29. Vanessa
29
VANESSA
“Oh my God, her lunch!”
I gasp as I spring to my feet and dart into the kitchen, rooting through the cupboards to remember where I put Callie’s packed lunch this morning. I can’t let her go off to school with nothing to eat, what will people think of me…?
“Hey, hey,” Killian intercepts me before I can go crashing through the rest of the drawers. “It’s already in her backpack. Remember?”
He taps the backpack on the table before us, a reminder of what I already know. Of course, he’s right—my head is just so overstuffed from Callie’s first day at school, I can’t help but let some things slip.
Killian hugs me for a moment, drawing me against him as though he knows that I’m having a hard time controlling myself.
“Hey, you’re all good,” he promises me. “She’s going to do great today. Okay?”
“Okay,” I breathe back, pressing my head into his chest and inhaling his scent deeply. It’s funny how quickly someone can become your safe space—how soon they can become the person you feel like you can tell anything to. And I’m lucky enough to have not just one, but three, which is at least the amount I need to make sure Callie’s first day of school goes smoothly.
Killian draws back from me, and I look past him toward the stairs, where Callie is coming down with Jake at her side. She’s beaming from ear to ear, but I can’t help but feel a pang in my chest when I realize how grown-up she looks.
“Oh God, I can’t believe my baby girl is going to school…”
I rush toward her, fussing with her hair, checking that her uniform is all in place—she looks adorable, I have to say. The clothes she has to wear to her first day are the cutest thing—the little red pants and tucked-in red shirt.
“I’m fine, Mom!” she protests, squirming away from me, and I pull a face at her.
“I’ll tell you when you’re fine,” I shoot back, but I step back from her, planting my hands on my hips. “Have you got everything, sweetheart? How are you feeling? You feeling good?”
Jake, sensing my nerves, reaches out to give my hand a squeeze. “She’s doing great,” he assures me softly. “You’ve got nothing to worry about. Truly.”
“I know,” I breathe, and I smile down at her. “You ready? Let’s grab your bag and get going, baby!”
She takes my hand and the two of us head toward the door, and I bite back a little wave of emotion that threatens to get the better of me. I can’t believe this is finally happening. I could never have imagined that these would be the circumstances that she started school under, but hell, if this is what the universe wants, then this is what it’s going to get.
I help her into the guys’ car—Killian is driving us in. Jake and Mason want to come too, of course, but we figured it would likely draw too much attention to her on her first day if she turned up with three dads who also happen to be brothers. No, that’s more drama than she needs.
“You have a great first day,” Mason tells her, pulling her into a hug.
Jake gives her shoulder a squeeze. “Yeah, I can’t wait to hear all about it when you get back,” he says, and the two of them step back to wave us off.
Callie waves frantically until they’re out of sight, and then she flops down into the seat, a smile on her face.
I glance over my shoulder at her—and I can’t help but feel a smile echoing hers on my lips. Even though it’s been a few months since the attack on the house, she has already been doing so much better. Lara got in touch with a child therapist who she knows through work, and it’s such a relief to know that Callie’s got someone else she can confide in if she needs to.
And now, here she is, excited for her first day of school. Back when I first had her, I imagined this day, of course—but I pictured her father at my side, the man who helped me bring her into the world. Of course, it hurts to know that he’ll never get to see it—I know he would be so damn proud of her and everything she’s done, even though she’s just five.
But she has so much love in her life; it’s not as though she’s lacking anything. The way these three dote on her, and the way she adores them right back, her life is so utterly filed with love everywhere she turns, just the way I always wanted it for her.
We pull up outside the school, and what feels like a hundred parents are already crowded around this place, all of them bidding farewell to their little ones for the day.
“I promised myself I wasn’t going to cry,” I mutter, quickly swiping away the tears with my fingertips before my daughter sees them. I don’t want to make this about my emotions, not when I know how important this is for her. She deserves to focus on herself, and I know if she sees me crying, she’ll spend the rest of the day wishing there was more she could have done to make me feel better.
“You’re okay,” Killian assures me, putting an arm around my shoulders as Callie hops out of the car. As she looks across the crowd of people before her, I see the barest hint of hesitation on her face—as though she has suddenly figured out just how many people are actually going to be here. After all, she’s been out in the woods for the better part of the last six months, so it’s no wonder she would need a moment to adapt to all the newness.
But then she reaches for my hand and grips it tightly. “Come on, Mommy,” she tells me, her voice laced with such seriousness I can’t help but smile. She’s so brave. Even when she has her doubts, she’s ready to lead the way.
The two of us head toward the main building, where I sign her in and wave her off to her new class. She still looks a little nervous, but not nearly as much as she did when she first arrived. I pause for a moment, making sure she’s really in, before I head back down the corridor to meet Killian outside.
He slips his arms around my waist when I reach him—I can’t help but notice a couple of the other moms shooting me jealous looks, and I don’t blame them. Not that it really means anything, but I feel as though I scored the hottest silver fox in the drop-off line.
“How you feeling?” he asks me softly, squeezing me close. He knows this was always going to be a tough day for me, saying goodbye to her like this, even though I know she’s going to love the hell out of her education.
“I’m…good,” I reply, finally. It’s not entirely convincing—I can tell.
“You want to go grab something to eat?” he suggests. My stomach grumbles at the mere mention of food. I realize it’s been at least since last night since I actually ate something, and I nod.
“I would love that,” I sigh. “Is there somewhere in town we can get some food…?”
He takes me to this little diner at the edge of town—a place that looks as though it has been open for the better part of fifty years, at least judging by the way the tiles are beginning to peel away from the wall in some places. But the coffee is hot and the food is good, and I can’t think of anything else that matters more right now. I order myself a stack of pancakes, dripping in golden syrup, and tuck in like my life depends on it.
“It’s going to get easier,” Killian tells me as he watches me eat from the other side of the table.
My head flicks up, a frown furrowing my brow. “You mean with Callie…?”
He nods. “Yeah, it’s not always going to feel so difficult,” he assures me. “I know it must be weird for you, seeing her off to school when it’s just been the two of you for so long, but…”
“Yeah, it really is,” I sigh in agreement, as I place down my fork once more.
I’m still trying to make sense of where this leaves me, now that she’s started school. There have been times when I’ve been focused on this point—the point where I’m not going to be responsible for her for the entirety of every single day, so I can relax a little and focus on myself. But truth be told, she’s too much a part of me to allow for something like that. It’s not as though I can just turn off how much I miss her, how far it feels like she is from me right now.
“I just…I don’t know,” I continue, reaching for my coffee. “After Johnny died, it was always just the two of us. I never had to think about anyone else, and I hardly had to imagine what life was going to be like without her. I didn’t have anyone to split the hard stuff with, but that meant I got all of the good stuff too. And now…” I trail off for a moment. “Well, I guess someone else is going to be getting a whole lot of that good stuff. Her teachers, her classmates…”
“But that’s a good thing,” Killian promises me, reaching across the table to take my hand. “You’ve done such an amazing job with her, and now she gets to go out into the world and share that with everyone else.”
I manage a small smile. “I guess it makes me selfish that I want to keep it all to myself, then,” I murmur.
He chuckles. “Not selfish,” he corrects me softly. “Just a mom.”
“And I guess that comes with some selfishness built in,” I muse out loud. “Ugh, don’t get me wrong, I’m so proud of her, but I just…I want to keep her all to myself for a while longer, you know?”
“I know,” he laughs. “I would too, if she were my daughter.”
I smile at him. I appreciate that he’s not overstepping his boundaries by trying to claim that she’s his little girl already, but honestly, I’m starting to see it that way. Sure, it might not be the most obvious setup in the world, but I can tell that she adores all three of these guys totally and completely, and that’s only going to grow more with the time that passes and the comfort she finds in their presence.
“I never thought she would have a dad,” I confess to him, after a long pause. “I guess…after Johnny died, it was just easier for me to focus on the two of us. Getting by, making sure she didn’t miss out on anything, trying to pay my bills and keep up with work on top of that, but now…” I shake my head. “She’s going to have three dads,” I whisper, a sudden grip of emotion catching me off guard.
“I know I’d be honored to be considered her father,” Killian replies without missing a beat. “Mason and Jake too…”
“You think?”
“I know.”
The way he says it, it’s as though they’ve already been discussing the matter among themselves. The thought draws a smile to my lips, all of them chatting about how they can best support my little girl. It’s everything she deserves, a million times over—I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I pick up my fork once more, and set about finishing my pancakes. And as the bright late-summer light comes through the large windows beside us, it’s as though it’s finally clearing away the last of the shadows I’ve been holding on to—the last of the doubts I might have had about the choices I’ve made, and what they’ll mean for Callie and me.
These guys adore her, and they’re going to be there for her in ways that I alone never could have been. She’s going to have a trio of amazing fathers, ready to turn out to every parents’ evening and soccer game she plays in. Sure, we might take a little explaining, but I can cope with that. When has anything in my life ever been straightforward, anyway…?
Killian and I finish up, and then head off to pick up some groceries before we head back up to the cabin. As we step out of the car opposite the store, he shoots a look at me out of the corner of my eye.
“How’s that book going?” he asks me, trying his best to keep his voice casual—but I can tell from the way he says it that it’s anything but.
I bust out laughing, raising my eyebrows at him. “Yeah, convincing job making it sound like you’re not desperate to read the first draft,” I tease him.
He shrugs. “Hey, if I’m going to be put to paper, I at least deserve to know what’s being said about me, don’t I?”
“It’s very positive. Very flattering. You have my word on that.”
“That sounds like the kind of thing you would say if you were trying to hide what’s really going on in those pages,” he shoots back.
I plant my hands on my hips and come to a halt as I turn to him outside the store. “Well, I guess you’re going to have to find some way to bribe me to make sure that I show you in a good light in the book.”
“Hmm, bribery, huh?” he murmurs as he moves in close to me, looping his arms around my waist and pulling me into him. I giggle, planting my hands against his chest. I can already feel a few strange looks from the people around us, probably wondering why we’re getting frisky in the parking lot of this no-name grocery store on the edge of town, but I don’t care. Not when he feels this good, this close to me. “I’m sure I can come up with a few ideas…”
As he speaks, his sinks his mouth slowly into mine, and a rush of hungry want pulses through me. I know I shouldn’t be letting it get the better of me in a place like this, but damn, if there isn’t something near-painfully hot about imagining all the ways he could go about bribing me if he got it into his head that he wanted to.
And when he pulls back, my head is still spinning slightly, but I manage to arrange my features in such a way that they won’t totally make clear just how much I enjoyed this.
“That’s a start,” I tell him as I pull away. “And if you carry the groceries back to the car, that’s going to go a long way toward making this right…”
He laughs as he catches up with me. “You drive a hard bargain.”
“That’s what good journalists do,” I fire back as I grab a basket. And as we pull out the list and set about figuring out exactly where the beer is hiding in a store like this, I can’t help but smile. It might seem totally average and totally unremarkable to anyone passing by, but to me, this kind of intimacy is something that I have lacked for so long in my life.
And now that I’ve found it, I know I will never let it slip through my fingers again.