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“Avery, we have to get going, but I promise you that I will talk to you every day while I’m gone.” I kneel in front of her and to my delight, she throws her arms around my neck and gives me a hug. I breathe in her sweet scent and realize her hair smells like peaches—just like her mother’s.
“Be safe and have fun, Cal,” she tells me and I laugh because it’s such an odd thing for a four year old to say.
“Is that what your mother says to you?” I ask.
She nods her head and smiles, “Every day after she leaves me at school, but she always comes back to get me. Will you come back, Cal?”
The question guts me, especially seeing the worry in her little blue eyes. I tell her without conviction, “I will always come back, Avery.”
* * *
“You’re quiet, what are you thinking?” My mother asks, breaking our comfortable silence while on our journey to the airport.
“Just strategizing about my time here.”
“I hope that doesn’t include how to break up her relationship.” Her comments make me look over at her with a questioning look. “Your behavior up there was incorrigible. Let me remind you yet again that her relationship is not your business, Cal,” she scolds, knowing me well enough to see through my bullshit.
“Of course it’s my business, Mother. Anyone in my daughter’s life is my business.”
“Cal, don’t do anything stupid that will make Jenna continue to hate you. She has years of pent-up anger toward you. You need to tread lightly and adjust your life to theirs.”
“I have no intention of breaking up her relationship if that’s what you’re implying. She will do that on her own when she realizes that he’s the wrong man for her.”
She throws up her arms and snorts. “How arrogant of you! You don’t even know ifyouare the right man for her. You barely even know her.”
“I firmly believe there’s a reason we are here now, all these years later. There’s a reason why I haven’t stopped thinking about her since the day I met her. There’s a reason why the chemistry between us is still electric. So yes, Mother, Iamthe right man for her. I’m hers and she’s fucking mine,” I growl, tired of this subject and why people are questioning my feelings. I’ve never felt this certain; this strongly about someone in my entire life.
“But she’s not, Cal!” she says with a raised voice, her eyes flashing with anger. “Cal, you need to accept the possibility that Jenna might not feel the same way you do. She might be in love with her boyfriend. She has more history with him than she does with you. You were a weeklong fling that ended in lies and a baby she has spent the last four years raising all by herself.”
“That was not my fault,” I roar, still seething from the fact that someone fucked with my life and denied me my child’s first formative years.
“I understand that, but you can’t swoop in and make decisions for them.”
“Mother,” I sigh in frustration, not wanting to be disrespectful to her but also wanting to end this conversation. “I need you to trust me on this, please. Give me six months to prove you wrong.”
“This is not a game, Cal. I hope you do prove me wrong. I want nothing more than to see you happy with the woman you love and if that woman happens to be the mother of your child, even better. I’m asking you not to be the other man in someone else’s relationship. I’m asking you to place yourself in someone else’s shoes and view things from Jenna’s point of view. I’m asking you to go slowly with both Jenna and Avery because this is going to be a huge adjustment for both of them.”
“I will, Mother,” I assure her.
“And I’m asking you to prepare yourself in case you’re not the man for Jenna. Being amicable co-parents should be the number one priority, Cal, so if she rejects you, don’t hold it against her.”
That isn’t even an option for me, so I pacify her with a quick “Yes, Mum.” She rolls her eyes at me, knowing my antics and sits back against her seat.
Jax Morrow might be my current obstacle, but I’ve no doubt that Jenna is my future.
Now it’s just a matter of time—and some work on my part—to show Jenna that we’ve been given a second chance.
