. He didn’t want to think about the therapy Elodie was going to need later in life when he had to explain to her that her dad was also her brother.
But he’d had her since she was six weeks old, so it wasn’t like they had to adjust their relationship the way he’d needed to do with Fenton and Fallon.
Four years later and she didn’t quite understand that he wasn’t her bio dad.
But they’d deal with that when she was ready.
“Do you want to eat the rest of your Pop-Tart?” he asked when he heard her shuffling behind him.
Her speed picked up as she neared the end of the hallway, and like always, she smashed into the corner with a soft oomph. Not that it mattered. Every corner of their house was padded with pool noodle foam. Her physical and occupational therapists recommended it until she became a bit more aware of her surroundings.
Her cerebral palsy made it hard for her to start and stop gracefully when she got going, and her cortical blindness made it hard for her to see objects that didn’t have a lot of contrast. He’d tried to fix that by painting the foam padding black, but he was starting to think she enjoyed giving him an anxiety rush every time she hurtled headfirst toward something dangerous.
“Mmm’not hungry,” she said. Her words were more clear now since she’d started taking speech therapy. Her cerebral palsy luckily didn’t affect her tongue or hands as much as it did her legs, which he was grateful for.
It meant she could start her therapy sooner. And she could work on braille.
“You’ll regret that later, Bugs.”
She just giggled and headed for the spot on the wall where she kept her backpack. It was bright pink and white with unicorns all over it—her current hyperfixation. He never in his life thought he’d have so much color in his house, but here he was.
For a moment, he thought about what Eddie would have said. Then he shoved that thought aside because his ex-husband would have been entirely disgusting about it. He would have made rude jokes and come up with some offensive private nickname for Elodie that would have made Frankie want to punch him.
God, he did not miss him at all.
The doorbell rang, and he let out a small sigh of relief. He was running late for work. He had three food trucks on his agenda, and the first one was all the way across town. “Come on, Miss Annie is waiting.”
Luckily for him, Elodie loved her aide, so she didn’t put up a fight when he brushed past her to open the door. Miss Annie gave him a wink as she tapped Elodie on the arm. “You ready, Bugs?”
