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CHAPTER14
BROOKLYN
This was a mistake, and I knew it would be one before I agreed to it.
Yet and still, there I was and with my daughter. So not only was I going to have to act normal around Vann in front of my friends but also my child.
Shit.
I thought I was over this. This being him. I thought I was over him. Years of living, a whole marriage, the birth of my daughter, a divorce, and my attempt at reconstruction had all occurred since we had what we had. Surely, I wasn’t feeling what I thought I was feeling around him,onlyaround him.
Fuuuuck!
“Hey, girl! We were all just getting ready to eat. Hey, Bailey!” Sharla greeted us.
“Hey, Teetee Sharla!” Bailey sang, walking into Sharla’s open arms. “Where’s Romey?”
Releasing my girl, Sharla said, “She’s in the family room with Little Nathan and Ian. Ginger’s in there too.”
Ginger?
“…can I go play with them?” Bailey’s voice halted my spiral into overthinking.
“Sure, baby. Have fun.”
She took off and ran smack into Vann, who chuckled and said, “Whoa, you okay?”
Bailey nodded and squeaked, “Excuse me,” before resuming her sprint to the family room.
“She is getting so tall!” Sharla said, her back to me as she watched Bailey go.
“Don’t I know it? Time needs to slow down,” I said.
“Oh, shit! Let me go see if Jovani remembered to buy liquor,” Sharla said, leaving me in her home’s foyer with her brother.
His gaze met mine. He was wearing the black eyepatch again, and that one gray eye, still so beautiful to me, seemed to look through me to my soul.
“Your daughter is beautiful,” he said, his voice making me vibrate internally.
“Thank you.”
Unsaid words hung between us like clothes on a clothesline flapping in the wind, noisy and obvious. Still, neither of us spoke as we observed the other. There was a time when I was convinced that he held the key to my happiness in his big hands. Back then, I couldn’t think of a single thing in the world that could’ve possibly been better than Vann London, a big, older, adventurous man who made me walk the skies with his touch. And truthfully, no other man had proven that belief wrong. He was still the best I’d ever had.
Hands down.
He cleared his throat as he rubbed a finger over his eyebrow. “So, how’ve you been?”
“Okay. You? How’s the…recovery going?”
“Well.”
“Good. I guess we better go join the others.”
“Yeah, I guess we should.”
I moved past him, making my way to the dining room but stopped when I heard him softly utter my name.
“Brooklyn Skye...”
