Chapter 7 – Aston
ASTON
There’s no reason I should be edgy right now.
Zoey loved the preschool and her new teacher.
She starts tomorrow and is excited about it.
I spent two hours unpacking and doing laundry and getting us organized and even boxing up some of Micha’s things he said I could, so we’d have more room.
Tomorrow is my first full and real day at the hospital.
It’s all good things. I’m insanely happy about it.
But that hasn’t stopped me from stupidly and annoyingly watching the door or wondering what that douche Josh wanted with Skylar.
I heard the buzz about him as I walked past the nurse’s station.
He’s her ex. They were whispering about secret notes he leaves in her locker and how they can’t understand how someone like her could dump someone like him.
Someone like her.
I didn’t comprehend their meaning at first. Skylar is a billionaire.
A Fritz. Despite being a total ballbuster, she’s a sweet and kind human.
She’s also seriously fucking beautiful. Her hair and eyes are the stuff of fantasies, and don’t even get me started on her curves.
So, I didn’t get it. I was almost tempted to ask.
Until I thought back to what she said about what others have called her in the past.
My swan was called an ugly duckling.
I wanted to tell each of those nurses that a guy like Josh was lucky he ever had a shot with a girl like her, but I kept walking.
Kept fuming. Hating myself for all of it.
Because if I hadn’t already been feeling protective over her after what she told me, I sure as fuck was after that.
Even if her battles aren’t mine to fight.
Zoey is drawing at the kitchen table while I finish cooking for us. Pasta with zucchini and meat sauce because she’ll eat it, and I know how to make it.
“Zo-Zo, finish up. Dinner’s almost ready.”
She doesn’t spare me a glance, just moves faster with her tongue tucked off to the side between her teeth.
The pasta is done, and after I drain it, I add it to the meat sauce and toss it all together.
Zoey is the worst with veggies, but this sauce has tiny pieces of zucchini hidden and spinach masked as torn-up basil.
Thus far, she hasn’t noticed and always eats it.
“Drawing away,” I tell her as I put the pasta into a bowl.
“Ugh.”
I cock an eyebrow. “Really?”
She gives me a glare she’s about ten years too young for. “I’m in my art era. I need to decorate my walls with my feels.”
I try to contain my smirk. “You can reenter your art era and feels after dinner. And since when are you so into art?”
She shrugs. “You’re bossing my space.”
“Where are you learning these things? You’re five.”
“YouTube.”
I make a mental note to increase the parental controls on her iPad.
“I used to do art with Mommy,” she continues.
Oh. Shit. And I suck because I didn’t know that.
She falls quiet, and I place her food in front of her along with a glass of milk and one of water. I sit beside her, twirling my noodles without bringing the fork to my mouth as I watch her.
“I was never very good at art,” I start. “I have a science brain. But your mom used to paint a lot, and it seems you got your art talent from her and thankfully not from me. Would you like that? If I bought you some paints and gave you a space to do that or got you into an art class?”
I get another shrug with a downward glum face as she starts to twirl her pasta, same as I am.
“Will you make me a picture? It can be anything you want.”
She opens her mouth to answer when we hear the front door opens and then immediately close. And much to my chagrin, my daughter’s face lights up like a Christmas tree.
“Hello,” Skylar sings out, only to find us a moment later as she enters the kitchen.
“Guess what I found?!” She is practically vibrating with excitement as she pulls two boxes of multicolored fairy lights out of her bag.
“I thought maybe after dinner we could set them up in your room. What do you think?”
Zoey flies off her chair and races straight over to Skylar.
She throws her arms around her like they’re ancient besties, and I’m hit with a pang unlike any I’ve ever felt.
For a moment, all I can do is blink. I’m hot and have chills.
Skylar bought Zoey fairy lights for her room.
It’s beautiful and terrifying. It makes me want to cross the room, thread my hands through Skylar’s hair, and kiss her crazy.
But worse than that? My kid is already falling in love with her.
Fuck.
“Is that a yes?” Skylar laughs, hugging her back.
“Yes! Yes!” Zoey jumps up and down before she glances back over at me. “Do you think Uncle Micha will mind? Stephen didn’t like it when I taped lights to the ceiling.”
That’s because your former stepfather was a dick.
“I think Uncle Micha will love it. We’ll set them up tonight, so you have them as a nightlight. You need to thank Skylar for that very thoughtful gift.”
“Thank you! Thank you!” Zoey is jumping like she has springs for feet.
“It was nothing. I was passing a shop and saw them.” She looks past me into the kitchen, eyeing the dishes and pots. “Smells delicious. Is there enough for three?”
“Help yourself,” I offer, because yes, there’s more than enough for three. I might have made the entire box of pasta and doubled the sauce recipe, even if I wasn’t sure she’d be home to eat it.
“Awesome. I’m starving. Thank you.” She makes herself a bowl, and I try not to notice how she’s showered and changed her clothes and how her hair is now down and wavy and she has something light and shimmery on her cheeks and eyelids and how the purple sweater she’s wearing hugs her tits just a little too tightly.
“Zoey-Zo. Tell me all about preschool, girl. I want every detail.”
Zoey is wiggling in her seat, but I point to her pasta, and she scoops up a bite and dutifully shovels it into her mouth.
“They have a really big slide,” Zoey tells her.
“Oh. Sounds like fun.” Skylar takes the seat on the other side of her, not even sparing me a glance. “What else? Is it a big playground? Those are my favorites.”
Zoey nods vigorously. “So big. It also has a bouncy bridge.”
“Cool. That sounds amazing. I’m super jealous I can’t join you.”
Zoey laughs. “Silly, you’re too old.”
“Don’t I know it. Your daddy is even older than I am. But I don’t think we’re too old to play with each other, are we, Daddy?”
I choke on my pasta, and there’s a legit moment when I think I’m going to die or that my life will be in Skylar’s hands when I require her to do the Heimlich maneuver. Luckily for all of us, it clears with a few strong coughs.
“Daddy, you okay?” Zoey asks, worry stretched across her face.
I wipe my mouth and take a sip of my water. “Yes. I’m fine. Just went down the wrong pipe.”
“That’s what she said,” Skylar chirps, and I glare at her.
“Is there a reason you’re being… impudent?”
Her eyebrows bounce. “Big word, Daddy. And I’m guessing it’s because you couldn’t say something else. I think it’s a little deserved, no? Comes with overstepping boundaries. But since we’re both thrust into a hard situation, if I can’t beat him, I might as well join him.”
None of this should make me hard, but of course it does. My palm tingles with the mental image of putting her on my knees so I can spank her round ass red. Then we’ll see who she’s calling Daddy.
“Behave,” I warn her.
“Or what?” She bats her eyelashes at me, and I clench my fork so tightly I’m shocked I’m not bending it. “Will you punish me for being naughty, Daddy?”
Yes. Yes, I fucking will, and you’ll both love it and hate it.
“What are you doing?”
“I don’t appreciate you going around telling everyone at work that I’m off-limits.”
“What?” comes out a pitch higher. “I didn’t do that.”
She tilts her head, studying me intently, only for her eyebrows to take a nosedive. “You didn’t?”
I shake my head. “No. I left the hospital right after you gave me the tour.”
Her lashes flutter. “Oh. But that’s what was going around the floor and that’s what…” She trails off. “You really didn’t?”
“I really didn’t. I wouldn’t do that.” Even if I didn’t like the way Josh was looking at her.
“Um. That’s curious.”
“Well, I didn’t. You clearly misheard, or they did. Are you going to apologize?”
She smirks at me. “Nope. You’re still kicking me out. Tit for tat.” Mercifully, she returns to Zoey. “Promise you’ll tell me all about your first day tomorrow?”
“Okay.”
“Great. I also heard you lost your first tooth. That’s pretty major. Did the tooth fairy come?”
The two of them go back and forth the entire meal as the three of us eat. I’m superfluous. Just the dad, but not the daddy, thankfully. Still, it’s difficult to stay mad at Skylar. Zoey hasn’t been this animated in months. She’s smiling and laughing and even teasing me and Skylar.
She reacts to Skylar in a way she doesn’t with me, and I’m more than grateful for it.
I don’t know why Skylar is being this way with my daughter, or even me, but I don’t care.
It’s everything Zoey needs right now, and I hate the way it turns my cold, dead heart into something that’s reluctantly beating harder than it wants to.
I really need to get laid. Or at the very least find a life. One that doesn’t include inappropriate thoughts about my best friend’s little sister.