Chapter 40
Forty
Rhodes
Three weeks.
That’s how long I let myself sit in the wreckage I created before Chloe finally says enough.
Not in so many words.
She’s four.
But she gets us there anyway.
We’re home on a rare day off for both of us, still in pajamas at noon because my schedule has been brutal of late and because some days…living looks like eating takeout and watching cartoons on the couch in our pajamas.
She’s coloring and I don’t miss that it closely resembles one of Finn’s blankets—the squares all colorful chaos and love pieced together.
I’m pretending to review some video the coaching staff sent over.
But neither of us is fooling anyone.
“I miss Finn,” Chloe says as the show’s outro fades away.
The words slice me off at the knees and I find…I don’t have the strength to lie.
“Me too,” I admit.
Her head flies up, eyes going wide, and perhaps she’s surprised that I finally said that out loud.
Then she sighs and looks back down at her drawing.
We sit with that for a minute—or maybe it’s that I’m finally sitting in it.
Missing Finn.
Knowing I’m always going to regret letting her go.
Hating that I told her—told myself—that it was to protect Chloe when really—
“You were scared.”
I jerk, nearly upend the tablet I’m watching the video on. “What?”
“When Mommy died,” she says in a voice that is far too wise for her years. “You were scared too.”
My lungs lock.
Meanwhile she just keeps coloring in her drawing, nonplussed in the face of such devastating truth.
“And now you’re scared again,” she announces.
It’s deeply inconvenient that she’s this smart.
And also…that she’s so totally, painfully right.
Sighing heavily, I set the tablet aside and move to sit beside her on the floor.
“Yeah, baby,” I say quietly. “I was scared. Am scared,” I correct.
Her little forehead wrinkles. “But love isn’t scary, Daddy. It’s the bravest thing you can do.”
My chest locks, tears clogging the back my throat. Christ. “That’s really smart.”
“I know.”
That startles laughter out of me, wet and broken and miserable.
She smiles brightly.
“Finn wrote to me about it. See?” She moves her papers aside and shows me a postcard. “Brooke read it to me.”
I pick up the rectangle of cardstock with shaking hands, take in the image of Switzerland on the front…and Finn’s handwriting on the back.
Chloe,
I went sledding on top of a glacier today. It was fun but I missed you. Some adventures are better when you take your favorite people with you. (Psst, you’re my favorite people.)
Don’t forget I love you.
And to be brave, even when you’re scared.
-Finn
I stare down at the words and feel something burst open in my chest.
Because I can hear her voice in every word.
See her face.
Some adventures are even better when you take your favorite people with you.
You’re my favorite people.
Fuck.
And the truth finally rattles through my dumb, idiotic brain—
The only way to know sometimes is to do the thing you’re most scared of.
I pushed her away and she still came back. She tried to talk to me, tried to explain. And I—
Fuck.
She wasn’t going to leave us behind. She wanted us with her.
She was so fucking brave.
And I was too scared to grasp the hand she held out.
I close my eyes.
“Daddy?” Chloe asks. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” I peel back my lids to look at her, my vision blurry from my tears. “I just…made a big mistake, sweetheart.”
She nods solemnly. “I know.”
I laugh again, hug her close. “I know you know.”
“Because you were scared?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you going to be brave now?”
Am I?
“Yes.” I pull in a long breath then smooth back her hair. “Would you be okay staying with Brooke by yourself for a few days?”
Chloe frowns. “Why?”
“Because I need to go talk to Finn.”
“About what?”
I don’t even try to hide the truth from her.
I can’t afford to.
“I need to tell her I love her.”
Her eyes go huge. “Really?”
“Yeah.” My throat works. “And I want to see if she’ll come home and be part of our family.”
Chloe watches me for one beat.
Then two.
Then she launches herself at me, wrapping her arms around my neck so tightly I can barely breathe.
“Okay,” she says into my shoulder. “But Daddy?” she asks when she pulls back.
“Yeah, pumpkin?”
“Finn already is part of our family.”
My eyes burn all over again.
Because that’s the truth, isn’t it?
Not that I want Finn to be part of our family.
But that she already is.
And—
I made her feel like she wasn’t.
Like she couldn’t stay.
Like she wasn’t enough.
Fuck. I have to find a way to fix this.
“You’re right, baby,” I whisper. “She is.”
Chloe cups my face in both of her tiny hands. “Then you should go get her.” Her expression turns fierce. “Because she’s part of our blanket…even when she’s really far away.”
“You’re right.”
I hug her tight, kiss her forehead. Then I stand up, snagging my phone from my pocket, and I make the most important call of my life.
Rome answers on the second ring. “You finally get your head out of your ass?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“King will be happy.” He snorts. “But, Christ, it took you long enough.”
I move upstairs, grab a bag, and start throwing clothes inside. “Think your father-in-law would do me a favor?”
There’s a pause.
Then his voice sharpens. “What kind of favor?”
I look down at the postcard Finn sent Chloe.
At her neat handwriting.
At the future I nearly let walk away for good.
“The kind that gets me to Switzerland.”