Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
DANIKA
Macie dipped the last éclair into the chocolate glaze and set it on the wire rack next to the others. Stepping back, she tilted her head from side to side, examining her work closely before looking to me and asking, “What do you think? Do they look okay?”
“I think they look amazing.” I wasn’t just saying that to make her feel good.
They truly were exceptional, especially for her first time.
There were some people who learned to bake through trial and error, and there were some who just had a gift.
The more time I spent with Macie, it had become clearer to me that she fell into the latter category.
“The first time I made these, the choux pastry fell flat and my cream separated. They were totally inedible.”
Her beautiful face lit with excitement. “So I did good?”
“You did incredible, sweetheart. Why don’t you get your brother? He’s gonna love these.”
She bolted out of the kitchen toward the front door.
I grabbed a handful of the dirty dishes and moved to the sink to start washing when Leo came up behind me, pressing his chest to my back as he rested his hands on my hips. “I love watchin’ you and Macie do your thing together. She lights up every time you give her a compliment.”
I snagged the dishtowel hanging off the sink and dried my hands before spinning around and looping my arms around his neck. “Your daughter is talented, honey. She’s capable of doing things most people can’t accomplish without schooling.”
His head jerked back a bit, his eyes filling with surprise and warmth. “Really?”
“Yeah, really.”
“Hardin!” we heard shouted from outside. My eyes drifted to the window as Macie continued to shout. “Hardin get in here. I have a surprise for you.”
I giggled and shook my head before looking back at my man. “How was dinner?”
Today was Hardin’s official birthday, so the three of them had gone out for dinner at the restaurant of Hardin’s choosing.
Hardin had made a point to invite me to join them, but I bowed out so he could have his dad and sister to himself.
Leo and I had been together officially for a week.
The kids knew, and they seemed to be okay with it, but I was being cautious.
Hardin had been hurt the first time, and while the truth was out and there were no secrets, I was mindful to keep an eye on him this time around.
I didn’t want to overstep or set us back in any way.
I cared too much about him to risk hurting him again.
“It went well. Hardin really enjoyed it. Especially when I handed over the keys to his new ride.”
“I bet,” I said on a laugh. The used Honda Leo had gotten him didn’t have any bells and whistles, but it was safe and drove perfectly.
None of that other stuff mattered to his son anyway.
He was a newly minted sixteen-year old with a set of wheels, so he was in heaven.
I’d been at Leo’s a little over two hours already, and Hardin had been out in the driveway, messing around with his car that entire time, he was so excited.
We heard the front door open and stepped apart, but not completely. Leo shifted us both to face the opening that led to the entryway and looped his arm around my shoulders as we waited for the kids to appear.
Hardin spotted his surprise the instant he stepped into the kitchen. His eyes went big as he took in the éclairs before coming to me and asking quietly, “You made those for me?”
“Not me, honey. This was all Macie. All I did was supervise. She wanted to make you something special for your birthday.”
“I know it’s not a cake like you usually have,” his sister started hesitantly, “but I wanted to make you your favorite dessert. And we’re still having cake at your party, so I figured this would be okay.”
Hardin shifted his astonished gaze to his little sister.
“Are you kiddin’? This is awesome!” He hooked her around the neck and pulled her into a playful headlock, dragging her over to the counter so he could snatch one of the pastries up and bite in clean in half.
A second later, with his mouth full, he looked at Macie and declared, “These are amazing!”
Leo’s cell started to ring as the two of them began laying waste to the éclairs, so when he pulled it out and looked to the screen, muttering, “Gotta take this. Be right back,” I didn’t hesitate to join the kids at the counter so I could get one before they were all gone.
“You really screwed up now,” Hardin spoke to Macie, crumbs flying out of his mouth as he continued eating and talking.
“Now I’m gonna make you bake these for every special occasion.
That includes Flag Day and Groundhog Day.
You’re gonna make so many éclairs, you’ll be sick of them, but I won’t care. I’ll still make you do it.”
Something moved through my chest, something warm and happy as I watched Macie light up under her big brother’s praise.
“Since you like these so much, we’ll stay in the same category for the next lesson, and I’ll teach Macie to make cream puffs.” They both made their approval of that known with enthusiastic nods before going back to decimating the desserts lined up on the counter.
Seeing that the risk of them disappearing was growing by the second, I quickly snatched up two, careful not to get a hand taken off, and started backing away.
“I’m gonna take these to your dad. Just .
. . be mindful of the impending sugar crash you two have coming, yeah? Maybe consider saving some for later.”
Their heads came up, and I could see by the looks on their faces that they were geared up to go into a sugar coma right then, and there would be no talking them out of it. With a laugh, I spun around and headed out of the kitchen.
I started toward Leo’s bedroom, hearing the low rumble of his voice, but paused feet from the partially opened door when I heard the anger saturating his words.
“You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me.” There was silence for a few seconds before his furious growl traveled into the hall. “He’s your fuckin’ son, Whitney. The party’s in two days, and you’re telling me this shit now? What the hell kind of game are you tryin’ to play?”
More silence came before he spoke again, even angrier, a feat I hadn’t thought possible, seeing as he was already majorly pissed.
“Already told you, more than once, that isn’t gonna happen, Whit.
Danika’s a part of my life, which means she’s a part of my kids’ lives.
I will not uninvite the woman in my life to something just because you feel like bein’ an even bigger bitch and are threatenin’ not to come. ”
Oh God. My hands began to tremble, not a good thing, considering I was still holding Leo’s éclairs.
I braced my free hand against the wall to prop myself up as everything I’d just heard washed through me, leaving an ugly, sour feeling in its wake.
Hardin’s party was days away, and Whitney was calling to tell Leo she wouldn’t come if I was there.
God, what a bitch!
“There are two ways to be a family,” Leo continued, unaware that I was standing nearby, listening to everything he was saying.
“One way is to be together, raising your kids together. You and I are not that. Not anymore. The second kind is where we co-parent, doing what we can to maintain a respectable relationship for the benefit of the kids we have but aren’t raising together.
You either get on board with bein’ that last one, or you don’t.
And just a warning, Whitney, you don’t make the right choice, you’re gonna lose out in a very big way.
You might not realize that now, but one day you will, and you’ll have no one to blame but yourself. ”
My heart pounded against my breast so hard it was a wonder the sound of it wasn’t making the walls rattle as I waited for what would come next. And just as I feared, it wasn’t good.
“You just made the wrong choice. Enjoy sufferin’ the consequences.”
I knew he’d hung up when I heard a loud slam.
My feet came unglued and I pushed the door open, stepping inside the room.
Leo’s head was hanging, so I couldn’t see his face, but I didn’t need to.
I could read everything he was feeling in the tight, aggressive way he was holding his body and the rapid rise and fall of his chest. I glanced to the side, noticing the fist-sized divot in the drywall beside him and made a split-second decision.
“I won’t come on Saturday.”
His head came up and I finally saw the thunder in his expression. His normally-beautiful eyes were sparking with fury as he stared me down and clipped, “Excuse me?”
I placed the pastries on the dresser as I moved closer, freeing my hands to hold them up in a placating gesture. “It’s not a big deal, baby. I got to celebrate with him tonight, so it’s fine.”
“Fuck that,” he clipped. “You’re going to be there. That’s all there is to it.”
“Leo, please. He’ll be so busy with his friends and everything that he probably won’t even notice.”
“Maybe. But I’ll notice,” he returned in a low, menacing tone. “And you really think I’d be okay with my woman not being there for my boy’s party? Not a fucking chance, Danika. That bitch doesn’t get to win.”
“This isn’t about her winning,” I countered, keeping my voice as calm as possible.
I closed the last few inches between us and placed my hands on his chest as I continued, hoping to make him see reason.
“Saturday is Hardin’s day. It’s not about me, and it’s certainly not the time to try and make a point.
I want him to be happy. If me not being there will prevent anything from going bad on his day, I’m good with that. ”
“But I’m not.”
Those words weren’t spoken by Leo. They came from behind me, and when I finally found the strength to turn my head, I saw Hardin standing in the doorway, his body tight, his hands clenched, his face the exact replica of his father’s. “Sweetie, it’s—”
He looked past me to his dad and spoke over me. “So I’m guessin’ from what little I just heard, Mom called and said she’s not comin’ to my party if Dani’s there?”
“It’s okay,” I started. “I’m here right now to celebrate with you, so it’s not like I didn’t get the chance.”
His eyes came back to me, the same hazel as his dad’s, the same fire burning inside them. “You aren’t my mom,” he said through gritted teeth.
Those four words slammed into me like a freight train. “I know, and I’d never try to take her—”
“No, I mean, you aren’t my mom but when she put you in the spot she just did, your gut reaction was to do what you felt was best for me. Because you’re a good person.”
Okay, so that was really nice to hear, and at any other time it would have made me feel great, but I was too busy hurting on his behalf to feel it. “Hardin—”
“You didn’t even hesitate to try and fix it, and you did that ’cause you care about me. And you care about Macie.”
“Of course I do,” I said on a choked whisper.
“Son.” Leo side-stepped me and headed for his boy, but Hardin’s hand came up, stopping him. With his other, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out his cell.
The breath stalled in my lungs and he swiped at the screen and brought it up to his ear.
“Mom? Yeah. No, I heard what you just did.” There was a pause, then, “Stop. God, just stop.” He reached up and dragged his fingers through his dark hair in frustration.
“I’m not callin’ to listen to you put this all on Dad.
It’s not his fault. It’s yours. My own mom threw a fit to get her way, not thinkin’ once what that would do to me or how it would make me feel. ”
The air all around changed in a flash, suddenly charged with electricity.
I turned to see Leo standing beside me, completely shell shocked.
For a year he’d suffered through the pain of his son blaming the fallout of their family on him.
He’d carried that burden on his shoulders, and now he wasn’t sure how to handle his boy coming to the hard and painful realization that he’d been wrong.
I reached over, taking his big hand in mine, and gave it a squeeze as Hardin continued to lay his mom out.
“The only reason I’m callin’ is to tell you I don’t want you here on Saturday.
Dani overheard Dad when he was talkin’ to you, and you know what she did?
She tried to tell Dad it was okay, that she didn’t mind not bein’ here if it meant you’d come.
She did that for me. She did that because she’s a good person.
If you were even a little bit like her, you never would’ve put her and Dad in that spot in the first place.
So I don’t want you here. I want Dani here, because she deserves to be. ”
He pulled the phone away from his ear and hung up, not waiting to listen to anything else she had to say. When it started ringing almost immediately, he rejected the call and put the phone on silent.
He stuffed it back into his pocket, pulled in a big breath and looked back to me and his father. “Right. Well, I’m beat, so I’m gonna crash. Night, guys.”
He turned and took off before either of us could say another word.
Leo was still staring toward the door, the pain and anger on his face tearing me apart
My fingers clenched around his again. “I’m gonna straighten up in the kitchen and say goodnight to Macie. You do what you need to do for him, yeah?”
He shook himself out of the fog he’d been in the past few minutes and looked down at me. “Do you have any idea how much you mean to me, sweetness?”
That was the first time he’d said that to me, and it felt amazing.
It might not have been a declaration of love, but to me, it was just as good.
“I do, because you mean just as much to me.” Lifting up on my toes, I pressed a gentle kiss against Leo’s lips, letting out a tiny sigh when his tongue snuck out and brushed against mine.
Lowering back down, I lifted a hand and dragged my fingertips across the stubble on his jaw. “Go take care of your boy, honey. I’ll only be a phone call away if you need me.”
“I’m gonna hold you to that.”
“Go for it,” I said with a small grin. Then I left him to do what he needed to do, having complete faith that Leo would be able to guide his son back into the light.