by Marci Bolden
During those several hours, even more of Phil’s deep-seated fears seemed to ease. Not only had Mallory’s silly dancing and singing kept a smile on Jessica’s face, but Mira seemed to tolerate her fairly well, too, which said a lot. When Kara and Harry woke up, however, Mallory was more than happy to pass Mira over and return to giving Jessica tips on her artwork.
As he and Mallory neared Jessica, Phil realized Lucky’s life wasn’t the only one that had changed significantly. He couldn’t deny that there was a part of him that was still leery, still too scared to let go of the past, but he was determined to push that part of him down. Instead of running from what he was feeling, he intended to simply acknowledge the fear but to let the happiness outweigh the doubt.
That was something new for him. Something he was going to have to work on for some time. But standing there, staring out at the water with Mallory by his side, he committed to finding a way to move on with his life. If the last few months had taught him anything, it was that always fearing the worst was keeping him from having more in life. Not just him but his daughter, too.
As if she sensed his thoughts, his daughter looked up and smiled at him. She seemed to have forgiven his missteps as soon as she’d seen that Mallory had. From what he could tell, Jessica had brushed it all under the rug and was happy to get back to how things were. He was, too, but he was smart enough to know nothing was that easy. Mallory still had her guard up, and he didn’t blame her. He’d have to find a way to prove that he was working on himself.
“Where are you?” Mallory asked, pulling him from his thoughts.
After a few hard blinks, he realized that Jess and Lucky had moved along the beach. Mallory was looking at him with concern in her eyes.
Clearing his throat, he rocked back on his heels. “I need to ask you for something.”
She lifted her brows in question.
“Patience. Lots of patience.”
“Huh,” she scoffed. “Seems to me I’ve already given you that.”
“You have. But I need a bit more while I sort through some things. I spent most of my life angry because I didn’t have a father. Then I spent most of Jessica’s life angry because she didn’t have a mother. Instead of processing those situations and moving on, I clung to them. Used them as excuses to keep people at arm’s length. I’m trying not to do that anymore, but it’s hard to let go of something that’s so ingrained. I’m working on it. I just want you to know that I’m trying to do better, and I’d like to start with you.”
“That’s a good place to start.” She offered him a smile and then stepped around him to catch up to Jessica.
He stood back, watching, taking in the scene. When she held out her hand, Jessica took it and smiled up with so much love, Phil’s heart ached. But this time in a way that made him fill with warmth and an even deeper determination to be the man that both of them deserved.
Being with Phil and Jessica was too easy. Mallory hadn’t intended to spend all day Sunday with them, but by the time they left Kara’s, took Lucky for a walk by the lake, and had dinner at the café, her entire weekend had been devoted to the father-daughter duo.
She guessed the next weekend would be similar, since Jessica had begged for her help painting Lucky’s new doghouse. Jess was going to think of ideas that she would help Mallory execute. The doghouse was bound to turn out a hodgepodge of pinks, purples, and comic book images. It’d be perfect.
Sinking into her bed, she tapped the screen on her phone and opened her social media page. She had no intention of checking in with friends or family. She opened her own page and scrolled through the images of her with Jess and Phil. For a while, she hadn’t posted anything but pictures of the three of them or at least of the scenery from their various outings.
She had so many pictures of Jessica. Some with her smiling bright, some selfies of the two of them making silly faces. But there were plenty of the three of them. Looking just like the family Phil had said he didn’t want.
Now that she had given up the urge to kill him, she was starting to see his concern. They certainly had fallen into a comfortable space that would give anyone, but most especially Jessica, the idea that they had a future together. All of them.
She could see how making love had shaken Phil to the core. Mallory had felt used, but once her anger started to burn out, she knew she hadn’t been. Phil was a good guy—a scared, fumbling fool, but a good guy all the same. She knew his number-one priority was Jessica’s well-being, as it should be. Mallory had just been so hurt that he would ever think that anything she would say or do would put Jessica at risk.
She couldn’t possibly make him understand how much she loved that kid. She had been hesitant to even try, fearing that would give him one more reason to drive that wedge between them.
Mallory loved the safety and security of being home and close to her family, but she did tend to be a bit more reckless than she thought Phil could ever be. She’d been happy with Phil and Jess, and that was enough for her. She hadn’t considered that Phil would pick that happiness apart and analyze it as he did everything.
Now that she could sit back and think, she realized she should have seen his cold feet coming a mile away. Not just because he tended to overthink but because their entire damn relationship had been hot and cold from day one. She shouldn’t have needed him to pull the rug from beneath her feet. She should have known to step back long before he panicked.
Not that she was excusing his behavior. A grown man should know better than to have sex with a woman, whispering about how much he cared for her, and then walk away and think she’d be cool with it.
She still wasn’t cool with that.
But she was allowing the anger to soften enough to see his side of things. His side wasn’t as cut-and-dried as hers. He had more to lose; Jessica’s happiness was riding on his in a lot of ways. He had every right to be cautious and even to take a step back if he needed to.
Closing her social media page, she opened her texting app and brought up the long list of messages she and Phil had exchanged. She smiled as she scrolled through the blue and purple bubbles of text. She wasn’t reading them as much as remembering the moments when her heart would flutter when her phone dinged the special chime she used to let her know Phil was messaging her.
The last few texts that had passed between them were clipped, sterile of the former teasing and playfulness. Mallory missed their teasing and playfulness. Phil was serious, but his humor was sharp, and when they first got to know each other, he’d toss deadpan comments that sent her into fits of giggles. She was always shocked when he’d relax enough to snap back. He’d relaxed a lot more as their time together progressed and his jokes eased out more often. Even so, he had a way of cracking her up that she didn’t think she’d find with someone else.
With the last text read, she frowned at herself and her lingering misery. She typed a message—I had a great time today. Thanks.—and debated sending it. Not too friendly but enough to let him know she was thinking of him. She pressed the arrow to send the message.
Almost immediately, his special ding sounded, and her heart did that ridiculous fluttering thing again. She smiled despite herself and read his message.
Me too. Night, Mal.
“Good night,” she muttered to herself. “You big, stupid man.”
Chapter Sixteen
Mallory stopped in her tracks when she spotted Phil standing in the lobby of O’Connell Realty with a bouquet of brightly colored flowers. He looked anxious, and when he smiled at her, the gesture didn’t seem genuine. She had no idea what the fool was up to, but damned if the ice around her heart didn’t melt a little.
“I know I’m stopping by unannounced,” he said. “I was hoping you wouldn’t be busy.”
She glanced around the room. Miraculously, no one else seemed busy either. Marcus was poking his head out of the break room, her aunt Dianna had suddenly stopped talking and was leaning to gawk through her office door into the lobby, and Courtney
, the receptionist, was glancing between Phil and Mal. Thankfully Annie was at home and not there to gawk at her as well.
“Don’t you have work to do?” Mallory looked around at her co-workers. “Don’t any of you have work to do?” She caught her stepfather’s gaze before he backed away. “There is no need to reach for that phone in your pocket. I’ll call Mom when I damn well feel like it.”
He lifted his hands as if to surrender and then cast a warning glance toward Phil before returning to his mission of refilling his coffee for what was likely his tenth cup of the day.
“I’m sorry,” Phil said quietly. “I didn’t realize—”
“That my family and friends are just as nosy as yours? Dianna’s probably on the phone with Kara as we speak. Actually, they’re probably on a three-way call with my mother.”
He grinned. “Probably. But mostly because Dad knows I’m here, and I have no doubt that he told Mom two seconds after I finished telling him.”
She chuckled because she knew he was right. “How’s Mira?”
“Better. Thanks for asking.” He held the flowers out. “I hope this is okay. I didn’t know what you liked, but since you like bright colors…”
She eyed the bouquet in his hand. The big blooms were beautiful. She couldn’t remember the last time someone brought her a bouquet and felt a little ridiculous at how giddy she felt accepting them. “They’re beautiful. Thank you.” Glancing around again, she sighed at all the eyes still on their exchange and gestured for him to follow her. Inside her office, she closed the door and set the vase on her desk before facing him. “I wasn’t expecting flowers. What’s the occasion?”
“Um. Well.” He let an uneasy laugh leave him. “I really suck at this…”
Just like when he sent her text messages, seeing him stutter made her heart flip. His awkward foot-shifting usually meant he was going to say something that either made her smile so big her face split or scowl so hard her fists clenched. “At what?”
He puffed his cheeks up and let the air out slowly. “I miss you, Mallory.”
Okay. That wasn’t so bad. A bit in between the face-splitting and fist-clenching. “We spent all day yesterday together. Remember?”
“Yes,” he stated with a nod. “It was great. It was…perfect.”
She thought so, too. She’d arrived at his parents’ house with hot pizza, bantered with Kara about her poor diet, and spent the rest of the time hanging out with Jessica. She even managed to hold Mira for a bit before the baby seemed to remember she didn’t like anyone. When they were getting ready to leave, Jessica asked if they could take Lucky to the lake and begged Mallory to join them.
The walk had been so fun, mostly because she and Phil actually seemed comfortable around each other for the first time in several weeks. He had seemed lost in thought several times, which helped further soften her angry edges and led to her late text to him last night.
“I miss”—he shoved his hands in his pockets in that way he did when he was struggling to express himself—“I miss the little family that we’d become,” he said.
His confession shocked her. He’d said the F word.
Family. He’d just called them a family.
Her breath caught, and her eyes instantly pricked as tears threatened to take hold. She blinked and reminded herself to inhale. “Family is a pretty strong word.”
Meeting her gaze, he stared into her eyes. “Yes. It is. But accurate, don’t you think?”
She swallowed hard. Man, she was setting herself up for a fall again. But she ignored the red flags waving in her mind, warning her to slow down. She grabbed at the invitation to take what she’d been wanting all along. “I think we could use that in a general sense.”
“I’ve had a lot of realizations lately,” he confessed, “but the biggest one is that even though we were never really together, never really a couple, we made a great one. And even if we were never really a family, we could be. Should be. Jessica deserves a family. She deserves you.”
Mallory held her breath as she let his words sink in. That was what she’d been trying to tell him. But she had finally heard what he’d been telling her, too. “This can’t just be about Jessica. If you only want me to fill a void in your daughter’s life—”
“No,” he said sternly. “I want you to fill a void in mine. I know I don’t deserve a second chance, but I’m hoping that maybe you’ll give me one. I can’t promise to be perfect, but I promise to try.”
“You silly boy,” she whispered. “I never expected you to be perfect.”
Stepping to her, he searched her eyes, and she suspected he was looking for permission to kiss her. She wanted that. She’d barely stopped thinking about the hot kisses they’d shared before he’d turned their worlds upside down. However, she’d be damned if she’d be so quick to give him those favors again. He’d need to earn her affection.
Shaking her head, she shot him down, despite her own longing. “You haven’t even taken me out on a real date, Phil Martinson-Canton. How easy do you think I am?”
“Well…”
She playfully swatted his shoulder. “Hey.”
Wrapping his arm around her lower back, he pulled her closer. “May I take you to dinner? Maybe a movie? Without my daughter tagging along as a chaperone?”
“I’m not sure I trust you enough to be without a chaperone. I seem to recall you being a little handsy the last time we were alone.”
He smiled, his dimple causing her to swoon inwardly. She’d never been so weak in the knees for anyone like she was for this man. Though she now recognized how much that put her heart on the line, she hoped she never stopped feeling the heart-racing, palm-sweating, stomach-fluttering sensation she felt when he looked at her.
From the time Phil could walk, his mother had him doing repairs around the commune and contributing to the upkeep of their home and others. That was how things had worked in any of the communities where they’d lived—everyone pitched in. Now, as a grown man, he didn’t have to think twice about how to build things like doghouses or bookshelves for comic book collections.
While Mallory and Jessica giggled and slathered paint on Lucky’s new domain, Phil drilled screws into the shelf that he was building for Jessica’s room. She only had four comics to put there, but she was already getting a pretty good collection of action figures and wanted a place to put the framed photo of the three of them from the comic book convention. She’d painted the wood in colors that matched Wonder Woman’s outfit, which had instantly reminded Phil of the tattoo on Mallory’s shoulder.
Once the shelf was complete, he snapped a picture to send to his mother along with his heartfelt thanks. She was the reason he had the skills to make the project. He knew how she’d love hearing that. In fact, she’d probably show the message to Harry as she sniffed and blinked back tears. Phil had never been good at acknowledging the good things his mom had done, but that was something he was determined to change.
As Mallory and Jessica were teaching him, everyone could complain about the past and worry about the present. Finding happiness meant finding the things he could compliment instead.
“Look at this, Daddy,” Jessica called, drawing him from his introspection.
The brightly painted doghouse had the same logo on the front as Lucky from the comic books Jess and Mal had been working on together. Jessica was beaming not just with pride but with happiness. She wrapped her arm around Mallory’s shoulder and hugged her.
“Didn’t Mallory do a great job, Daddy?”
“Mallory did an amazing job,” he agreed. Setting the drill down, he dusted his hands on his pants and walked over to take a closer look.
“This is us,” Jessica said, pulling him to the side of the house where she’d drawn the three of them and Lucky sitting diligently by her side.
Seeing her draw them as a family no longer made his stomach roll in on itself. Instead, he put his hand on her shoulder and told her she’d also done an amazing job. Mallory joined them to adm
ire the mural Jess had added, and he slid his arm around her lower back, pulling her against his side.
She looked up, clearly surprised. Though they’d agreed to try things again, they hadn’t shown a bit of affection toward each other in front of Jessica. But he was doing it. Showing affection in front of Jessica. Mallory’s expression of surprise faded as she smiled up at him.
She wrapped her arm around him and rested her head on his shoulder. He didn’t think, he just responded and planted a kiss on her forehead.
Jessica, never one to miss a thing, gasped. “Daddy,” she whispered. “You’re hugging Mallory.”
Laughing lightly, he nodded and pulled Jessica closer, too. “Yeah, I am, Punk.”
He didn’t think she could have looked any happier than she had talking about the doghouse, but her eyes seemed to fill with even more light.
“Is she your girlfriend now?” Jessica asked.
Phil glanced at Mallory. She raised her brows in question, too. Phil nodded. “Yeah. Mallory’s my girlfriend now.”
Jessica threw her arms up. “Yes! It’s about time!” Wrapping her arms around them both, she rolled her head back. “This is going to be awesome.”
Mallory’s eyes filled with the same happiness that had shined in Jessica’s. The same happiness filled him, wrapped around his heart and, to his amazement, seemed to mend all those shattered bits he’d refused to let heal. He felt whole for the first time, maybe in his entire life. He felt whole and happy.
Cupping Mallory’s cheek, he grinned. “This is most definitely going to be awesome.”
Epilogue
Jessica held Mira back, not letting her stick her tiny fingers in the icing on the cake. One candle burned bright as the crowd sang out “Happy Birthday” to Jessica’s much younger aunt. Mira wasn’t quite as fussy as she used to be, so she sat still as Jess hugged her and beamed proudly, almost like it was her own birthday.
