by Max Monroe
He ignored my remark and got his phone out of his pocket, tapping his fingers across the screen. I sighed and returned my focus to the stage until I heard Thatch say, “Whitney? You there? Can you see me?”
My eyes darted back to the giant sitting beside me to find him FaceTiming with Wes.
“All good, T-bag. Mind switching the camera view to the stage? I’d much rather watch Lexi’s performance than stare at your ugly mug.”
Thatch chuckled and switched the screen view. “Yeah, of course, asshole. You’re welcome for this, by the way. It’s not like it inconvenienced me. I mean, I only had to reschedule naked dinner with Cass and cuddle time with Ace.”
Wes laughed. “Thanks, buddy. You’re the best. Consider this me cashing in on that IOU you mentioned.”
Thatch smirked in response.
Normally, I would’ve been curious about the details of said IOU, but I’d say it was obvious I was more curious about what in the hell was going on.
Thatch made a show of getting his big frame comfortable in the far too small chair for a man of his size, while he pointed his phone toward the stage and Wes watched from the screen. Had I entered an alternate universe? Was I being pranked? Had I inadvertently become a victim of that show Candid Camera, which I wasn’t one hundred percent certain was still on air, but that was beside the point.
I mean…What in the ever-loving fuck was going on?
“Excuse me?” I questioned, and Thatch glanced in my direction.
“You need to get up, honey?”
“No, I don’t need to get up,” I spat and pointed toward the phone. “What in the hell are you doing?”
He shrugged and looked at me like I was the crazy one. “I’m getting ready to watch Lexi’s school play.”
“With the phone. What are you doing with the phone? Why are you FaceTiming with Wes?”
“Because his flight was delayed, and he didn’t want to miss it,” he explained like I was the one missing the point, like I was the strange one in this scenario.
“Hi, Fred.” Wes’s voice filled my ears.
I leaned forward until my face was in front of the camera and Wes’s eyes were locked with mine. A soft smile crested his lips. “You look beautiful tonight, sweetheart.”
I was wearing goddamn yoga pants and an NYU T-shirt. I looked like shit.
“Cut the crap, Wes. What are you getting at here?”
My words didn’t affect him in the least, and to my irritation, that soft smile stayed glued to his face. “I’m not getting at anything. I didn’t want to miss Lexi’s school performance. How is she doing? Was she nervous when you dropped her off?”
My brow furrowed in frustration. “I’m not having this conversation with you.”
“You’re right.” He nodded. “We don’t want to miss a single second of the performance. How about I’ll call you when I get in tonight?”
“No,” I responded immediately. “No, no, no. Do not call me tonight.”
“Yeah, good thinking,” he agreed. “I’m sure Lex will be tuckered out by the time you get her home, and I’d feel like a bastard if I interrupted her much-needed sleep. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“No,” I refuted. “Do not call me tomorrow, Wes.”
Thatch’s eyes met mine, and he flashed a rage-inducing wink in my direction.
“Stop. This.” I glared at him as I tried to yank the phone from his hands, but he had a serious Hulk-like grip on the damn thing. “Turn it off, Thatch.”
He just shrugged in response. “Sorry, Mini Winnie. No can do.”
I continued to glare at him for a good minute before I yanked my purse off the back of the chair and abruptly got out of my seat and moved to the row behind Thatch. I refused to be a part of that circus.
But nothing deterred him or Wes. Thatch continued on FaceTiming the performance, and Wes watched animatedly from his phone.
How’d I know this? Well, because I’m pathetic and I kept glancing to the side to see if he was still on the screen.
When Lexi stood on stage and said her three lines with perfect precision, even adding a few extra facts about Betsy Ross and the way the American flag was sewn together, I could hear Wes cheering louder than anyone in the audience.
I hated that my heart enjoyed it so much.
And when I glanced back to see his facial expression, my heart all but melted at the proud smile etched across his handsome face. Like a father. He looked like he was Lexi’s father, and he couldn’t have been more proud of his baby girl.
I mean, what was he trying to do to me?
Seriously? What was the point in all of this?
He was the one who had walked away, not me. He’d said he couldn’t do it anymore.
But now, his actions refuted those words. They didn’t show a man who simply couldn’t do it anymore. They showed a man who wanted to do it. A man who wanted to be a part of mine and my daughter’s life.
I honestly didn’t know what to make of it.
I had never been more mindfucked than I was in that moment. Ironically, this occurring in the middle of a grade-school auditorium, while a little boy sang “Yankee Doodle Dandy” at the top of his lungs in the most off-key singing I’d ever heard in my life, was about as contradictory as it got.
There was nothing dandy about this situation at all.
Goddammit, Wes.
For the last two weeks, I’d been doing my best to be the kind of guy I wanted to be, showing up to all of Lexi’s events and helping out when she stayed with Remy—without pressure.
I didn’t want to be in Winnie’s face, and sometimes I even sent Thatch or Kline if I thought Winnie would react better to them than me.
If her interaction with Thatch last week had been anything to go by, though…she hadn’t. But Thatch had enjoyed it enough for the both of them.
Of course, I hoped that at some point it would lead to reconciliation, but even if it didn’t, I wanted to be a part of their lives. I wanted it for them, and I wanted it for me.
Winnie and Lexi Winslow made me happy.
Happier than I’d ever been, happier than when I’d thought I’d been my very happiest.
I liked being tied down to them, being someone they could count on and paying witness to every awesome mark they left on the world.
I’d gotten used to it, and whatever the stupid details—like Winnie not wanting to be with me—I didn’t want to give it up.
It was selfish. God, so selfish.
But this was the kind of selfish I was okay with being. I wasn’t some do-gooder, and I wasn’t a perfect guy. I never would be.
I don’t want to be.
But I wouldn’t mind being the perfect guy for them.
And today, it was finally time they knew where I stood. What they decided to do with it—well, that was up to them.
Thanks to covert operations by not only Remy, but also Jude and Ty, I knew that Winnie and Lexi were planning to go out to the diner on 57th and 6th for an after-school treat. Lex’s IEP progress report had just come in, and she was making strides in all the goals they’d set—and then some.
I wanted so badly to be a part of that celebration. Mostly, so Lexi would know that I was proud of her. Proud to know her. So goddamn proud you’d think I’d pushed her out myself.
The bell dinged above the door as I stepped inside and shook the April shower from my hair, and the bright light from outside had my eyes adjusting slowly.
Men are dogs, after all. Am I right?
I could barely see anything, but the vivid coral of Winnie’s shirt would have been hard to miss anywhere—if I could have missed her.
Her head was down as she peeled the paper off of her cupcake and laughed at something Lexi said as she chomped away on a donut. It was cut up on her plate, and she was using a fork—something she always did with her donuts—and my knees nearly caved at the sight.
I’d missed the two of them. Even hanging out on the fringes of their life, I missed being on the inside. They h
ad so much to give, and I didn’t want to miss any of it.
Winnie’s eyes came up right then, as if she’d heard me say the words aloud.
She looked startled.
But not angry.
Giving her the chance to decide if I had the privilege to join them or not, I raised just one hand and showed her the inside of my fist.
All the answer I needed was her small smile.
With one last wipe of my feet on the doormat, I crossed the space until the edge of their table came to my thighs. Lex looked up as my shadow fell across her, and she smiled at the sight of my face.
I might as well have melted right there—because I was done. The two of them smiling at me like they were, welcoming me, was all I needed in the entire world.
Wanting so badly to say how I felt, but knowing blurting it out wasn’t the way to go, I folded my hand into the ASL sign for “I love you” and pressed it against my thigh.
Lexi noticed.
“I love you,” she said, and my heart flexed.
Choking on words and disbelief and pretty much just being a bumbling buffoon, I only managed to stutter one horrendously eloquent word. “What?”
“Your hand means ‘I love you,’” she explained.
“She’s started learning sign language now,” Winnie added.
I shook my head with a smile and barked the very beginning of a laugh.
“I am so screwed.”
Winnie’s face changed then, and I realized I wasn’t screwed. Not yet. But I wanted to be—desperately.
Going with what felt natural, I started with that—with her, with my favorite little girl in the whole wide world. I had two women to tell how I felt, for different, very specific reasons, and that meant I had to start with one.
“You’re right, Lex. It does mean ‘I love you.’”
Her answering expression said “duh.” I laughed again.
I asked Winnie for nonverbal permission to sit down, and she granted it with a nod of her head.
As I scooted into the booth, I pulled Lex’s little chin in my direction with one gentle finger.
“I couldn’t have fallen for a different kid, Lex.”
Her eyes held mine as she tried to make sense of every word I spoke. My voice shook with emotion as I went on. “It’s you. You’re special, and not just for your brain or the things you won’t ever be, but because you took everything I thought I knew—and taught me different.”
Not only was a woman with a kid not the last thing I needed—it was everything I did.
These people—this woman and this child—had taught me to be a man.
“I love you,” I told her, but my eyes went over her head and straight to the perfect blue eyes of her mother. “And that’s an answer I didn’t have to Google.”
I watched in awe and shock and all-consuming love as Wes told my daughter that he loved her. My daughter. A kid who had been through some serious hard knocks in her little life. A kid whose father had been harder to find than Waldo.
Sure, she had my brothers, and they doted on her and loved her dearly.
But she had never had a man choose her like Wes just had.
He’d chosen her. Not out of relation or paternity or obligation, he’d just chosen her because he needed to, because he wanted to, because he loved her.
I couldn’t stop the tears from slipping past my lids and down my cheeks as Lexi grinned back at Wes, her wise little eyes all-knowing and understanding of what he just said.
She might not have been able to express it in direct words or a manifestation of emotion, but when she lifted up the rest of the donut on her plate and handed it to Wes, saying, “I love you, too,” that was my Lexi’s version of handling such a precious, beautiful moment.
Her attention moved across the table to me, and her endearing gaze glanced down at my half-eaten cupcake and then back to my face. “Cupcake, Mommy?”
“You want the rest of my cupcake, sweetie?” I asked while trying not to choke on the poignant emotion lodged in my throat.
She nodded and smiled a sugary sweet smile.
I laughed through my tears and slid my plate across to her. “It’s all yours, Lexi Lou.”
I had to look in the opposite direction of Wes for a long moment and get myself together. I feared if I met his hazel gaze, I’d truly break into sobs.
But thankfully, he knew me well enough to give me those silent minutes, seemingly content, so very content, with just sitting at the same table as Lex and me.
Three hard swallows and a swipe of my thumbs across my cheeks, I finally looked at him. His eyes searched mine, gentle and tender and oh so filled with love. They truly were. They were just filled with love.
But I wasn’t sure if it was because of Lexi or if it was because of me…
“Both,” he whispered.
I tilted my head to the side in confusion.
“I love you, and I love Lexi. I love you both.”
“What am I supposed to do with that, Wes? You told me you didn’t want this, us. You told me you couldn’t handle it.”
“I was an idiot,” he answered, not the least bit prideful. “You scared me, Win. You are so strong and so beautiful, and every day I was falling more in love with you. Every day, my feelings for you got stronger, deeper, more intense. Just one glimpse of your soft smile or to hear your rare, girlish giggle was enough to melt my heart. It all happened so fast. One day I’m content with everything in my life, and the next, there you are making it all seem like sh—crap.”
He reached his hand out and caressed my cheek. “But I’m not scared anymore. I’m ready. I’m all in. I want you and I want Lex and I want us to be the family we shouldn’t have ever stopped being. I want to continue falling more in love with you every day. I need you, Winnie. I need you and I love you and I will do whatever it takes to win you back.”
I couldn’t help but grin at his choice of words. “Win me back?”
“I’m really hoping this is going to end up a Win-Win kind of scenario, sweetheart.” He grinned. “I’m hoping you’ll forgive me, and I’m hoping you’ll let me love you for always. I never want to go a day without you.”
My heart couldn’t deny that everything he was saying was truth. He was pouring his heart and soul out for me, and I knew with every fiber of my being that this was Wes.
He was handing me his heart. He was giving me everything.
“I love you, too, Wes,” I whispered, choked up on the sheer volume of how much I meant those words. It was an all-consuming kind of love, an I can’t go back from this kind of love.
He pressed a soft kiss to my lips. “Enough to let me be your boyfriend again?”
I giggled and nodded.
“Enough to let me propose to you some day in the very near future?”
I nodded again.
“Enough to let me be your husband?”
My breath got caught in my lungs, but I still managed to nod while my heart was literally staring back at him through my eyes.
“Enough to let me call Melinda to watch Lexi so we can have a little time to ourselves?”
I raised an eyebrow. “A little time?”
“A lot of time?” he asked with a sexy smirk.
“How about all night?” I countered.
“All. Night. Long?”
I kissed him softly and whispered against his lips, “You bet your sweet ass you’re going to be Lionel Richie-ing me all night long.”
He chuckled. “God, I love you, Win.”
“Save it for tonight,” I whispered and stood up from my seat. “All right, Lexi Lou, we need to leave here in two minutes.”
She crinkled her icing-covered nose. “Where, Mommy?”
“You get to hang out with Melinda today.”
“Yay!” she squealed and hopped up from her seat a lot quicker than I expected. “Let’s go now!” She yanked her little coat off the chair and had it on faster than I could’ve said, Okay. And her little legs were already heading in the direction
of the door.
Wes stood directly behind me and held my jacket open so I could easily slip my arms inside. The second I was bundled up in my black pea coat, he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled my back tight to his chest. “All night long…” he started to quietly sing the chorus into my ear. “All night long…” He punctuated that statement by softly kissing the sensitive spot behind my ear, before patting my ass and ushering me out the door.
Bossy bastard.
Goddammit, I love him.
“Oh, Jesus,” I exclaimed as I rounded the corner from the elevators at Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island, Bahamas and came face-to-nipple with Cassie’s obnoxiously large breast. Coral coloring coated the walls, accents of sea life abounding—I knew from the hours we’d already spent here—but right then, I couldn’t see any of it.
Thatch hovered over Cassie’s shoulder, looking on as his son Ace got ready to feed, but at my shout, his head jerked up and, when he saw the direction of my gaze, his eyes got bubbly with rage. I knew my own had to look nearly schizophrenic.
“Breastfeeding shaming, bro? Not cool.”
“What?” I panicked. “No!” I looked to my side to try to enlist Winnie—clad in nothing more than a bikini, cover-up, and my avid affection—in my defense, but she was too busy trying not to choke on her chortle.
Traitor.
“I figured, with you basically being a father and all, this is the kind of thing you’d understand.”
I shook my head with a little laugh. “Lexi’s six.” How was she relevant to my understanding of breastfeeding?
“Did I ask for her age?” Thatch threatened at a near shout. I held up both hands in a peacemaking
gesture.
“I’m not shaming anything,” I tried to explain. “Breastfeeding is beautiful.”
Winnie squeaked, and I flashed hard eyes in her turncoat direction before looking back to a still brooding Thatch.
“I’m just offended by your wife’s breasts.”
Not good, Wes. Not good.
“Oh shit, baby!” Winnie snapped under her breath. “Are you trying to get killed?”
“Excuse me!” Cassie snapped. Thatch stood up abruptly off the wall, all casual anger gone, and I retreated a few steps while attempting to do the same with my words.