AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Eventually, I descend the rest of the steps and follow the noise to the kitchen where Lex is a streak of black and white as she glides around the room gathering stuff for breakfast, all with a dark-haired little girl on her hip.
Primrose is playing with Lex’s hair, wrapping it around her fingers and clenching her fist with the strands. Lex’s head tilts toward our daughter, but she doesn’t react otherwise to her hair being pulled.
Before she even sees me, Lex says, “Glad to see you found the courage to finally join us.”
Smirking, I shake my head. “You could’ve woken me up.”
At my voice, Primrose twists her head over Lex’s shoulder, meeting my eyes with a deep frown, her black eyebrows puckered to almost touching.
“Who’s that?” Lex asks her with a gentle tone. “Who’s that, Prim?”
All at once, Primrose’s features transform into one of the purest expressions I’ve ever seen as she breaks into a smile, breathing, “Dada.”
My knee goes weak. Before this moment I didn’t think it was possible to fall in love twice in one lifetime.
Still focused on mixing something together, Lex says, “Dada. That’s right.”
I approach the two slowly, clearing my throat to tell Primrose, “Hi, happy girl.”
When she doesn’t shy away from me, only smiles bigger, I take her chunky hand, and unwrap the hair from it. Just because Lex’s pain tolerance is higher than most doesn’t mean my tolerance for her pain is.
Wrapping my arms around both girls, I hold them. Neither of them squirms or rushes to end the embrace, giving me the time I need to wrap my head around this. Yesterday I had nothing. Absolutely nothing. Now I have them, which feels like everything. For the first time in years I feel like crying.
But I also feel okay. Incredibly fucking okay.
I press a long kiss to the back of Lex’s head before pulling back to say, “Good morning, Snow.”
“Morning, rookie.”
“Mummy,” Primrose says, smacking Lex’s shoulder.
“Yeah. Your mommy,” I tell her before asking Lex, “How does she know who I am?”
Lex spins around and sidesteps me. “Because we told her. We’ve been showing her pictures of you since she came home from the hospital.”
Pictures? Where’d Lex get pictures of me? And who’s “we”?
“When was that?”
“She was born July twentieth and she came home with me a couple days later.”
That means Primrose will be two in a couple months.
A robotic voice from somewhere in the house announces, “Motion detected door one,” just before the front door opens, then another voice—one I grew up with and would know anywhere—calls out, “Found the sippy cup!”
My mom? My fucking mom?
“It fell under the seat, so I had to really get—” My mom comes around the corner holding up a lidded cup, but stops when she sees me. “Hey, Reece.”
“Hey, Ma.”
“You made it.” Her eyes fill with tears as she rushes over to wrap her arms around me. I hug her just as tightly, rubbing her back as she sobs.
“I made it…”
Lex breezes past us, saying, “Home.” She puts Primrose in some sort of kid chair, and our little girl immediately starts spooning the…mush—I don’t know what else to call it but it looks like fucking mush—into her mouth.
Releasing me, my mom asks Lex, “Did she recognize him?”
