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She sure did have some strong lungs. Even from his room in the basement, she sounded loud as hell. “What the hell?” he mumbled as he buried his head under a pillow. Sure, he’d heard Kayla crying over the past few days, but never so loud and never so close. Thankfully, the noise should quiet soon. One of his siblings would tend to her soon. They never let her cry for more than a few seconds.
Guilt hit him full force.
Kayla was his responsibility. It was his job to soothe her cries, feed her, change her, bathe her, and everything else his family had been doing. He was shirking those responsibilities in a huge way, forcing everyone in his life to pick up his slack. But he just…couldn’t. Hell, he hadn’t so much as held her since she’d arrived. Every time he walked into a room where she happened to be, he turned and fled back out as if she were a fifteen-pound bomb instead of his daughter.
My daughter.
God, he was some kind of asshole ignoring her like he’d been. But there was something off inside him. A mental block he couldn’t push past. Thoughts of holding her, being responsible for her wellbeing, and having her depend on him sent him into the early stages of a panic attack, so he avoided her as he avoided most stressors in his life, by pretending they didn’t exist.
He blamed his father. As one of the youngest of the six Benson kids, he’d had only a few short years with their mother before she died. His father sure never made up for the lack of physical affection and care. That had to be the reason for his emotional failings.
The crying didn’t stop. It only grew louder and more desperate. “Fuck,” he muttered. Guess that was the end of his night’s sleep. As he sat up on the edge of his bed, he caught sight of the video baby monitor sitting on his nightstand.
The horrendous sound of Kayla screaming blasted throughout his room. No wonder she sounded so damn close.
Next to the monitor sat a pad of paper with a note on it.
Called to an emergency at a job site.
Time to man up, Daddy.
-Jagger
“Fuck!” he shouted, crushing the paper in his balled fist. He dragged his other hand through his hair. Jagger wouldn’t have left the note if anyone else was home. The asshole had left him alone in the house with his daughter. And he was terrified.
JP laughed aloud even as he felt like he was splintering into a thousand pieces. If anyone on the outside heard what went on in his brain, they’d have him committed. Scared out of his wits to be left alone in the house with his own infant daughter.
The crying didn’t let up.
He was going to have to do something about it. Jagger could be hours, and Ronnie had plans with Mickie for most of the day. Keith would be busy at the garage.
That left him.
He stood on legs that felt like they belonged to someone else. After sleeping all night, he had to piss but, fuck, that kid could scream. Emptying his bladder would have to wait. With each step, he took up the stairs and closer to what was now Kayla’s room, the tighter his chest grew. His fingers tingled and his head spun. By the time he got to her crib, he was going to be in full-blown panic mode at this rate.
I can’t do this.
Yet, he was the only one home, and someone had to see to the baby’s needs, so he forced himself to breathe and keep walking.
He winced as he reached the doorway to her room. Damn, he should have grabbed some earplugs. Her cries were so loud and grating, they actually made him forget some of his nerves in his rush to make the noise end. By the time he reached the crib, he’d describe the noise as having hit the someone-is-being-murdered level.
One peek in the crib revealed his daughter lying on her back with her tiny fists balled, her face red and screwed up as she screamed the house down. No murder, no torture, nothing seemed immediately out of sorts. Just a pissed-off infant, letting the world know she wasn’t getting whatever it was she wanted.
“Okay, drama queen, that’s enough of the theatrics,” he mumbled as he peered down at her. At the sound of his voice, her eyes flew open, and the crying stopped.
For all of five seconds, the universe blessed him with silence and the curious stare of his daughter.
Then she went back to demanding something. Loudly. Who the hell knew what this kid wanted? “Uh, that’s enough crying.”
Didn’t work.
“Hey, kid, you’re fine.”
Shocker, none of that seemed to work. What did she want? A bottle? Diaper change? Was she hot? Cold? What was he supposed to do? Guess?
