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That thing with cold and dicks shriveling wasn’t really a thing when you had a gorgeous Amazon crawling all over you. Jesus, she was going to kill me.
However, all the lingering good parts of the week were now absolute shit. Jessica was coming back to town on her way to New York City. She wanted time with me, and time with our daughter.
So much for believing the relative silence from her since she’d gone back home—after a quick visit with Dani, where she’d clucked over her sprained ankle and asked who had been watching her when she’d gotten hurt—indicated maybe she’d changed her mind.
Not so much.
It was important, she’d said. Would we be able to spend an evening with her later in the month?
Which meant she hadn’t changed her mind after talking to her lawyer and her handlers and the legions of other people who seemingly helped her to run her life.
I hated what she was doing. Hated that she was building in false hope that maybe she would back off. That she was confusing Dani. And I didn’t want that woman fucking with my head again. I’d made peace with the fact that she was the mother of my child and would never truly be cut out of my life.
But she was persisting with this bullshit reason to take my daughter from me. Even if she was asking for more visitation—even if she was entitled to it as her mother—I couldn’t shake the pervasive feeling that this meant I’d failed. Despite busting my ass to take care of Dani and to keep her life stable, if the judge awarded Jessica more visitation, that would mean that I hadn’t done my job as well as I could have. Whether or not that was the reality didn’t mean jack.
Hell, it could be true. Otherwise Dani wouldn’t have thought she needed to get her poor old man a date, which had helped to lead to the whole situation with Macy.
Not including that kiss she’d planted on me the night Dani hurt her ankle. No wonder I’d looked for any way to lock her down. We’d already danced around each other for years. If I hadn’t grabbed her in front of the television crew, she probably would still be dancing away from me.
It was one of her best skills.
As amazing as we were right now, I was a realist. It wouldn’t last forever. As soon as Macy’s escape hatch opened up—one I had willingly given her—she’d be gone. I couldn’t even blame her. I had no desire to walk away from the good thing we had going, but I also wasn’t going to beg her to stay in a situation that obviously would never be truly what she wanted. She didn’t like kids. That she seemed to be meshing so well with Dani was just a bit of blind luck. It wasn’t a permanent situation, and it might not even make one bit of difference with the judge. But it had given me some moments I would never forget.
I was already pissed at Macy, and she hadn’t even left yet.
It didn’t make sense, but it did leave me short-tempered with everyone around me. My father had hung up on me twice this week.
One day soon she’d end this, despite offering her a no strings situation. At the moment, we were in a holding pattern due to this visitation thing, but soon enough, she’d snip them and be gone.
And I had no say there either. I’d already had my say when I’d told her we could end things without a ripple.
Except now? There were ripples all over the fucking place.
“Hey, dude, I think it’s it in.”
When I didn’t look up from hammering, Luc tapped me on the shoulder. I’d heard him speaking to me, but the words had been nearly unintelligible over the Foo Fighters song blaring in my headphones. I’d turned the music up to the loudest decibel possible to drown out the construction noises surrounding me. Normally, those sounds were almost soothing to me.
Today, I was afraid any noise would set me off.
I reared back with an elbow to get some space, but Luc had already moved back. He cocked a brow at me and motioned for me to take off my ancient headset.
“What?” I demanded, yanking off my safety glasses.
“You’re mangling the shit out of that fascia.” He nodded at the piece of wood I’d been unintentionally tormenting. “Unless you’re going for a different look for Macy’s shelving than we discussed.”
I looked closer at the wood and noticed the nail was crooked and I’d chipped off a corner of the decorative engraving.
“Fuck.” I tossed the board on the scrap pile. “Obviously, today isn’t the day for me to do anything requiring precision.”
“Think Robert needs some help in back.”
“You mean tiling the wall above the sink?”
Luc shrugged. “Hey, it’s something even you can you do.”
“Thanks.” I usually wasn’t the lame duck of the crew. Far from it. But today, I didn’t trust myself to do much.
Right now, my team would probably do better without me.
