Chapter One
Present day
“Dad! Have you seen my softball cleats?!” Morgan hollers from her bedroom.
“If the smell in my car is any indication, I’d say you left them in my trunk,” I snark back while sitting at the kitchen table, pouring over the numbers for this year's camp season. It’s going to be tight, but I think we’ll still make it.
“Not any worse than your swim trunks you left in your shower. The whole upstairs reeks like mildew,” she huffs with all the sass of a sixteen-year-old as she plods down the stairs in those expensive Birkenstocks she just had to have.
Lord, she looks affright in one of her mother’s old hand-me-down Nirvana shirts—one I think was handed down from Ryann to me first—and her cut-off jean shorts. Shorts we’ve had many discussions regarding modesty over, since they’re too short for my liking.
Guess who won that debate, however, since they’re still an active part of her wardrobe?
That stubbornness definitely got handed down to her from Ryann.
Though, I will say, they are her ‘around the house’ shorts now, so there’s that.
Small wins, I’ll take ‘em… even if it makes what everyone has always told me true: I lack a backbone.
Also, has anyone ever told you how much work it is being a single parent to a teenager who’s been a teenager since before she was officially a teenager?
Not to mention the activities. Lord, the activities.
Right now, we’re currently trying to balance dance recitals with softball.
Today, she’s hunting for her cleats, tomorrow, it’ll be her ballet slippers. It’s never-ending.
When she comes back inside the house, she makes sure to waggle them in a show for me to see that I was indeed right.
I snort, and then I snort again when a clod of dried-up mud from said cleats hits the tile floor, because, of course.
She just shrugs at it nonchalantly and heads back up to her teenaged girl cave.
“Don’t forget to sweep sometime today, so you can check it off on your chore list!” I holler back up the stairs.
Wait for it… waaait for it: “Ugh, yes! After practice!”
There it is. I smirk. “Looove yooou, Morgan Marie!” I tease.
She pokes her head out from behind the doorframe and sticks her tongue out at me. “Love you too, Dad.”
I’ll never grow tired of her calling me ‘Dad.’ I know I’m her uncle; she knows I’m her uncle, but right around the time I signed over the adoption paperwork, she made the switch from calling me ‘Uncle B’ to ‘Daddy.’ Then, when it became uncool for me to drop her off at middle school while still calling me ‘Daddy,’ she made the switch to just ‘Dad.’ And as much as I give her crap about being a typical sixteen-year-old, I really have come to love being all three titles to her and the transition it’s taken to get to where we are today.
Doting on her may consume my life, but it’s also my greatest achievement, in my opinion.
In a way, she’s helped heal me from grieving the loss of my sister, just as much as I’ve helped her process the loss of her mother.
Caring for her is what pulled me out of a deep depression.
She gave me purpose I so desperately needed.
The first eight years of her life were just plain hard for her, and it’s taken years of therapy and stability, but she’s grown up to be a wonderful young woman.
She’s excelling in school; she got her first part-time job in the camp off-season earlier this year.
She’s saving up for her first car, and she’s active in sports and other extracurriculars.
She’s such a well-rounded kid. I wish I could take all the credit, but Ma and Mom have been super supportive in helping me raise her as well.
Camp takes over everything in the summer, but in the off-seasons, I’m still a busy telehealth therapist. Her grandmothers take turns shuttling Morgan around when I am busy with my own work. That, and they have all the ‘woman-to-woman’ talks with her that I simply cannot.
Periods. I know nothing about them. Heck, I had to sit in for that talk, and I believe I even had a steno-pad there to take notes on. At the store later, I got a lot of gooey looks from the women in the feminine care aisle who ‘wished their husbands knew as much as I did about tampons.’
Take note, spouses and partners: It’s the little things.
Anyway, for what it’s worth, while most teenagers would take for granted having a tribe of people in their corner, Morgs loves and appreciates her tribe.
“Ugh! My friggin!” I hear her frustrated growl from upstairs.
“Your uncle just texted and said your catcher's mitt must have fallen out in his car, he’s on his way here now,” I intuit.
And I can’t forget Uncle Kai being in that tribe too, I suppose. While he and I didn’t pan out as a couple, we are still pretty close as, ahem, friends. However, over the years, he’s made himself a part of Morgs’ life as well, but only ever as an uncle to her.
He loves her, just in his own special way.
Like how he’s currently driving forty-five minutes out of his way to drop off a lost item to her.
Or even how the item came to be lost in his car in the first place, because he made time in his busy schedule to attend her last two games and hasn’t missed a single one of her dance recitals.
As much as our split hurt at the time, I’m glad he stood his ground and walked away the night he did.
I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I had guilted him into staying.
I truly don’t think he will ever change his mind and want kids or to ever feel domesticated, and that’s not something I ever should have thrust upon him.
Regardless, I’m glad we’ve buried the hatchet, so to speak.
“Speaking of the devil…” I murmur to myself, as the infuriatingly handsome man strolls right in, like he owns the place. “Were your ears ringing?”
His lips tip up into a sly grin, as he plucks his aviators off his nose and tucks them up into his wavy, black hair—hair he spends hours coiffing to perfection. “Talking shit about me again, Gallagher?”
I chuckle. “I’d never.”
“Mhm,” he hums, tongue pressing in his cheek. Then, he peers up the stairs. “Got your glove, Mowgli!”
She almost trips over herself, as she comes barreling down the stairs. She skips the last few steps, throwing herself at him, and he catches her laughing. “Getting a little too big for that now, aren’t ya, kid?”
She giggles into his chest. “It’s not nice to fat shame, Uncle Kai.”
He rears back and shoots her a narrow-eyed look. “Mowgli, I could not and would never. Besides, despite your ravenous appetite, there isn’t an ounce of fat on you, girl. Sometimes, I swear Brooks starves you.”
“Not a funny joke,” I quarrel, scowling.
Kai quickly corrects himself, apologizing to Morgan, “I’m only kidding. You know that, right?”
She nods. “I was just giving you a hard time. What are nieces for, right?”
He mocks affront. “And to think, I drove all the way out to the boonies to drop your gear off to you! Gear which you forgot! I’m just glad it wasn’t your cleats, pee-yew.”
“Tell me about it,” I tease. “I got the distinct pleasure of having those get left in my car.”
“Better that rust bucket than my Tesla.” Kai smirks.
“Leave the rust bucket alone; it still drives.”
Kai snorts. “For now, yeah. ‘Bout the only thing I can picture working well for it these days is that back seat. Plenty of room back there for… activities.”
I shoot him a scathing look.
“Ew! Ew! Ew! Dad doesn’t do that! He’s celibate!” Morgan covers her ears with her hands and shoots back upstairs to—hopefully—get finished changing for her game. We’ve only got a half hour before we need to be out that door, into the rust bucket, and get to the softball field.
Kai mutters quietly, “Little does she know that Daddy dearest isn’t so celibate, is he?” He waggles his eyebrows.
I scrunch my nose up at the moniker. “Don’t say it like that, and no, she doesn’t… and I’d like to keep it that way, thank you.”
That makes him snicker.
“Need me to stick around and braid her hair for you?” Kai arches his eyebrow up at me.
“Could you?” I ponder. I suck at French braiding.
Regular braiding? That, I can do… barely.
But apparently, having a pair of French braids is the in thing, and Kai’s got that down-pat.
While my sister and I were always playing outside when we were younger, Kai and his were all about learning makeup and doing their hair together.
“Yeah.” He shrugs, gnashing on a piece of gum. Keeps him from smoking, so I guess I shouldn’t complain about the way he’s gnawing on it like a cow with its cud. “I suppose I have a few minutes before I gotta take off.”
“Big plans today?” I ask him. Dumb question. Of course he does, the man is constantly on the go.
“Well, as you may or may not be aware, it’s my birthday in a couple of days.” He pauses for dramatic affect, par for the course for Kai, and smoothes out his stark white button down. Maybe it just looks sharper against the deep bronze tone of his skin.
I notice he’s dressed to kill with the top buttons purposely left open and sleeves rolled up to his elbows—always wanting to show off tidbits of his tattoos—glimpses of his Polynesian heritage.
Meanwhile, I’m barely put together with my tattered college hoodie on.
I say mine, but the thing might be his, actually.
Who cares, he left it, and I took ownership of it.
Not like we didn’t meet each other going to the same university anyway.
His tailored black pants are distinctly lacking in long, white cat-fur, unlike my own black joggers I’m currently wearing.
I wonder how long he admired his reflection for, while getting a shine like that on those Gucci shoes.
I guess when you drop as much money on them like he did, you don’t want them scuffed up.