Chapter 19
Spencer
Atear tracks over Riley’s cheek. She bats at my hand as I hold her chin, and her gaze, facing me.
“So? What if I did, Lockwood? The food is going cold . . .”
Her attention flickers to the bowls of Chinese food she’s brought home for us. Ivy chews on a teething cracker, the evidence of her squishy vegetable dinner still on the corner of her mouth. And the sofa . . . is calling my name.
I want to snuggle up with this little woman who feels every damn thing and waste away the night. However that pans out.
“So it is,” I say with a rumble.
I scoop her off the chair and toss her over my shoulder.
“Ah! Spencer fecking Lockwood, you put me down!”
Fists—I think, they’re kind of small—pummel into my spine.
I groan, appreciating the massage. It’s been a long time since I had hands on my body. I’m hard by the time I round the sofa and toss Riley into its cozy, soft depths.
Furious dark eyes glare up at me. “Was that absolutely necessary?”
I chuckle, low and raw, examining the guttural need that rose for her in the short distance from the kitchen to the living room.
“Yeah, Riles, it was.”
With a little huff, she snuggles into the sofa further and raises both hands. “Feed me, Spence. I’m starving.”
Yeah, me too, Riley O’Malley.
My chest rises and falls as I stare at her a beat too long.
Clearing my throat, I pad for the kitchen and grab our bowls and silverware. After delivering them both to the sofa, I pull Ivy over to the end of the sofa as she plays with her teething cracker in her high chair.
With both my girls content, I flop onto the soft seat.
Goddamn, it’s been a long, fucked-up day.
I sigh and Riley looks up from her bowl, noodles streaming from her lips back into the bowl.
She slurps them up before licking the sticky sauce from her pink lips.
I shift in my seat and train my attention to the food in front of me before I do something stupid.
Like lean over and kiss said sauce from her lips.
I can imagine the fire that would meet me when I pulled away.
I’d slide my hand into her hair and fist it and kiss her again purely because I wanted to.
“. . . encer?”
“Hey, what?” I haul in a breath, my lungs stretching, my jeans bulging with my wayward thoughts.
“Remote, Spence,” she breathes, her thumb swiping leftover sauce between her lips as she tucks her legs underneath her body.
Clearing my throat, my parched fucking throat, I grab for the remote on the small side table at my end of the sofa. My fingers fumble it, and it falls from my grip, hitting the floor.
“Fuck, sorry,” I mutter as I dive for it.
Riley bends down at the same time.
Her forehead smacks into my temple.
“Ah, shite.” She rises, rubbing her head. “You okay?”
With a chuckle, I swipe up the remote and toss it to the sofa between us. “Yeah, give me a look.”
I lean in—to assess damage, of course, not to kiss the hell out of this woman I’ve been trying so damn hard not to think about this way.
Apparently, losing almost everything has me entertaining things I would have snuffed out even a few short weeks ago.
“I’m fine.” She drops her hand, plucking up the remote and pointing it at the oversized flat-screen. “Thriller or comedy? I don’t think anything else would suit.”
When I glance at her, she’s so still. Waiting.
Her bottom lip is caught between her teeth.
Oh fuck, O’Malley.
The V-neck T-shirt she’s wearing deep dives between her cleavage. She fidgets with her hair as I take her in, pulling it around her neck only to lose it over her chest. The scent of apples from her shampoo hits me.
My body tenses to something primal, something overwhelming.
She’s fucking stunning.
In a T-shirt and jeans.
With takeout. On the sofa.
With a clean face and a fiery stare that is now intensifying under lowering brows.
I clear my throat for the second time in ten minutes. “Yeah, comedy would be great. After today, I could use a laugh.”
Among other things . . .
I rise, needing to get someplace not in her orbit.
“Drink?” I manage to rasp.
“Sure. Juice, please.” Leaning her head back, her gaze follows me as I leave the living room space and head for the refrigerator.
I stand in front of the cool wash of air from the open refrigerator longer than necessary before plucking out Riley’s juice and a bottle of water for me.
Sinking on the sofa, a little further away from Riley this time, I hand her the juice. “Last one, Riles.”
“Thanks. I’ll pick up some more over the weekend. Where are you and Brady off to tomorrow?”
Geez, that’s right, tomorrow’s Friday.
“Leduc. You can still come, you know.”
“I can’t. I have a paper due, and I guess now I need to pack, too.”
“Fuck,” I say before sighing. “Sorry my life drama is screwing with your plans.”
I mean it.
The last months with Riley and Ivy have done one thing really well . . . Shown me how little I’ve lived my own life. How little effort I’ve put in up until now. If I now know one thing to be true, it’s that I want all the days ahead of me to be of my choosing. I want to build something of my own.
Does it suck balls that I’m out on my ass for a hot minute? Sure.
Is it fucked up that my own family disowned me over the best thing that’s ever happened to me? Absolutely.
But in comparison, getting to spend time with Riley and having Ivy in my life more than makes up for those shortcomings.
I’m finally starting to feel like my life is more than just easy money, keeping up appearances, and holding down a shallow existence.
Fuck, that’s deep.
Especially for me.
Something hits the back of my head, and I jump.
“Hey what?” I spin around to find Ivy smiling at me, her little fists hitting the high chair table. I spring from the sofa, lunging for her.
“Come here you little rascal,” I say with a playful growl.
Riley’s laugh from behind sinks into my chest as I lift Ives from the chair and pretend to eat her belly. Messy fists curl around my hair, tugging at it.
Ivy giggles, and I keep shaking my head, mouth open on her belly as I pretend to gobble her up until she’s shrieking with laughter.
I’m pretty sure there is chewed-up cracker all through my hair. And I don’t give a shit.
All I care about right now is the tiny girl in my arms and the woman behind me.
Whose laughter peters out.
I turn back to find Riley’s face scrunched up. A smile is tugging at her face, but I can see she’s tamping back emotion.
“Riles . . . what’s up?”
Her face breaks. “Fecking hell.” She’s swiping at her face, sniffing before she loses a huffy laugh. “Nothing, I swear. I just—”
I put Ivy on the rug, and she rolls over instantly, her little head looking around as she pushes up onto all fours.
“Holy fuck,” I whisper.
Riley’s gaze snaps to Ivy. A smile splits her face. “Oh, you clever girl.”
“That’s early, right?” I ask.
“About on time, if I remember correctly. Someone is going to be crawling in no time.”
Ivy rocks back and forth on all fours, and Riley’s focus is stuck on me. I must look like an idiot, with the goofy grin that I can’t tamp back stretching my face.
I glance at Riley. “You wouldn’t think something so small like pushing up on her knees would make a grown man emotional.”
Riley laughs.
“Only a daddy could say that.”
Her finger brushes over my temple, and I turn my head, my gaze catching hers. “You have some crackers in your hair . . .”
She holds her finger out. Cracker, mushy and wet sits on the end of her finger.
“O’Malley, that is gross.”
Her face lights up.
“Well, you’re going to be really happy to know it’s all through your hair.”
“Ah, shite.”
“Spencer Lockwood, did you just curse Irish-like?” Her face is strained under mock shock.
“It’s all your fault, Riley O’Malley, you eejit.” I give her my best Irish accent, and she doubles over with laughter, arm over her stomach.
My shoulders shake with laughter, and when I look down at Ives, her little eyes are alternating between Riley and me.
My throat closes over, and I force a swallow.
I know, baby girl.
I know what she’s thinking. Hell, I’ve been thinking it for weeks. Ivy is attached to Riley now. We are her people. She’s going to be confused and devastated when Riley leaves us.
Me too, baby girl, me too.
Fuck, that was fast.
“Excuse me, think I need to wash this out before it sets like concrete.” I rise and pad for the master en suite.
I know it’s been a particularly tough day. Maybe that’s why I’ve started feeling every damn thing when it comes to these two girls.
I strip down like a man on fire, pull the lever, and wait until the water is steaming, the bathroom shrouded in cloudy steam.
I wash my hair and run soap over my body. And if stress could translate into weary muscles . . . my body is worn out.
It’s not the uncertainty that gets to me, it’s the opposite actually. I’m certain that I can get my life back on track, if I get my shit together. I’m certain that the circuit will keep us afloat. The other guys manage, so I will, too. Those few things I know, and they keep me levelheaded.
It’s the last certainty that eats at me, more and more every day.
Riley is going home to Northern Ireland in around six months.
I, we, have roughly one hundred and eighty days left of her in our life. I know it’s going to go too fast. I know it’s going to be hard for Ivy.
Fuck.
My palms meet the tile. I shake my head. Snap the hell out of it, Spencer. Get your goddamn shit together.
I rinse off and towel dry.
Dressed in sweats and a T-shirt, I pad back to the sofa.
Riley glances up from the television. “All better, da—”
I run hand through my damp hair, looking around the floor and the furniture. No Ivy.
“Where’s Ivy?”
Riley leans back, lifting a blanket. Ivy is snuggled against her side, sound asleep as her pacifier bobs in her little mouth.
“Was all tuckered out showing her daddy she can almost crawl.”
“Damn. I’ll take her to bed.”
I step around the sofa and lean into Riley. “Thank you, Riles.”
Her face moves with a soft, slow smile. “What for?”
“For everything. For loving Ivy as much as I do.”
She scrunches up her face, and her lips press to my cheek. “Anytime, Spence.”
My jaw feathers.
I have no idea how much longer I can hold in the way she makes me feel. This close . . . it takes every single thing I have to not palm that beautiful face of hers and kiss her fucking stupid.
Sweats stretching again, I track my attention to the sleeping baby before I—
Ivy whines.
I lift her and huddle her to my chest and head for her room. Her snuffly little noises are damn adorable as I lay her down in her crib, and hover, looking at her.
She’s damn perfect.
She’s mine.
And I don’t even know her birthday. I wasn’t there the day she was born.
I grind my molars as heat prickles the back of my eyes.
Fuck.
I make a mental note to talk to Stace about where I stand with custody and finding Ivy’s birth certificate.
Out in the living room, I make it back to the sofa to find Riley scrolling on her phone, the movie she chose paused. She waited for me.
“You could have started, Riles.” I sink onto the sofa next to her.
Probably too close, but too bad. I need to feel her beside me. I just need to.
“It’s okay, I can wait.”
That makes one of us, Riley.
My gaze drops to hers, and I study her face as I revisit the idea of kissing her thoroughly.
“Press play, Spence,” she whispers, pushing the remote into my hand.
On the movie or on us, Riles?
Thirty minutes later, she’s asleep up against my side. The soft little moans falling from her damn lips have me second-guessing doing the right thing or taking what I want.
Good triumphs over evil, the little devil on my shoulder sobbing in his cereal as I forfeit to good. Scooping her up, I stand, letting my focus wander over the woman in my arms.
The most fiery, stubborn, fucking loyal and loving person I’ve ever met . . .
That I don’t get to keep.
I pad to Riley’s room and pull back her covers with one awkward sweep of my hand before laying her down. Her head rests on the pillow, and I pull up the blanket. I tuck her in, the same way I do for Ivy. I should tuck her up tight, so she knows how she got to bed.
I tuck her blanket under her sides.
“Snug as a bug in ru—”
“Spence?” she mutters.
“Yeah, Riles. Right here.”
“I . . . night.”
She rolls over, away from me, and I’m left with empty arms and an even emptier heart.