My heart melts.
I’d die for this girl.
And I’m also her favorite uncle everyone, don’t listen to what that fucker Jace says.
“Deli, I’m so sorry for being late. Can you forgive me?” I stoop down to match her eye level. Delilah gives me her biggest smile to date before narrowing her eyes at me.
“Only if you get me a new plushy. Daddy says that I can’t get anymore.” She pouts, folding her tiny arms over herself, andoh if that doesn’t make my heart swell even larger…
“Well, we just can’t have that now, can we?” I match her pout, scooping her up in my arms. “Do you want me to beat your daddy up?” Although I already know the answer, I ask anyway and earn a slap to the back of my head from her father.
“Bad Lakey.” She pouts, jutting out her bottom lip as I tickle under her chin. Delilah giggles lightly and forgets what I said about her dad as I sit her back down. She hands me my own teacup, pink with little bows on the handle.
It'd been my designated cup for the past three days. I grin cheekily and take a “sip” from the cup. Although my fingers are way too large for the handle, I still do my job as an uncle and take a sip. For all the idiots out there, this is how you keep kids happy. For example, if a toddler hands you a toy phone and says,“This is for you!” What are you going to do?Decline it?!No, you answer the goddamn phone and act your ass off, that’s what you do.
The five of us sit and talk with Delilah; we listen to her rants about the latest sugar plum princess movie, and we laugh when she tells us the random joke she’d seen on TV. Over our almost three years as a team, and as friends, we’ve all grown to look at each other as family. Delilah included.
Delilah is Derek’s daughter. He had her in his junior year of high school and has been taking care of her as a single dad ever since. So naturally, the guys and I have adopted her as our niece. We do everything with her from tea parties to playing with dolls to letting her do our make-up. You name it—we probably did it.
Even though I’ve never met Delilah’s mom, I can tell that Delilah looks nothing like her. Due to the sheer fact that Delilah is the epitome of Derek from her deep brown hair to her bright brown eyes and the light freckles that twinkle across her cheeks like stars. There is no denying that Delilah is Derek Perez’s daughter.
“What was that about?” Braxton whispers to me. We’re on the other side of the “tea table” after Delilah decided that she wanted to sit between Derek and Charlie.
I raise an eyebrow at Brax and try to ignore him as he sighs.
“Chelsea, we could hear her upstairs. What was that about?” the brown-skinned man prompts again, wrinkling his nose.
“She took pictures of me sleeping.” I grimace as thoughts of what she could’ve done with said pictures rack my mind.
“Pictures?”
“It’s the price of being a celebrity,” I say as a joke but can’t help but feel how cringeworthy it is for the words to leave my mouth.
I’m not a celebrity, per se. But family is well known. My parents are practically every girl's teenage dream whether they’re 15 or 30 with my mom being a bestselling romance author and my dad being in the NFL Hall of Fame. Then you have my older sister, Juliette. She models for a big company in New York that you’ve probably heard of but I can never remember the company's name. I was teased relentlessly in middle and high school for my “hot sister” or whatever that means. Those guys haven’t seen Jules for the true gremlin that she is.
And then there’s me, Blake Nicolas Wilder, an NHL prospect, and a pain in my mother’s ass. Imagine Dad’s disappointment when he found out I wanted to playhockeyinstead of football. He refused to eat breakfast with me for weeks—
“Blake, did you hear me?”
“He’s daydreaming again…”
“Uncle Lake!Look at my tiara!” Delilah jumps in front of me, pulling me completely out of my thoughts. I smile as she shoves a glittery-pastythingin my face with a smile brighter than the sun. The glitter drips onto my lap but I overlook it as I pull the “tiara” into my hands, grimacing slightly at the gooey substance.
“It’s beautiful?”
“Did he just ignore us?” Braxton questions aloud, frowning at Charlie and Derek.
“I’m not ignoring you; I’m simply listening to the most important person first…”
That earns me a light punch on my shoulder from Charlie.
“Dude…we were talking about tonight’s P-A-R-T-Y. Cupid and Alec should be back in a bit with all of the K-E-G-S’ and we need to know if you’re going to be there.” Braxton stresses, folding his hands in his lap.
Ah…the infamous spelling out words bit. A wave of amusement flows through me as the big and brawny Braxton Oakley spells out simple words to hide our plans from the little angel in front of me. I nod at Brax as a responseas Delilah’s large eyes travel between the two of us, trying to piece the words together.
“What about you, D?” Charlie asks Derek, his gaze focused now on painting one of Delilah’s fingernails as Derek takes over the other.
Derek shifts uncomfortably in his miniature pink seat, the tips of his ears reddening as he directs his attention to Delilah playing with a cup of water. “I’ll be there only after I meet Deli’s sitter. Mom’s going back to Texas for the weekend, so I’m outsourcing tonight,” he says catching Delilah’s water cup with reflexes faster than light, saving it from the floor.
