AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Six
XAN
––––––––
I’ve never known howuncomfortable it can feel to be nervous, but the entire thirty-minute drive to the neighboring town of Morleau I move through hundreds of scenarios of how this meeting will go. Most of them are not good.
It all stems from no good. There’s a little girl in this world that believes she isn’t wanted. The thought crushes my chest beneath my old t-shirt. Briggs said not to dress up or make it formal in any way. I may have taken it too far wearing this ratty thing from high school with the logo of the Raston Wildcat’s baseball team on it. Something my brothers and I all shared, a talent for fastball. None of us made it. I lost my scholarship, Jet tore his shoulder in senior year and had to quit, and Zeke is an asshole.
My youngest brother squandered every bit of potential he ever had. If it weren’t for his mechanics shop, which Jet and I bought for him last year, God knows where he’d be. And little Del, our sweet wide eyed and big toothed little sister was a monster on the field. She still plays women’s softball in the summer with my other sister Pricilla, and her competitive spirit rivals Jet’s. If that’s possible.
My pride vanishes as soon as Millie pops back into my mind. If she hates me, Briggs would take her away again, she’ll never get to meet my siblings, her aunts and uncles.
What if she hates me?
I grip the wheel tighter as I turn into Morleau. This place is a bad idea. There’s nowhere that makes me feel like I don’t belong as much as Morleau. The entire place is set up to look like a kitschy adventure community. I’ve lived twenty minutes away for my whole life and I still don’t know how many people actually live here. In the midst of summer heat and winter snow the tourists pour through the streets by the thousands. The mountain is overrun by skiers and snowboarders. I worked at the hill for a bit when I was sixteen and it’s where I learned one of many life lessons...Good little rich girls have a serious thing for guys like me. Guys who grew up on the wrong side of town, with the wrong parents, in the wrong circumstances. Angry, broken boys. All of those girls saw what they wanted to see in me, and I let them. The only one who ever saw straight through my bullshit was Briggs. She never bought it for a second.
The little sports restaurant is tucked in between a jewelry shop and a souvenir stand, the carved wooden sign held up by two oversized baseball bats. My mind shifts abruptly to Millie. To meeting her. To every fear I’ve ever known stacking up one atop the next until there are things I didn’t even know to be afraid of in the mix.
Like my shoes.
I step out of the truck with ratty old work boots that clomp when I walk, and what if Millie is embarrassed by me and my old shirt and ugly boots.
A short laugh stirs in my chest. Am I worried about being an uncool dad right now?
I course correct, reigning my thoughts back in. Maybe I should just worry about the Dad part for now. The uncool part can come later.
Using the side mirror, I check to make sure I don’t have anything stuck in my teeth or a weird fly away hair and I can see the nerves through my wide eyes and rapid blinking. I have no clue what to expect and that is something that a guy like me doesn’t like. I grew up in unpredictable chaos, I fight forest fires for a living, and I single handedly made sure my five younger siblings made it to adulthood.
One might say I need to have a clear understanding of what is happening around me. At all times.
As soon as I move through the restaurant doors, I feel the wave of calm pass through me like it does after I suit up for a fire. It’s too late to turn back and once I’m committed to something there’s no need to worry about anything else. It’s the switch I rely on to survive.
Briggs sits in a booth almost at the back of the place and I roll my shoulders back to make my way there with confidence.
“Hi,” I say, and she smiles with tight lips. Panic played behind her eyes, but she held herself together really well. She’s beautiful despite her tight shoulders and rigid posture, holding my gaze captive.
“Hi Xan,” she says and her gaze darts over to Millie sitting next to her with her head angled down and her hands in her lap. Briggs nudges her and I see under the brim of her hat when she lifts her chin. Eyes like Del’s, reflective and untrusting.
“Hi Millie,” I say with only a slight shake to my voice. “It’s Millie, right?”
She nods.
“I’m Alexander, but I like to be called Xan.” I slide into the booth across from her and reach across the table to shake her hand. Millie stares for a moment and then hesitantly slips her small hand in mine. As soon as we make contact, I have an overwhelming urge to tug her straight into my arms and give her ten years’ worth of hugs. Instead I give her hand a short shake.
The buzz in the restaurant from the busy tables around us helps to ease my nerves but I’m still at a loss for what to say. Briggs studies me, most likely waiting for the moment that I fuck this whole thing up, but I ignore her scrutinizing and focus on this girl that is my daughter. It’s strange to even think it.
Millie scans me and when her gaze lands on my shirt a beaming grin scrunches her cheeks. She has her mother’s smile.
It takes the half second of witnessing her joy for me to fall completely head over heels for her. In a single gesture nothing else in life matters.
“Do you play baseball?” she asks pointing to my shirt. I pinch the fabric and hold it out.
“I used to, not so much anymore.”
“He was very good,” Briggs cut in leaning into Millie. “He played in University.”
Her cheeks flare and she glances at me for only a moment but I already figured it out. That was after she left. She really did keep tabs on me.
