Chapter 43
FORTY-THREE
STORM
“ J ust try your best, Dad,” Tempest says, taking in my worried look. “It doesn’t have to be perfect.”
Her soft hair drips down the side of her face, landing on the towel wrapped around her neck. It’s well past bedtime, closing in on nine-thirty p.m., and Raiden’s already settled under his blankets.
This is what co-parenting with Shae looks like.
I have my nights, she has hers; doing things together seems to be a thing of the past. It’s been three weeks since the night that changed everything.
I told her to find me when she decides, so I’m taking the fact that she’s avoiding any and all conversation about our relationship as a good thing. If she’s silent, she’s still thinking.
I can tolerate the stress of not knowing, of there being the possibility of us, more than I can tolerate the reality of having lost her forever.
Standing behind Tempest, she points to the hair products on the counter—oils, moisturizers, two types of combs, and brushes.
“Here, I’ll detangle it. Watch me,” my daughter says, sounding so self-assured and so damn much like her mother that I can’t help the smile that comes to my face.
She picks up a spray bottle with some type of leave-in solution and saturates her already wet hair.
Then, she starts from the ends of her natural curls and works her way up to the roots.
She’s using a Denman brush—a tool I learned about from the hours of YouTube videos I’ve consumed over the last few weeks.
“Let me try,” I murmur, catching Tempest’s eyes in the mirror. She only looks a little worried, and I chuckle at her expression. “If I hurt you, let me know, okay?” I ask, leaning down to rest my hands on her shoulders.
“Okaaaay, Daddy,” she drawls, tensing as if she’s expecting me to rip all her hair out. I make the sign of the cross, and Tems giggles before I get to work.
All my focus goes to the single chunk of hair I try to unknot.
“Um…Dad?”
“Yeah, Tems?”
“You can comb it a little harder, y’know,” she says cautiously, and I cringe at her reflection.
“You’ll tell me if I hurt you?”
“Yep, but I’m sleepy and you’re gonna be working at this for years ,” she says, amping up the drama.
“Okay, got it.” I got it. I can do this.
We fall into a silent rhythm as I get the hang of things, and when her hair is finally free of knots, we both release big breaths, and I add oils and creams to the detangled strands.
“Now, let’s dooooooo ,” she seems to think about what style she wants to go to sleep in. “Let’s do two pigtails!”
Okay, part the hair down the middle and put it into two hair ties. I can do that. I can so do that.
It doesn’t escape me that I’m working so damn hard to prove I can be a great father, a competent father, because I want Shae to have no doubts about my abilities.
“You got it, baby girl,” I say brightly, and pick up the rat-tail comb to part her hair.
Making a straight part is harder than it looks…by far.
“Dad?” Tempest asks, her tone serious, and I’m sure she’s gonna tell me to just give up. I have her hair in two hemispheres, sure, but the line goes from her widow’s peak to damn near behind her right ear.
“Yeah, Tems?” I say, concentrating on the back of her head.
“Why is Mommy sad?”
My hands freeze, the pointed end of the comb resting at the crown of her head, where I try for the fifth time to make a part.
What do I tell my seven-year-old? Certainly not everything, but should I share even a sanitized version? What am I supposed to do here?
Calm down, Storm. Breathe. You know what to do.
I inhale and latch on to my mother’s voice, and when I open my eyes and look at Tempest, it’s like my mom’s face is there in hers.
“You’d have to ask your mom specifically what she’s sad about, but if I could guess, I would say she’s sad because we had an argument.”
Tempest stands there quietly with a screwed-up face.
“Oh,” she says. I look at her hair, avoiding her gaze when the disappointment in her tone slaps me in the face.
I get a bit closer to centering her part in the momentary silence.
“Dad?” Tempest says again.
“Yeah, Tems?” I say, still staring at the separation.
“Are you sad, too? Because you had an argument with Mommy?”
My heart squeezes.
“You’re very observant, baby girl,” I reply with a hollow chuckle.
She looks down and away, so I place a kiss on her almost-straight part.
“Never change. That’s an excellent thing,” I add, and her reflection beams at me for a second before the smile falls.
“Yes, I’m sad. I miss your mom,” I tell her truthfully, reaching for one of the hair ties to secure her hair temporarily.
Tempest hums.
“Do you love mommy?” she asks, and she presents the question so innocently, so plainly, it makes me want to hold her close, so she never loses that view of the emotion.
“Yes,” I say emphatically. “I love your mom very much.”
She nods, very serious.
“Did you fight because Mommy says we’re moving back home?” The news hits me in my gut, taking the wind out of my lungs.
“Oh?” I ask, not willing to interrogate my daughter for adult information. “I didn’t know that.”
Tempest rolls her lips inward, her eyes going wide. Tears rush to her lids.
“Oh, Tempest. Don’t cry, baby girl,” I say, hugging her tight and letting myself breathe in her fresh scent.
Moving…moving? God, I?—
“Daddy, I don’t want to go back!” she wails, and I pick her up to carry her across the bathroom to sit on the short bench meant to put on shoes, placed next to their closet.
She cries, and I hold her while she does so. I want to cry along with her, and maybe she should see me cry—maybe she should see a man show that emotions have no gender—but I keep it all inside.
Primarily because I think if I let a single tear fall, I might completely fall apart. Tempest needs me to be her rock in this moment, and I will.
When her tears slow, she snuggles into my chest, and I count her slow breaths, thinking she’s gone to sleep. I panic for a second, because I know her undone hair will tangle and frizz again if I don’t braid it down.
Shae’s moving with them.
“Daddy?” Tempest whispers.
“Baby girl?”
“D’you think you could say sorry to Mommy and really, really mean it, and she might let us stay here? Like, all together as a family?”
There’s my heart breaking again.
“Do you want to live here, Tems?” I ask instead. She sucks up her snot, which I’ve learned is not nearly as gross when it’s done by one’s offspring.
“I wanna live here, Daddy, but….”
“But what?” I ask.
Tempest winds her arms around my torso, squeezing tight.
“I don’t want to live in two houses. Grace Sanderson lives in two houses because her parents are divorced, and she hates it.
And her dad got married, so she has a stepmom , and she’s evil —just like in Cinderella.
Are you going to marry someone who’s not Mommy?
I want you to marry Mommy and live here forever! ”
She breaks down into tears again, and I let myself grieve alongside her.
But only for a moment.
Shae gets to choose.
“Here’s what I can promise you, Tems,” I say, stroking her back. “I promise that regardless of what happens between me and your mom, you and Raiden come first. You are always gonna be the priority in our lives, and I want you to be happy and whole. That’s what matters most.”
Tempest finally pulls away, and her tear-stained, puffy face has me wanting to rip my heart out.
“I love you, Tempest Amaya,” I say, kissing her forehead. “We’ll figure all this out. I promise.”
It’s a promise I intend to keep.
With a sigh that turns into a yawn, she leans back into me and says, “I love you, too, Daddy.”
My phone beeps as soon as I close the twins’ door.
Office. Now.
Well, that doesn’t fucking bode well. I’ve been on edge ever since Zane’s attack, which means I’ve had Axel and Riale on high alert, too. Zane Gibson got too fucking close to Shae, and I want to know all the skeletons in his closet that granted him the power to do that.
I make my way across the estate, stopping in the kitchen for a bottle of water. When I reach it, I pause, staring at the granite countertop where Shae and I ate ice cream and spilled our hearts just weeks ago.
How is it possible it’s only been weeks?
How is it possible we’re back to being strangers?
My heart rate starts to double, and I force myself to look away from the island, wrenching the door open and grounding myself with the coolness of the bottle against my palm.
You’re fine, Storm. Everything is fine.
I close the fridge and jump nearly a foot in the air when a person appears from behind the door.
“Fuck!” I shout, jumping back. My hand instinctively goes to the small of my back, where I usually keep my gun. It’s not on me because I obviously don’t want to wear a piece while around my babies.
“Skai, what the fuck?” I clamp my lips tight, trying to gather patience. “Are you okay?”
I don’t see Skai often. She stays on her side of the property, back where the mother-in-law’s house is. While I receive updates from her care team—her psychiatrist, psychologist, and nursing staff—I make it a point not to be very close to her, and especially not unattended.
The memory of her thinly veiled attempt at flirtation still gives me a sick feeling in my stomach.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she says, her voice small. She doesn’t sound like she’s pretending to be older, or younger, for that matter. She just sounds…muted. Level, maybe?
“Good,” I reply, stepping away from the fridge. “You should head to bed.”
I look at my watch.
“It’s past ten. You need your sleep.”
Skai gives me a closed-lipped smile.
An awkward silence settles between us.
“All right, well. I’ll catch you later,” I say, turning away.
“What was he like?” she asks, and I freeze, a jolt of something—panic? Guilt?—slides down my back.
“Who?” I ask, looking at her over my shoulder. Her red hair hangs limply to her shoulders, as if weighed down by dirt and oil.
“My father. I want to know what he was like when he was with you,” she says, confirming my dread.