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It had been so long since he’d done anything normal with another person.
He carried the casserole over and set it down on the table. His phone buzzed in his pocket.
“Excuse me,” he said, stepping a little bit away but not leaving the kitchen. He didn’t know who it was, but unless it was an emergency, he’d call them back.
He never got phone calls, except for his Aunt Carol in South Carolina who was allowing the nanny and his daughter to stay at her house.
She helped take care of Kendrick, but it was the nanny, Paisley, who was responsible for Kendrick during the day.
When the nanny was off, Aunt Carol took care of her.
He glanced at the phone. Not a business call. It was Aunt Carol.
He swiped to turn the phone on, not particularly worried, since this was Carol’s usual time to call him. Normally she called after Kendrick was ready for bed.
“Hello?”
“Bryce, how are you doing?”
“Fine.” If there were any problems, he would have called and told her. “How is Kendrick?” he asked, walking over to the other side of the kitchen and looking out the window. It was pitch dark, and he couldn’t see anything except his reflection in the glass with the light in the kitchen on.
If he turned it off, he’d be able to see stars shining brightly. He waited.
“She’s fine, but she does miss her parents. She was asking about you again today, and poor Paisley doesn’t know what to say.”
“That you’re raising her, and she is helping. And I’m busy, and she’s better off there with you.”
When he had his accident, Kendrick had cried when she’d seen him and had been too scared to go near. Her fear and rejection had cut deeply. Not that he blamed her, just that he knew that would be everyone’s reaction to him, and he wasn’t going to saddle his daughter with someone who looked like he did.
Not to mention, everyone knew who he was. His name was famous on social media. Or infamous. Someone who had been blacklisted as he had, everyone knew his name, and everyone knew they needed to stay away from him, or they may get dragged down too. He did not want that for his daughter.
“I am going to go see my grandchildren over spring break, and I am sending Paisley and Kendrick out to see you. You’ll need to do something with them.”
He knew his aunt didn’t mean that quite the way it sounded. She loved Kendrick like her own daughter. She had been his mom’s older sister, and they had been very close.
It was just that his aunt didn’t understand that he was staying away from his daughter as much as he could for her own protection. For her own good. For her own welfare.
But if there wasn’t going to be any place for them to stay in South Carolina, he wouldn’t have a choice. If his aunt didn’t have an agenda—trying to force him to take his daughter even though he knew that wasn’t the best thing for her—she probably wouldn’t mind, would actually insist, that Paisley stay there with Kendrick.
“Fine. Send me the dates of spring break, and I’ll buy tickets for Kendrick and Paisley.”
He needed to look at a calendar, but Easter wasn’t too far away. A week or two. A man in his position didn’t really need to care about the dates of holidays, or celebrating, since he didn’t celebrate anything anymore.
It hurt his heart, because he loved Kendrick. She didn’t deserve what happened to her, didn’t deserve to have a father who had his life ruined, not just by the accident but because of the social media firestorm. It sucked him down, which he supposed up until that point in his life, the media had loved him. More than he deserved, for sure.
He supposed it was only right that they were the ones that took him down.
They said a few more pleasantries before hanging up. He crossed his arms over his chest. Thinking.
Kendrick had been in North Dakota once or twice before, but never for long. He visited several times, but he tried to stay away. He didn’t want her getting attached to him. He really wanted her thinking that her Aunt Carol and Uncle Raymond were her mom and dad.
Or at least as close as one could get to the real thing when things were so messed up.
“Who’s Kendrick?”
He whirled around, having forgotten all about Peyton.
He was so used to living alone, he hadn’t given her a single thought.
