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I immediately stiffen and compose myself.
“Skylar…baby.” I spread my arms to accept her as she innocently wanders into me.
I’m a lit fuse, the sparking end of a stick of dynamite, and yet, for Skylar, it all cools down. Rebecca watches me soften for her daughter. Her face carries the seeming distraught of her offenses, but I don’t fall for it.
Or, at least, I’m too angry to consider any pleas from her. In this plot, you’re either for me or against me. I can’t see a scenario where Rebecca is hiding proof of my father’s claim on a piece of property as her being on my side.
It just doesn’t fit…probably even she knows it.
I take Skylar out of the room and to Marie who would help prepare her for school and sit alone outside to get rid of all the negative emotions entirely.
By the time Skylar is clear eyed, I don’t want her to see any hostility in my eyes. She’s seen enough of it already and I would be inhumane to damage her further.
I thought I would need to purify my thoughts to see Skylar, but I was wrong.
My mind is an active volcano all through the time she’s getting ready, and I can’t even begin to quantify the anger I feel. Rebecca betrayed me. I just can’t let it go so easily.
However, once I set my eyes on a smiling seemingly unsuspecting Skylar, everything washes down, and I smile back.It’s like she’s an instant relief to my aching heart. It’s the only way I can explain it for it to make sense.
Skylar turns me from a steaming, raging buffalo, to a docile capybara…without me even having to put in the effort. The switch just happens naturally.
“Are you ready?” I ask her as she skips happily towards me.
“Yes, Daddy. Where’s mommy?” she asks.
I almost grunt in frustration until I remember that I gave her the pass to call me Daddy by not correcting her these past days.
It’s all good, honestly. I think I can manage being called Daddy for the rest of the time I’ll be in America. I don’t know how long it’ll take me, especially now that my relationship with Rebecca has hit rock bottom, but I will kill Thomas.
“Mommy won’t be coming with us today,” I say impulsively. I don’t even want to see her face. However, on further thought, she’s still my boss. I’m still her employee. I have to do my duties.
“You know what?” I pick Skylar up and place her into her seat in the car. “Give me a second. Let me check on Mommy. I’ll be back.”
Skylar nods and I turn around and dart into the house. It’s a simple in and out. Ask her if she’s coming, hope she’s not, but work with whatever answers she gives me, anyways.
I don’t enter her room. Instead, I just knock and wait for her to come out. When she opens the door and sees that it’s me, another wave of despair fills her.
“Oh, please…Jordan. What are we? Strangers?” her voice is pleading, almost sobbing.
“I just wanted to ask if you would be ready in time for Skylar’s school run. I could drop her off, then you as we usually do,” I say without breaking from the character of the lowly bodyguard I was employed to be.
I can see how much it hurts her, and to cut all sugar coatings, it hurt me as well. Badly.
Rebecca’s face creases the more and a rogue tear drops, but overall, she makes a gesture between nodding and shaking her head.
When she does it up to a point where even she knows I wouldn’t be able to tell what she’s saying, she interprets her mind for me.
“No, uh…I would”
That’s all I need to hear. Without waiting for her to complete her sentence, I turn around and leave her presence and the house in general.
I makethe school run and after dropping Skylar off, I come back to meet an empty house, save for Marie.
Sticking around would be terrible for my emotional psyche, so I go back to my apartment where Hakeem is…well, being Hakeem.
Most of his day is spent with a cousin that has a restaurant…and that’s when he’s not doing the tasks I ask of him, like following Thomas around.
Now that stalking Thomas isn’t necessary, he spends that time at home. Luckily, there’s amenities like videogames to keep him busy and when he’s bored with that, he could always go to his cousin’s place.
