by Ella Fields
I stared at the last page where Daphne had left a sticky note.
This is where we’ll put a picture of her first Christmas.
“Mom.” She stopped murmuring with Denham and raised her brows. “Can you take a photo of us?”
Instead of doing what most other girls her age were doing—partying, study groups, dating whomever she wanted when she felt like it—Daphne was here, making memories with me.
Yeah, we weren’t together, and yes, I could admit I wasn’t happy about it, nor did I think it made any sense. If anything, the more I saw her, the more I wondered why, if we were able to be friends and hell, even co-parent together most weekends, we were stuck in this place.
Were we too afraid to move? In either direction?
I wasn’t sure, but I did know that, just like the girl in her arms, she was still my world, and this album was lacking without her in it.
So Mom took the picture even as Daphne protested.
“Shut up or I’ll get the pickles.”
“Rude much?”
We laughed, and the camera flashed, and while she was giving Lily a bath that night, I dug through the photos I’d hidden in the bottom of my sock drawer, finding the ones I’d taken of us on my phone when we were together. Including the makeup homecoming we’d had after I’d fucked up the first time.
“What are you doing?” Daphne asked, Lily tucked to her chest in a bright purple onesie with yellow flowers on it, sucking her thumb.
“Take a look for yourself,” I said, taking Lily so she could.
We went to the kitchen to get her bottle warmed, and when we came back, I found Daphne with her hand over her mouth.
She tried to laugh it off. “Way to one-up me, asshole.”
I laid Lily down on the bed next to her where she sucked away at her bottle while tugging at Daphne’s long red dress. “I wouldn’t have had to if you’d done it right in the first place.”
Daphne stared down at where I’d added the photo of her and me to the front of the album, tracing the angry heart I’d quickly drawn around it. “Is it right, though?”
“Only you can answer that, seeing as you were the only one who thought it was wrong.”
She wiped at her cheeks, then snatched something from beside her.
The gold and black business card.
“What’s this? It was on the floor.” I took it from her as she said, “Remington Freed, Freedom Art.”
I grabbed Lily’s empty bottle, placing it on the nightstand with the card. “I met him before Lily was born when I was being careless, fucking up a shipping container down by the docks.”
Daphne lifted Lily into her crib, then moved her fluffy pink blankets over her little body. “He caught you?”
“Yeah, and had I been in a better state of mind, I might’ve pissed my fucking pants.” I rubbed the back of my head. “He told me to call him if I ever wanted work.”
“Yet you haven’t,” Daphne guessed.
“It’s not as simple as that, Daph. I looked him up, and I can’t just go gallivanting anywhere he says to, mocking up murals and painting children’s wards.”
Daphne’s cocked eyebrow said everything she didn’t have to. Why couldn’t it be?
I stared at Lily, and Daphne sighed. “You’re a father, not a prisoner. We’ll work it out.”
The word we was a hook sinking into my chest, blood rushing out and flooding my ears as I blinked at her.
We stared at one another, the sound of Lily sucking her thumb, softly babbling to herself, filling the charged silence.
Before I could say something, there was a knock on the front door. “Glenda expecting another boyfriend?” Daphne asked.
“Very funny,” I said, chuckling as I left the room to see who it was.
Annika, shoulders weighed down with presents and a tremulous smile on her face, stared back at me. “Merry Christmas.”
I gripped the edge of the door, hard enough to make my fingers ache as I looked from the gift bags to her face, and back to the gift bags again. “You’re joking, right?”
Annika’s brow creased. “No, Lars. Look, I’m—”
The slamming of the door in her face cut her off.
“Lars,” Daphne said, soft behind me. “You don’t want to at least hear what she has to say?”
Incredulous, I gaped at her. “Are you serious? No, I don’t fucking care what she has to say.”
Daphne’s teeth tugged at her bottom lip as she stared at the closed door.
“What is it?” Mom appeared, tying her robe.
“A Christmas miracle,” I muttered, stalking by her and back into the room.
Lily was asleep, her hair the softest cloud on the pillow beneath her smooshed cheek.
Daphne’s hand took mine, and together we watched Lily, the way her lips parted and slackened more with every tiny breath she took.
A bang sounded again, followed by the ringing of my phone.
I cursed, grabbing it from the nightstand to silence it before it could wake Lily.
Daphne sighed. “It looked like she’d been planning this. The presents.”
“Well, I hadn’t planned on her taking off and abandoning our child.”
She followed me out of the room. “Easy, now.”
I stopped in the hall, raking a hand through my hair. “Sorry, I just didn’t expect this.” With my eyes falling to hers, I felt my shoulders sag a little more, admitting, “And if I’m being honest, I don’t want this.”
Daphne’s lashes dipped as she forced her eyes to the floor. “I know.”
“Five minutes,” I told Annika some minutes later, holding open the door.
“Can I see her?” she asked, hopeful.
I closed the door, and she dumped the presents beneath the tree. “No.”
Rising, she nodded. “She’s probably asleep anyway.” Her eyes stared at the living room wall, where, on the other side, slept the daughter she’d abandoned. “God, she must be so big now.”
I ignored her. In the kitchen, I took a seat at the dining table.
Mom poked her head in, her eyes bulging, then poked it back out.
Annika paused when she saw Daphne seated next to me. “Oh, I didn’t know she’d be here.”
I needed a cigarette so bad.
Daphne pushed her chair back, but I slapped my hand over hers on the table. “You can speak with her here, right Annika?” My question wasn’t a question at all. It was the only option she had.
Judging by the way Annika’s eyes shifted back and forth between us, she knew it and nodded, taking a seat beside Daphne.
Daphne
“You’re not going to stick up for her or try any stupid shit, are you?” Lars said, sounding tired.
I handed Petra the oven mitts, then went to the fridge to grab the water pitcher. “No, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think you should think about this a little more before you make a decision that will affect more than just your life.”
“Our lives,” he said.
I smiled but didn’t comment on that as I set the pitcher down and straightened the lace tablecloth. We were having Christmas dinner the following day. “She seems to have changed.” Annika had seemed different. Her demeanor less cynical, and her eyes opened farther to the world instead of that which only concerned her.
“It’s been four months.”
I grabbed some glasses, taking them to the dining table. “I know.”
“And she just walks back into our lives as if she can come and go as she pleases.”
I bit my tongue, not wanting to comment on that, and headed to my room. “She’s not asking for a lot.”
“Yeah, now,” Lars said. “What happens when she finishes college, decides she’s set up enough for a kid, and wants to drag me through court?”
“She wouldn’t win, and she knows it.” Though I doubted Annika would go to such lengths. She might’ve been self-centered, but she wasn’t stupid enough to think she’d win, and she probably didn’t want to.
There was no resentment, no hostility in her voice and gaze when she spoke briefly with Lars about why she’d left. Apparently, she’d been working with a therapist at college to treat what one of her professors thought might be postpartum depression, but she’d admitted a whole slew of mommy and daddy issues had needed unearthing instead.
“You sound like you’re on her side,” Lars said.
I stopped at my bed and stared out the window to the kidney-shaped pool in our backyard, wondering when the last time was that we’d used it. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not giving, and she’s not taking a thing from me again. I’m on your side, always.” I paused. “Well, Lily’s, yours for as long as you deserve it.”
Lars sat with that a moment. “I probably don’t deserve it.”
“Did you ever at least try with her?” Tensing, I refrained from closing my eyes, my ears, my heart. “Even a little?”
Lars chuckled. “Sorry to tell you your efforts were in vain, but they were in vain. Never, not once, did it ever cross my fucking mind.” Elation and heartbreak warred within. “Though one time she did try to wake me up with her mouth around my cock.”
“What?” I all but shouted.
Another laugh. “It was after Lily was born. I kicked her out of my room.”
I shut my eyes then, my forehead falling to the window.
For nothing. Everything I’d done, everything I’d tried to do … it was all for nothing. “I’m so sorry.”
“Does saying you’re sorry mean you regret it?”
I couldn’t lie. “Yes and no. I didn’t want to always wonder, Lars.”
He knew what I meant. “Still, there were probably better ways to achieve what you set out to do.”
I reopened my eyes. “I know.”
Dripping, silence leaked in.
“I forgive you,” he said, sounding just as shocked as I felt. “Call me fucking crazy, but I do. It was fucked up, but you didn’t know the extent of how fucked up what you were doing was, and you never touched him.” He exhaled a rough breath. “I can’t say the same.”
Forgiving him was something I wasn’t sure if I could do. What he’d done to me was blunt force trauma. The type of retaliation most wouldn’t recover from. “I should go. Dinner’s almost ready. But Lars,” I said, smiling. “Call that Freed guy.”
“Yeah, we’ll see.” He hummed. “But Daphne.” I waited, my smile growing. “It would’ve never happened with Annika because it was never supposed to be her.” My hands and heart and breathing stilled. “It was always meant to be you.”
With that, he hung up.
The garage was closed until the day after New Year’s, so Lars didn’t really need my help, and after all that had been said between us, and what wasn’t being said, I didn’t trust myself to go over and see him for the hell of it. Even though it killed me not to see Lily.
And so I was surprised when he rang my doorbell the following afternoon. He was alone, standing there with his hands tucked inside the pockets of his jeans and wearing that maddening curl to his lips.
“Hi.”
I leaned against the door. “Hi.”
In his eyes, memories flitted like birds flying overhead, there and gone as quick as an updraft on the wind. “Are you going to invite me in?”
I hesitated. “Lars.”
His face flattened, and then he closed the small gap between us. “You didn’t come over.”
“I don’t know if it’s such a good idea,” I said.
“What isn’t?”
“Us.” I waved a finger between us. “You and me spending so much time together.”
In one quick movement, he had me by the waist, and the door shut behind him as he shifted me inside. “Your dad home?”
I shook my head, lost in his scent and the firm hold on my hips.
“Good.”
Then, hands warm against my cheeks, he tipped my head back and kissed me and kissed me and kissed me.
His lips moved with velvet purpose, coaxing mine to open, sliding between and over them as though he was savoring the taste. As though the way he sighed into my mouth was a sigh of coming home. As though he was hanging by a thread, and when his tongue skimmed mine, it snapped.
In his arms, he carried me upstairs, and my hands didn’t know where to touch first. His thick hair, the rough bristle covering his cheeks, or the cording muscle in his upper arms and shoulders.
I chose everywhere, and we stumbled into a wall, tugging at clothes and lips and hair.
“God, Jesus Christ,” he breathed into my neck, his breath heavy warmth and his hands shaking strength as they ridded me of my dress and jerked down the cups of my bra. “I’m so sick of being hungry.”
I smiled, shaking, relieved, and petrified, then shoved his head to my breast. “So eat.”
Eat he did. Sucking and laving and groaning, he sank his hands into the sides of my panties, wrapping them over my ass cheeks as I grinded against the fly of his jeans.
“Bedroom,” I said. “Now.”
He didn’t remove his mouth from my chest and neck as he lifted me from the wall and continued to my room. That was, until he reached my bed and froze.
Panting and desperate, I took his face, forcing his eyes from my bed to mine. “Hey.”
He set me down, the movement so abrupt, so sudden, that it stole my breath and robbed me of the hope that’d set my chest on fire.
He stumbled back a step, the muscles in his stomach clenching as he rubbed his hands down his face. “Fuck, Daphne.”
Unsure of what to do, and with nothing to say, I could only stand there as he muttered obscenities. “Fuck,” he groaned out, the word dragging and stealing his voice.
“Lars,” I started, righting the cups of my bra.
“Stop, don’t.” He pointed a shaking finger at me but didn’t remove his eyes from the bed.
“Don’t what?”
“I can’t do this,” he said so low as if to himself.
I’d heard it, though, and a humorless laugh bubbled, followed by tears. “Oh, you can’t do this?” I crossed the room. “You can’t fucking do this? Then why even come here?” I was shouting now, shaking and shouting, feeling as though I was being shredded anew all over again.
“Daphne,” he said, eyes imploring.
“No,” I said. “Don’t you dare tell me it was a mistake or that you can’t get past it. I won’t believe you. Just leave.”
His eyes, glazed and stormy, fixed on mine. “Do you really want me to?”
“If you’re going to break me all over again, then yes.” I nodded. “I don’t just want you to, I need you to.”
He was on me then, his hands in my hair and his chest warm over mine. “I’m not leaving.” His mouth rubbed over my forehead as he repeated himself, “Never leaving.”
“Then what are you going to do?” I asked, my throat thick with tears. “You said you forgive me, so what are you even doing?”
“The only thing I can.” I watched his throat ripple, and then I was on my bed, watching as he undid his jeans. “Reclaiming.”
Breath skidded out of me as he shucked off his briefs next, his length angry and hard and coming straight for me as he tore off my panties and moved over my body.
Brushing hair off my face, he stopped, our breaths mingling as he said, “You were a work in progress and instead of giving you the attention you deserved, the encouragement you needed to thrive, I deserted you.”
My voice was hoarse. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“No, I did.” His gaze was molten, his words regret laced sorrow. “You can say I was busy, that I was shell-shocked, scared out of my brain, and stressed, and you’d be right. But you can’t say I shouldn’t have realized. I knew.” He kissed a tear off my cheek. “I knew how scared you were. I should’ve listened to your eyes rather than your words. Instead, I selfishly clung to you, taking and taking, never giving you anything to give you more faith.” I could hardly see him behind the wall of glass in my eye
s. “And I’m sorry.”
I nodded.
His smile was sad. “I don’t want to need a reason to say I’m sorry again.”
That I could agree with, and I wrapped my legs around his waist, my hands framing his face, thumbs outlining his magnificent cheekbones. “Me either.”
I felt him prod between my legs and a rush of excitement overcame me, then drained from my body as quickly as it’d come. “Condom?”
“Do I need one?” he asked.
Speechless, I could only shake my head.
His grin relit my body, and he didn’t falter. He eased inside, his eyes darkening a shade, while I tried to accommodate him.
When he was all the way in, he stilled, and his mouth covered mine, urgent and gentle. Our hands caressing and our skin meeting everywhere it could.
I understood then, as we both shivered with the need to move, to take and give our bodies the pleasure it sought, why he wasn’t.
Connected.
It fizzled deep and glided over our skin in rows of goose bumps and raised hairs. A silent yet powerful force that cemented what our brains had spent these past few months battling.
Lars hooked his arms beneath me, urging my eyes to his feverish ones. “Forever?”
I could hesitate no longer. It was a redundant exercise that wasted precious time, so I didn’t. “And ever.”
Daphne
“What’s this?”
Lars pulled up the handbrake, then turned the car off, looking straight ahead to the blue and white apartment building. “This, I’m hoping, will be a place to call home.”
Curious, I took off my seat belt and climbed out.
Lily in his arms, he met me in front of the car, and we headed to the two glass doors.
I frowned as he turned and held something to the keypad. It beeped and allowed him to push inside, where he waited for me to walk in.
I did, dumbfounded as he breezed down the hall to an elevator, repeating a similar process to outside. “Wait, you got a place of your own?”
Lars smacked a loud kiss to Lily’s cheek, making her laugh. “Our place.”