Page 4 of A Little Valentine's Day Surprise

“I tried to use those little cutter things you have, the ones that are different shapes. I fucked it up—I fucked it all up.”

He sank onto the bed in front of her as he let out a long, tired sigh. He sounded and looked so defeated, and she just wanted him to be happy, so she forced herself to grab the mushy strawberry—it really did look like he’d already chewed it up—and popped it in her mouth. Okay, at least it didn’t taste weird like the eggs. But the texture?—

“So yummy,” she managed to say. “The mushiness doesn’t bother me. Not even a little bit.” Jett slid his gaze to her, looking like he didn’t believe her in the slightest. He looked down at the plate, then back at her. Maybe she wasn’t very convincing, but it really wasn’tthatbad.

Okay. It was totally that bad, but she couldn’t tell him that, could she?

She grabbed the juice and downed most of it. At least that was normal. “What’s the Nutella for?” she asked, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

“The strawberries.” He groaned as he plopped back on the bed, draping his arm over his eyes. “This was a disaster. I was supposed to make you waffles?—”

“Waffles?” She perked up at that. Shelovedwaffles.

“But I fucked that up, too.” She tried not to let the disappointment show on her face. Waffles would’ve been better than these eggs.

“It’s totally fine.” She waved her hand dismissively, and he lifted his arm enough to stare at her. “It’s not like a weird, slightly discolored and questionably textured breakfast is a crisis or anything. It’s more of an exciting sitcom plot twist.” She wiggled her fingers as she grinned.

He just blinked at her. “What does that even mean?”

“You know,” she waved her arms around, “funny things happen in sitcoms. This is funny.” She wiggled her brows, trying to get him to smile. Which he did. Kind of. It was mostly a twitchof his lips again—or was that a grimace? Maybe he should go to the doctor about that. He could have some kind of condition.

He shoved off the bed, hesitating before reaching for the tray. “I’ll make you something else.” This time, she didn’t fight him on it. She was already starting to feel queasy.

“It’s the thought that counts, you know?” she said, trying to keep her voice light. “I’m not hungry anymore. Thank you for the best breakfast ever, though, Daddy.”

He dropped his head forward in a slight nod and made his way across the room. With a final, long look at her, he left, closing the door behind him. She let out a breath, her shoulders slumping.

Grabbing Ottie, she set him on her lap. “Great,” she mumbled. “Now I feel even worse.”

She’d felt anxious and only slightly guilty about finding the ring, but after that breakfast fiasco, she was starting to feel a lot worse. Why did she have to snoop?

Ottie stared back at her, judging her with those black eyes of his. She set him on the bed beside her, unable to bear the weight of his scrutiny any more.

Things crashed in the kitchen as Jett cleaned up. Every so often, she’d hear him sigh or grumble something only loud enough for her to hear the deep rumble of his voice, but not make out the words. She assumed they weren’t nice, anyway.

Maybe she should’ve just eaten the eggs. It would’ve made him happy. But she couldn’t choke them down, and she tried to. She really did.

She couldn’t let anything else go wrong today. She’d have to make sure his proposal was perfect. Which meant she’d have to make sureshewas perfect today, otherwise she’d risk ruining everything.

three

. . .

Jett couldn’t believe how royally he’d just fucked breakfast up. For whatever reason, he’d stupidly thought she’d love the sprinkles and pink eggs. But who the fuck wanted crunchy eggs? He certainly didn’t, so why would she?

He finished cleaning the kitchen and came outside for the next part of his special Valentine’s Day surprise for his baby. But with the way his morning had gone, he knew he’d regret ever planning anything. He should’ve just done something normal, like taken her to dinner at a nice place and proposed. Instead, he made her the worst breakfast ever, and by the looks of the finger paints scattered around their backyard, it felt like this was going to end in a massive mess.

But he could clean the yard and Abbie up later. All he really cared about was her happiness, and if making a paint mess made her happy…he’d deal.

Walking back into the house, he made his way to the bedroom. Abbie stood in front of the floor-length mirror as she picked her hair up into a messy bun. He came up behind her, wrapping his thick arms around her. She was so much smaller than him; he always felt like such a hulking monster beside her.

She’d spent every day trying to help him through his issues, though. But it was hard when his entire life he’d been told he was nothing but a monster. He was always too big, too rough, too much. But she swore up and down that he was perfect.

He didn’t know if he believed that, but if she wanted to, he wouldn’t argue.

“You ready for your first surprise?” he asked, resting his chin on the top of her head. She smiled at him in the mirror as she nodded.

“Ready, Daddy!”

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