AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It doesn’t bother her. She takes his hand and drags him to the table. “My name is Celia!”
She can say that like a grown girl. She doesn’t sound so little when she speaks those words compared to her other barely articulated sentences.
She pushes Nate and forces him to sit on the chair she was in. The tiny plastic chair. It bends under his weight, his knees coming up to his chest, and I have to pinch my lips not to laugh.
“Olivia.” She points at her. “Livie is my sister! My sister,” she repeats.
“Hi, Livie.”
She doesn’t even look up from her drawing. Lia runs around the table and stands behind her sister. She puts her hands on Livie’s shoulders in a protective gesture and observes Nate.
“Livie is my sister,” she insists.
I stay back, watching apprehensively as Nate tilts his head to the side, observing the two girls I’ve been hiding from him for almost four years.
His gaze narrows slightly as he thinks, then he brings his index to his ear, rubbing behind it. He pushes his glasses up his nose, and my breath stops, waiting for his reaction.
“I’m your dad.”
My heart drops, my hands coming to my face in shock. “Fuck. Nate!”
Lia looks at me and repeats, “Fuck!”
“No, Lia. Don’t say that, honey.” I run to her, and all Livie does is look up from her coloring book. She blinks at Nate and looks back down, pressing the yellow pen against the paper again.
“Mommy, what is fuck?” Lia asks innocently, completely ignoring the truth bomb Nate just dropped. “What is it?”
“A bad word. Nate, why?”
“I panicked,” he admits as calmly as ever. I might laugh if I wasn’t so overwhelmed.
“You don’t look like you’re panicking.”
“I have Daddy?” Lia changes the topic as quickly as her thoughts run through her head. She doesn’t articulate the question well, but her little voice pierces through my heart.
“Honey…” Her question leaves me speechless, and I turn to Nate, completely out of my depths. He nods, nudging me with a single look. “Yes, Nate is your dad. He’s been away for a while, and now he’s back, and he’d like to meet you and Livie, to get to know you.”
“Uncle Caden,” she replies simply, referring to the only other male figure she knows well.
“Well, it’s different. Uncle Caden is Mommy’s brother. Nate is…” My eyes dart down to the rings I still haven’t taken off, and then to Nate, silently screaming for help.
He stands up from the tiny chair and comes to squat next to the girls. “Your mommy and I once loved each other so hard that you two were born. See, that makes Kayla your mommy, and that makes me your daddy.”
Lia looks at me, a hundred more questions in her eyes that I can’t answer. For once, nothing comes out of her mouth.
“Hey.” I take her hand in mine and kiss her knuckles. “It doesn’t have to change anything. You, me, and Livie are a team. And then if you want, only if you want, Nate—”
“Daddy,” he corrects me right away. I’m going to have to explain to him that I won’t force my daughters to call him Dad or Daddy until he’s earned it or if they want to do so.
I roll my eyes. “He can join the team too. But that’s your girls’ choice. Okay?”
Livie looks up again, and she pushes her hand toward me. I take it too, kissing her knuckles like I did her sister. She brings her hand back to herself, and reaches out again, touching Nate’s knee.
“Hey,” he says simply.
She looks at me and brings her hand to my knee this time.
“Well,” Lia drawls. “If Livie says yes, I say yes too.”
