Unable to deny her, I reached out and tried to hold her hand, but our arms were just too short, which meant that I had to scooch closer to Ellis. “There you go, baby,” I murmured, smiling and moving nearer when she pulled my hand closer to her tummy and laid her head down on Ellis’s chest.
Putting his arm around my shoulders, he dragged me until I was tucked into his side. “She’s growing too quickly,” he muttered, looking down at my daughter and shaking his head. “I don’t like it.”
Snorting, I replied dryly, “It’s not like you can stop it, you know. That’s what happens. Next it’ll be a boy trying to kiss her, a kid pulling her hair, boys asking her out.” I stopped when I felt him tense up.
“Not happening. Any boy goes near her or anyone gives her shit, I’ll get her uncle to arrest them, and then dangle them by their ankles until they swear they’ll leave her alone.”
I wanted to say he was joking… “You know you can’t do that, right?” Plus, he was one of the softest-hearted people I knew. He wouldn’t scare a kid more than he would scare a puppy or a kitten.
“We’ll see,” he hummed, giving Liv a peck on the top of her head before turning his head to face me. “I found out something interesting about you earlier.”
Few people want to hear or can stay relaxed after hearing those words, and I wasn’t one of them. Every part of me turned to steel as I tried plotting a way to escape my current position. There were so many things he could be talking about, some good, but many bad. Like the time he heard me and Tabby screaming about mammaronis the night we brought Olivia back from the hospital. Or when he heard my screams for bleach the first time I got my daughter’s poop on my hand and then begged Tabby to just cut it off. Or the time I reached into my bag to pull out lip balm and pulled out a tampon. Or the scream from yesterday when I’d wiped myself after going to the bathroom and my nail had gone through the paper, meaning I now had a graze in an unfortunate place. So, him finding out something about me that had him approaching it in this way wasn’t something that filled me with happy thoughts, glitter, and unicorns.Ellis
“I found out something interesting about you earlier,” I told the woman who, along with her daughter, made my days something to look forward to. I’d been one of those slow to rise people since I was born, but now I got up at least ten minutes before my alarm went off, just with the promise of seeing them both. It might sound sappy, but it wasn’t. When you look forward to something so much, regardless what it brings or how it comes about, you don’t mind leaving the comfort of your bed. The only issue was getting this strong-willed woman to give in and go out on a date with me.
I understood that she’d been through a lot, but I believed her when she said that she wasn’t still hanging onto what her ex put her through. If I was in her shoes, given the type of man that I was, I would probably be focusing on my kid, too. That said, I was the guy wanting to date her, so it was different.
I couldn’t help the grin that broke out when I felt how solid she’d turned after I’d said those words to her as her eyes darted around the room. Knowing her as well as I did by now, I knew she’d be going through all of the things that I could have found out. No matter how many possibilities she went through, though, I could bet my right ball that she wouldn’t guess what it was.
Earlier today, I’d had a surprise visit from Tabby who’d been discussing a tattoo idea with me. Jose had been in five weeks ago getting a smaller version of the tattoo on her sister’s thigh done on her forearm, and they’d been talking about what Tabby wanted to get done next. She’d thrown around ideas, a lot of it based on artwork, so when she’d come in and put a photo of DB in front of me it had taken me a minute to get my head around it. No, she didn’t want him tattooed on her, she wanted his sheriff’s badge added into the tattoo on her thigh. Not gonna lie, it was a huge fucking relief finding that out. As we’d discussed the placement and how to add it in a way that looked natural instead of an addition, she’d dropped into the conversation that her sister couldn’t say no to a dare. Did I believe that she did it accidentally? No. That said, it opened up a whole new path for me to take to get Jose to say yes to a date, and I cared not one bit if that made me sound like an asshole. I knew her reasons why she wouldn’t, but I also saw the looks she gave me, and I knew how deep my feelings for her and Olivia ran, so I was going to work on getting my chance to prove how great we’d be together.