“I’m a goner,” I mumbled to myself.
“Yeah?” Mazzy asked softly.
I pulled my knee up on the bench and shifted to face her. There was wariness in her expression, a watchfulness that stirred the guilt in my gut. When it came down to it, she had every right to be unsure about me. We barely knew each other, and she was allowing me to know our daughter. I understood how difficult this might be for her.
“She has my curls.”
“She has your everything.” Her mouth curved into a faint smile. “I’m adopted, and when I decided to keep her, I thought it would be nice to finally see my features in another person. Then I gave birth to your little twin.”
I chuffed. “Sorry for the powerful genes.”
She shook her head. “I’m not complaining. She’s perfect.”
I tore my eyes from Katty to look at Mazzy, and my stomach lurched. I had to do this right, but I didn’t know how. A hugepart of me wanted to leap forward a hundred steps, but that wasn’t the way to do things—and Mazzy wouldn’t let it happen.
“Where do we go from here?” I asked.
“Where do you want to go, Ben? Do you want to continue getting to know her and becoming a real part of her life? Or did you just want to meet her, see she’s real, and go on your way?”
“The first one. Definitely the first one.” I lowered my chin, pinning her with my gaze. “I don’t know how to do this. I’m hoping you’ll lead the way.”
Her mouth pursed. “It’s my first time too, you know. I spoke with my boss about the legal side of things. We should probably work that out—”
“Can we take that slow too? I mean, I’m not going to steal her from you.”
She blinked hard. “I didn’t think you would. But I think it’s best if we have something official in place.”
“You sound like my brothers. Their knee-jerk reaction was to phone a lawyer.”
Her eyes darted between mine. “And you disagreed?”
I shook my head. “That’s not really on my mind. Meeting her as soon as I could was all I could think about.”
“And now?”
“Now…” There were a million answers. So many, they all tumbled forward, fighting for first place. Finally, I settled on the simplest one. “I just want to know her.”
“Okay. I want that too.” She pressed her lips together and took a long moment considering me. “Do you want to come over tomorrow? You can see our garage.”
I chuckled. “Yeah. I would love seeing your garage more than anything in the world.”
Me:She has tiny pink glasses.
Adrian:Picture or it didn’t happen.
Roman:Please tell me you took pictures!
Me:I did, but do you think I’m sharing with you bastards?
Nate:What did I do? Roman’s the only undeserving one.
Roman:I accept that.
Adrian:As you should. Let’s see the pictures I know you took.
I scrolled through the paparazzi shots I’d taken of my daughter running around the playground. She hadn’t been as wild as Jonah, but she was full of vim and vigor. Not shy at all. I captured one shot—her with her little finger pointed at a boy twice her size, telling him not to climb up the slide.
The kid had actually listened.
