by Zoey Parker
“Can you please wait a minute? Please. Just listen.”
I glared at him. How could he talk to me that way after what I had been through? But I held my tongue, if only because my throat was raw and my jaw ached.
Rae cleared her throat. “I’ll never forgive myself for what I did. Ever. You don’t need to tell me it was wrong. I panicked when he told me he would kill me.”
“She owed him money,” Lance explained, his voice quiet.
“So you were clean, huh? Just like you always told me?” I scoffed.
She winced. “Yeah, I know. I hate myself for that, too. You don’t have to remind me.”
“I do have to remind you,” I said. Lance reached out to stop me from speaking, but I brushed him off. “You let a man take your daughter. You knew he was going to sell her. Sell. Her.”
“Enough, Jamie. She knows. That’s not why we’re here together.” I looked at him, waiting for an explanation. “We’re talking about custody of Gigi.”
“I want Lance to take her,” Rae said.
I scoffed. “I would hope so.” No way I would let her have Gigi after what she did. I would have paid whatever it took to take her to court and wipe the floor with her.
“Rae’s gonna sign custody over to me. I’m gonna send her to rehab so she can clean up her act.”
I glanced at Rae. “What, you think you can get back into her good graces when you’re sober?”
She shook her head. “No. I need to get outta here. Away from everything. I’m not coming back.” She smiled sadly. “I was never cut out to be a mother. I did my best.” She looked me in the eye again, without me telling her to. “I did my best. You’ve gotta believe that. You don’t know how it is, living with something like I do. It’s hell.”
I didn’t have anything to say in response. “You’re sure you want this?” I asked Lance.
“Of course I do. I want my daughter.” Something inside me glowed with pride. He was the man I hoped he was. He would stand up and do what was right for his little girl. “I want my daughter’s mother to be okay, too. She didn’t do as bad a job as she could have. Believe me, I know.” His eyes went a little unfocused, a little distant.
I was a little shocked at how well he was taking everything, though. He wasn’t angry, but maybe resentful. I wondered if he was really the best answer for Gigi. Would he be there for her, twenty-four seven? Would he clean up his act? Would he have the patience and free time for her? His club had been the focus of his life for so long—would the switch be easy on him? I doubted it. I didn’t love the idea of Gigi having to deal with his growing pains. She had been through enough already, more than any kid her age should ever go through.
Rae stood up. “I’m gonna go now.” She walked out of the room without another word. Without even a backward glance. I listened as the front door opened and closed. I didn’t know how she’d get home, and I didn’t care.
Lance stood, too. “She won’t go to rehab,” he murmured. “She only said that so she wouldn’t look like the piece of shit person she is.”
“You think she’ll stay around?”
He shrugged. “I don’t much care anymore. As long as she hands Gigi over to me, she can do whatever she wants.”
I looked up at him, wondering. “You’re sure you’re ready for this?”
“Who is when they have a kid? The only difference is I don’t have to change diapers. I’m okay with that.” He gave me a tired smile.
“It’s a huge lifestyle change, though.”
“You think I don’t know that?” He narrowed his eyes. “You’re still trying to get me to give her to you. Is that it?”
I shook my head, totally serious. “Not at all.”
“You’re serious?”
I nodded. “Deadly. I don’t have what it takes to be a mother to her.”
Lance crouched in front of me, no longer joking. “What the hell are you talking about? You sound nuts. Maybe you do have a concussion.” He held my chin, looking into my eyes like he was checking to see if they were focused.
I pushed his hand away gently. “I’m fine. I mean what I’m saying. I don’t have what it takes. I’m too selfish. This whole time I thought I knew better than anybody else how to take care of her. It wasn’t about her. It was about my ego. I had to be the hero, you know? I had to save the day. I knew it all, I could save her. What a joke.”
“Where’s this coming from? The way I heard it, you just about got yourself killed trying to stop them from taking my kid. That sounds like something a mother would do, doesn’t it?”
I shook my head. “You don’t understand. I should have been here with her instead of at my house. I didn’t take you seriously when you said we were in danger—that she was in danger. I sat around, hanging out, while that pig was kidnapping her. He might have killed Erica. She fought back at least. She did what she had to do.”
“Right, and it didn’t matter either way. You can’t see things that didn’t happen—I mean, you can’t sit there and say you would have fought him off. He would’ve hurt you. He hurt you in that room, didn’t he?” He touched the back of his head, referencing my injury.
“Yes, that’s true.”
“You did what you could when it counted. You went there to protect her.”
“I should’ve called you.”
That stopped him. He frowned, thinking it over. “Maybe you should have. Yeah. Now we know.”
“What? We know I should call you the next time your daughter is kidnapped?”
He cocked his head to the side, smirking. “We know we’re a team. You can’t take everything on by yourself. I can’t take everything on alone either. We have to work together. Especially if we’re gonna be raising a little girl.”
It took a moment for his words to sink in. My face went slack, my jaw hung open. He smiled, closing my mouth with a finger under my chin. Then he caressed my jaw—gently, hardly touching me, his brow furrowed.
“What are you saying?” I asked in a whisper.
“It’s a lot to ask. I know that. But I was thinking…you’re right. I can’t do it alone. And yeah, I have a lot of people here.” He nodded toward the lounge outside the office, and I knew he meant the club. “It’s not the same as having a mom, though. I know you love her. She loves you. I know you would lay it all down for her, too. I don’t hafta to be a genius to know the right thing here.”
I was speechless. When I finally stopped screaming in my head long enough to think straight, I whispered, “How? How would we do this?”
He looked at my hands. “I thought…you would stay. Maybe. If you wanted to.”
I could hardly breathe. It felt like my chest would explode from the size of my heart as it grew and grew.
“You mean it? Like…what, as a nanny or something?” I hoped it wasn’t what he meant, but I couldn’t take any chances. I didn’t want my heart broken when I assumed the wrong thing.
“No.” He looked at me, frowning. “That wasn’t what I meant at all. I want you. You. I want you to stay.”
“Oh,” I breathed. It was all I could do.
“You’re not gonna make this easy on me. Okay, fine.” He took a deep breath. “I love you.”
The tears in my eyes made his face blur in front of me, but it looked like he was smiling.
“You’re not just saying that after tonight?” I asked.
“Why can’t you ever make anything easy? I love you. Isn’t that enough?”
“Of course it is. I just want to be sure. I don’t want you to feel like you should say it after everything that happened tonight.”
“No way. I love you. I fucking love you. That’s it. Even if you don’t wanna stay with me, I’ll still fucking love you.”
I laughed, my hand shooting up to my jaw when pain zipped through it. He frowned.
“I could kill that bastard for touching you,” he growled.
“It’s okay. He’ll get what’s coming to him.” I could hardly believe how happy that thought made me.
“So? What do you think? I mean, no pressure. Don’t feel like you have to just because I love you and would probably die if you left me.”
I shook my head, grinning. “No pressure at all.”
“None.” He grinned, too.
“You know I love you.” I took his face in my hands, marveling at the way life worked out sometimes, before his lips met mine in a gentle, sweet kiss I wished could last forever.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Lance
The next morning, I woke up with the sun in my eyes. I never closed the blinds before falling into bed. I was probably asleep before my head hit the pillow.
I slept so deeply, in fact, that it was a surprise when I woke up and found Gigi in bed with Jamie and me. It made sense. I wouldn’t want to sleep alone if I were her.
They didn’t look anything alike, but I had never seen two people remind me more of a mother and daughter. Jamie was on her stomach—her tailbone and head wouldn’t let her sleep on her back—with one arm over Gigi. Gigi looked comfortable, relaxed. Even with her dark hair and face that looked just like mine, she could have been blonde-haired Jamie’s little girl.
I closed my eyes and said another prayer. I was getting big on the whole praying thing, but I had a lot of time to make up for, too. I thanked whoever was listening for the chance to be with Jamie and Gigi again. I was never so thankful in my life as I was then.
I wondered what Gigi dreamed about after the night she had. Jamie, too. I hadn’t dreamed at all. I was out cold. I hoped they were the same. I didn’t want my daughter to have nightmares after what happened. I would do everything in my power to make sure she never had to go through anything like that again—or anything like she went through living with Rae.
She said she would see the lawyer with me the next day. He’d have the papers ready. I couldn’t wait for her to sign them. I never thought I would be so excited about being a father. Was this me? Really? The same Lance who used to kick women out of bed when he woke up with them? Who didn’t know their name or remember anything about what they did together?
I liked myself more than I did then. That was a big deal.
Gigi moved, rubbing her face on the pillow. I watched and waited, wondering if she would wake up. She opened her eyes. I smiled.
“Good morning,” I mouthed.
“Good morning.”
“How are you?”
“Okay.” Then she mouthed, “Bathroom.”
I nodded, lifting Jamie’s arm so she could slide out from under it. We slowly, carefully, slid out of bed. She went to her bathroom; I went to mine. We met in the hallway.
I didn’t know what to say to her. We hadn’t said anything to each other since the night before, really, when I screamed at her to run away. She was a good girl, too. She did just what I told her to do without asking questions.
I looked down at her. She looked up at me. Then she wrapped her arms around my legs and squeezed. I did one better—I picked her up, holding her to me. It felt right.
“I’m starving,” I whispered. We went downstairs together and fixed cereal. She surprised me when she had no problem talking about the night before.
“It was scary,” she said. We sat together on the prep table, side by side. “I didn’t know what was gonna happen.”
“He was a bad guy,” I agreed.
“But Jamie told me I should be brave, so I did my best.”
“She told you that, huh?”
“Yeah. She was brave, too. Braver than I was. She wouldn’t let me go. They fought and fought and screamed and hit her, but she wouldn’t let me go.”
I was too choked up to eat. I couldn’t imagine it. Gigi seemed strangely calm. Maybe it wasn’t real for her yet. It seemed like talking helped, though.
“Did anybody hurt you?”
“No. And I know what you mean, too.” She took a mouthful of cereal. I almost spit mine out.
“You do?”
“Mm-hmm. Mommy told me about it a long time ago. She said I should tell her if a man ever hurt me.” I didn’t know whether to thank Rae for that or to kill her for putting my daughter in a place where she had to think about that kind of thing at her age.
“So nobody did?”
“No. He just pulled my arm.” She shrugged. “It doesn’t even hurt. It’s not like what happened to Erica or Jamie.”
“I guess they love you, huh? They fought for you and all. You’re a lucky kid.”
She thought about it for a minute with a serious look on her face. “Yeah. I guess I am.” I didn’t laugh, but I wanted to. She was such a grown up kid.
“Jamie told me you would come, too. And you did.”
That stunned me. “She told you that?”
“Yeah. She was right. You came. Everybody came. It was a lot of people.”
“It was a lot of people. Everybody wanted to make sure you were safe.”
“I couldn’t believe it. She was right.” My daughter smiled up and me, and my heart just about shattered.
“I’ll always come for you, when you need me. I promise.”
***
Two hours later, after everybody else in the clubhouse got up or showed up, and Gigi took the time to hug every one of them and thank them for coming to get her, we went upstairs to wake Jamie up. I carried a tray with food and pain meds, since I figured she would need them.
She was already awake, but not up yet. I helped her sit up, but it was too much, so she stayed on her side while she ate.
“How are you today?”
“I’m doing great.” She smiled at me. “Really great.” She looked at Gigi. “And you?”
“Excellent.” They smiled at each other. I hoped it would always be that way, but wasn’t sure. All we could do was wait to see how she dealt with it.
“I’ve been thinking.” Jamie took a bite of her toast. “About where to live.”
“What do you mean?”
Jamie glanced at Gigi, then back at me. “You didn’t tell her yet?”
“No.”
Gigi looked confused, of course. “What’s happening? Where am I going?” Her chin trembled. Just like she was two seconds away from crying. She wasn’t so excellent.
I put an arm around her. “You’re not going anywhere you don’t wanna go. I mean it. It’s your choice, okay?”
“Okay.” She didn’t look convinced.
I looked at Jamie for help, but I could read the look on her face. She’s your kid. You’ve gotta do this yourself. I cleared my throat.
“What do you think about living with me from now on?”
She looked up at me, surprised. “I thought I was gonna already.”
I had to laugh. “Oh, you did?”
“Yeah. I thought Mommy left me with you.”
Her words stung. She already knew. “Well, I talked to Mommy. She’s gonna go get better. You know what I mean? Get better?”
“Yeah. She was sick.” Gigi nodded. Oh, kid, you don’t even know.
“Right. So we talked about it, and even when she gets better…she’s not sure she’s the right mommy for you. She has a lot of stuff to fix. Like, inside. Does that make sense?”
“Sometimes she would forget to get food for me. Or she would put summer clothes on me in winter.” That was all the answer I needed.
“Right. Stuff like that. She has to fix the reason she’s like that. So when we talked about it, she said it was okay for you to live with me from now on. But like I said, it’s up to you.”
She thought about it, but not for very long. “I wanna live with you. If you want me to.”
“Of course I want you to.” I squeezed her, and she leaned into me with a giggle.
“Here, though?” She looked skeptical.
Jamie cleared her throat. “This is where I come in. This is what I was thinking about.”
It was news to me. “What were you thinking?”
“I was wondering if it was a good idea for Gigi to live at your house. It’s probably pretty small.
Not ready for a little girl to live in it. Far away from school.”
“Yeah. All those things.” I watched her. She had something she was dying to say.
“Well, maybe you could…I don’t know…come live with me.” Her voice was very small, almost a whisper.
“What?” Gigi’s eyes got very big.
