“It was,” he says gently. “And it always will be. But do you want to know something amazing?”
Livy’s eyes fill.
“What?”
“I know without a single doubt that Elena would have loved having you as a sister,” he says. “Which means if you wanted to call me Papa, she wouldn’t care at all. You won’t take her voice away, baby.”
“Maybe,” she whispers. “But I’ve been thinking about this really hard. I don’t want to take her word.” She swallows. “Can papa be hers, and daddy be mine?”
Maverick’s arms tighten around both of us.
His voice breaks when he answers.
“Yes, baby. Daddy can be yours.”
Livy lets out the smallest sob and curls closer to his side.
“Good,” she whispers. “Because I picked it special.”
A broken laugh slips out of him, soft and full of pain.
“You did?”
“Yeah.” She wipes her face with her good hand. “Because Daddy feels like pancakes and bedtime and someone who comes when bad people take you.”
I press my face into his chest, crying silently now.
His hand moves over Livy’s hair again and again, careful and shaking.
“Then I will be Daddy,” he says. “For as long as you want me.”
Livy sniffles.
“Forever?”
His throat works, and I feel the answer move through his chest before he says it.
“Forever,piccola.”
She nods against him, like that settles something important.
Then she looks up again. “And you can still be Papa to Elena.”
Maverick’s breath catches.
I feel it.
The way his whole body locks around us.
Not because she hurt him.
Because she understood something most adults would have stepped around.
“Yes,” he whispers. “I can still be Papa to Elena.”
“And Daddy to me.”
His heart is racing.
