“May I?” Decker asks, getting off the couch and coming over to the chair. When I nod, he turns his attention to Hazel. “First of all, I’m honored, kiddo. That out of everyone, you’d want me to be your daddy. But I think what your mom is trying to ask is why?”
Oh yeah, that’s a good question. Shit, I have seniority here, and he’s trumping me.
“You love Mommy.”
Decker smiles at me. “What made you think that?”
“You always stare at her. You do nice things for her. You do nice things for me. Do you not love Mommy?” She frowns.
“Honey,” I say, realizing this is going the opposite direction of what I’d like.
“Yes, I love your mommy.”
“Then why can’t you be my daddy? Daddies love mommies, and mommies love daddies.”
Not all the time, but that’s a conversation for another time.
“It’s not really up to me to be your daddy. It’s actually up to your mommy and then you.”
I fall a little more in love with him.
Hazel turns to me. “Mommy, can he?”
I smile at my daughter. “Okay, listen, Hazel, I appreciate the effort you put into this, but I need to talk to Decker alone. We will revisit the daddy thing again. What we wanted to tell you”—I sit on the coffee table and take her hands—“is that I do love Decker, and he loves me, and we are dating.”
A big smile lights up her face. “So it worked? You’re together?”
“We are.” Decker nods and returns her smile.
“But that doesn’t make him your daddy. It might happen at some point, but not right now, honey.”
Her smile falls, and she glances at Decker, her little eyebrows drawn together.
“Listen, Hazel.” He stands. “Your mom and I just have to get some things figured out. Right now, we’re telling you about us, but it has to be kept a secret because there are some adult things we have to deal with first.”
“But you might be my daddy, right?”
“Hazel, I promise you—and you can ask your mom, I do not make promises I cannot keep, so believe me when I say—that one day I will be your daddy.”
“Yay!” She jumps off the couch and into his arms. He holds her as she buries her head into the nook of his neck.
He looks at me over her shoulder, and I nod because yes, one day he will be. Of that I have no doubt. We just have to tackle one problem at a time. The first problem being the asshole who isn’t returning my phone calls or emails, which I guess is his right. But I don’t want any secrets between Decker and me when we get married, and there’s an urgency to get this handled. Which is why I want to handle another problem right now.
Hazel draws back. “Can we go get ice cream tonight?”
“Sure,” Decker says.
And he thinks I’m the softie.
She gives me a hug, then runs upstairs, saying she has to change her clothes.
“She’s so you.” Decker gets up off the floor and sits on the couch.
I swivel around on the coffee table. “We need to talk.”
“I think I did pretty good there. And you know I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. But, Decker, now that we’ve told Hazel, and we’re committed to this going the distance, I don’t want any secrets between us—except the obvious one I’m still working on being able to tell you. I want to explain why I never came back to your hotel room three years ago.”
