Skye
“Mommy, wake up. Look.”
Sugar’s whisper landed right over my face.
I cracked an eye open and had to blink twice to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.
My baby was standing there in a tiara, a pair of little plastic heels on her feet, her arms loaded down with stuffed animals I’d never seen before.
A purple Chanel bag, a real one, hung off her shoulder, stuffed so full of dollar bills it wouldn’t close.
“Is it Christmas?”
“No, silly.” She grinned so wide her cheeks pushed her glasses up. “Daddy got it all for me. He’s downstairs with donuts. I told him I’d come wake you up.”
I propped up on my elbow and looked at her. She was lit all the way up, wobbling on those heels, tiara crooked, talking a mile a minute about donuts and her daddy like the two best words in the world had finally landed in the same sentence. I’d watched her be happy. I’d never seen her like this.
“Sugar.” I pointed toward the purse. “Why is your Chanel bag full of money?”
She looked down at it like she’d forgotten it was there before shrugging.
“Daddy said it’s a nae nae bag.” She hugged it tighter against her little body. “He said a lady should always have her own, so she never has to ask anybody for anything.”
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling.
Of course, Ducane Simmons bought our six-year-old a Chanel bag, filled it with cash, and sent her upstairs with financial advice before breakfast. It sounded exactly like something his mother would’ve taught him.
“Daddy is right,” I said.
“I know. Come on, Mommy, we don’t want to keep him waiting. He said he has a busy day today.”
I rolled my eyes with a groan, kissed her on top of her forehead, and ushered her out of my room so I could shower and get myself together.
I’d taken something to help me sleep when I finally got to my room last night.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw his face on that beach.
The way it changed when I said her name, the hurt that moved through him before he could lock it down.
I couldn’t lie there with that on a loop until morning, so I made it stop the only way I could.
I let the water run as hot as I could stand it and stood under it longer than I needed to.
The whole night kept playing back, his face, the way Cadence had run to him like she’d been waiting her entire life, the look on him when he held her.
He’d stayed. He was downstairs right now with donuts, being a father like he’d been doing it all along.
And still, under all of it, I couldn’t shake the fear sitting low in my stomach.
He was here for her. That much I knew. What I didn’t know was whether he was here for me, or just close enough to her that I came with the package.
I shut the water off, wrung out my hair, and reached for my towel.
I wrapped myself in it, still half in my own head, and didn’t even notice him at first. He was sitting in the chair in the corner of my room, legs gapped open, watching me with those amber eyes.
I jumped and clutched the towel to my chest.
“Ducane—” I pulled it tighter. “You scared me.”
He smirked. “It’s a bit late to be covering up, Spot. I’ve seen all of that. Several times. And recently.”
“That’s not the point.” I held it anyway. “I haven’t had a man in my room in a long time. This is new for me.”
“A man.” He said it slowly, like he was tasting it, and shook his head. “Your husband.”
I raised a brow. “Oh, is that what this is?”
He stood, and the room shrank the second he decided to take up space in it. He stopped in front of me, close but not touching, and tilted my chin up.
“Look at me, Skye.” His voice dropped. “You’ve always been my wife.
You always will be. That part’s not up for discussion.
” I swallowed, my throat tight, and he kept going.
“Right now, I’m working through my shit, and I know you want to talk.
I know you got a hundred things you need to say.
We’ll get there. But first, I need to just be here.
Be a real fixture in this house, with her, with you, before we crack everything open. Let me have that.”
“Okay, I’m not going to push.”
“Anything I should know right now?”
“Sugar has ballet at two today if you’d like to join us. After, we always go get milkshakes.”
The second it left my mouth, his eyes locked on mine. And I knew we were both thinking about the same day.
The day he followed me out of class, carried my bag all the way to The Diner, and sat me down in his booth. He ordered the biggest milkshake on the menu because I was having the worst day of my life, and decided he was going to fix it.
We sat there for hours. I walked in a girl who’d just lost her parents and walked out with him as a best friend.
The corner of his mouth pulled. Mine did too. For a second, it was just us again, two wild-ass kids living off milkshakes and cheese fries.
And here I was, taking our daughter for milkshakes every Wednesday after ballet. Another way to keep him close.
“Skye.” His voice came out rough.
“I know trusting me again is going to be hard,” I said, reaching for the safer thing. “But I told you the truth on that beach. She always knew who you were. I made sure of that much.” I finally looked at him. “I just hope one day you can forgive me for the rest. I do regret hurting you.”
He didn’t respond to that. I didn’t expect him to. Forgiveness wasn’t a thing you handed somebody twelve hours in, and Ducane didn’t give anything he didn’t mean.
“I’ll be there at two,” he said instead.
It wasn’t forgiveness. But it was him showing up. I’d take it.
“Okay.” My shoulders finally dropped. “I’m glad you’re here.”
He checked his watch, detaching from the moment. “Me too. I gotta head out in a little. Meeting up with the guys.”
The guys. Carter was the guys. Carter, who’d been Ducane’s right hand since they were nineteen, married my sister, who’d sat across from me at a hundred Sunday dinners, knowing exactly whose daughter was running around the table. My stomach tightened.
“Ducane.” I caught his arm. “Don’t kill him, okay? Carter only did what I asked him to do. He kept his mouth shut because I begged him to. Be mad at me. Not him.”
His face tightened, but he didn’t say anything.
I hated that I’d ever put Carter in the middle of our mess. Back then, I’d been ready to disappear with Sugar if he ever decided his loyalty lay with Ducane rather than with us. I didn’t know how two men came back from a thing like that, and knowing I was the reason for it made me feel even worse.
“I hear you.” He said, walking out of the room. I’d been standing at my bedroom window for longer than I realized, until the sound of Cadence's laugh finally pulled me out of it.
When I made it downstairs, Sugar was in the middle of the living room, going all out to Gracie’s Corner, glasses sliding down her nose, throwing her whole little body into moves that didn’t match the song or each other.
Ducane sat on the floor in sweats with his back against the couch, filming her on his phone, cracking up every time she spun herself dizzy and kept going.
I stopped at the bottom step and just looked at them.
It was a portrait. Our daughter dancing wildly in mismatched pajamas while her father sat on the floor recording every second of. Morning light poured through the windows and settled over them. I’d spent a lot of time believing I’d stolen this picture from both of them.
I turned my head before either of them could catch me wiping my face.
“Mommyyyy,” Cadence squealed, spotting me. Ducane turned his head and camera as she launched into my arms. “I saved you a chocolate donut. Daddy said that’s your favorite.”
I looked at Ducane and exhaled. He dropped his phone and reclined on the couch. I hated that I couldn’t read him. But maybe that was the problem, the reading. Maybe I needed to stop reading him and start hearing him. Seeing him.
“Thank you, pumpkin. What kind did you have? Let me guess.” I tapped my chin while she grinned up at me, practically vibrating. “Pink. With sprinkles. No jelly.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Eww, no jelly, but correct, Mommy!” She dug into her bag and pulled out a hundred-dollar bill, slapping it into my palm like a game show host. “Here. You win.”
“Crazy girl. Thank you.” I laughed. “I guess that means you’re paying for me and Daddy’s milkshakes today?”
I walked into the kitchen and took a bite of the donut. Ducane joined us in the kitchen and leaned against the wall while Sugar bounced in place, thinking it over hard. Then she opened her bag and held it up to him.
“Is that enough?”
“More than enough, sweetheart.” His mouth twitched. “But I think Daddy’s got the milkshake bill from here on out.”
She jumped and took off to her room.
I shook my head and turned to busy my hands with something, anything. All I wanted was to act like this was exactly what it looked like. Us. A family, plain and easy, the three of us finally just being that. I wanted his arms around me so bad it was stupid.
Sugar wasn’t the only one who’d spent all this time wishing he was here.
“What you got going on for the day?” he asked.
I turned around. “I need to make some arrangements. Today’s my last day off before I’m back on the schedule. I could use a few more days, though. I was gone a whole week already.”
“You mentioned school too. You been carrying a lot, Skye.” He pushed off the wall. “I can handle the money side. Take whatever time you need.”
“A few days. Not more than that.” I pointed the donut at him. “I’m not giving up my job, Ducane. I love what I do. I worked too hard to get my wings to hand them over the second a man with a black card walks back into my life.”
He held his hands up, almost smiling. “Wouldn’t dream of asking you to.”
“Good.” I softened. “But a few days to get us sorted? That I’ll take.”
And I meant it. I wasn’t that scared, proud girl who walked into The Diner anymore, the one who’d have said no to everything just to prove she didn’t need anybody. I could let him carry some of it now. I just wasn’t about to let him carry all of it. Some things were still mine.
“Aight, I’m heading out. Call me if you need anything.”
He took off upstairs to say bye to Cadence, who did not sound happy about him leaving. He promised her he’d be back for ballet and milkshakes. From the top of the stairs, I heard a stuffed animal get proposed, then a LEGO set, then some kind of counteroffer.
I shook my head. That girl didn’t need a single thing. But I was never going to convince Ducane of that, not in this lifetime.
“I think I got me a lawyer on my hands,” he said, huffing out a laugh as he came back down and stopped in front of me.
“It’s gotta be hereditary.”
“Gotta be.”
He leaned down and kissed my forehead before heading for the door.
The front door clicked shut behind him.
I smiled to myself. Sugar was about to have that man wrapped around her finger by lunchtime.