“Things just never added up with you two,” she tries. “And you quit your job all of a sudden.”
“I love him, okay? I’ve always loved him. I don’t walk away from the people I love. And actually, no. I did walk away from him. Or do you not remember that? We weren’t always together and talking. You thinking this about him is fucking insane.”
“Ooh! Mommy! You say bad word!” Savannah immediately jumps into the conversation.
“Sorry, buttercup,” I say to her. “Mom, I’m telling you, you’re wrong. Don’t make something out of nothing. Please.”
She’s quiet for a moment.
“I promise if I was in that situation, I wouldn’t put my daughter in it when he didn’t even know about her at first. You’re questioning my judgment as her mother.” My voice cracks on that last word. Honestly, that has me more upset than anything else. Ian didn’t know about Savannah; if he was abusive to me, why would I bring her into that?
Mom sighs. “You’re right; I’m sorry. I just wasn’t expecting to see him throw down like he did and to see that no one was bothered by it.”
“It’s a game where fights happen.”
“Daddy!” Savannah runs over to Ian and he picks her up. It’s probably a good thing that he has a beard. Otherwise, I’m sure we’d be able to see a bruise on his jaw. He looks damn hot with only a pair of pajama pants on. They sit low enough that I can see where the waistband of his boxer-briefs should be showing, but he must not be wearing any because I don’t see any. Man, if I had’ve known that last night… “Daddy, you finally wake up,” Savannah tells him, dragging me out of the gutter.
“He’s just waking up?” Mom questions and I can hear her dissatisfaction.
“Yeah. It’s been a long week. Is this over now?” I ask as Ian sits next to me.
“Are you happy and safe?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
“Okay. It’s over. We’ll come over for lunch because I want to see where you live.”
“Okay, that works.” We hang up and I lean my head on Ian’s shoulder.
“Well?” he asks.
“I solved our problem. How much did you hear?”
He grabs my chin to force me to look at him. “You are the best mother. Don’t let it bother you when someone else is stupid enough to question that, especially when she doesn’t have the grounds to do so.”
“Thank you. Let’s not think about it anymore. You,” I tickle Savannah’s stomach, “need a bath. Nana and Papa are coming over so we can go to lunch.”
Savannah hugs Ian’s neck and hides her face there. “Daddy help.”
“Daddy has to get his own bath. You can snuggle with him later.” I swear, she’s taken to him more than she did with Logan. For her to have mostly women around her, she’s more attached to the men. I’m honestly surprised that she’s taken to him as quickly as she has, but then again, I don’t have a shy child. If you show her some love and are fun, she’ll love you.
“Go take your bath, little Miss. I’m starting to get hungry, and if we don’t go eat soon, I might have to eat whatever’s nearby…like you!” He bends his head and starts fake-eating her arm.
“Daddy! You can’t eat me!” She giggles.
“But I’m hungry.”
“Feed him, Mommy,” she orders through her laughter.
“He’ll be okay until lunch if we hurry with your bath. Come on.”
She wiggles out of his loose hold and scrambles into my arms. “Hurry!” she screams when he acts as if he’s going to pull her back.
I stand and turn my body, so she’s out of his reach. Before I can step away, he’s grabbed my thigh. Good lord, that touch shouldn’t get me as hot as it does, but if I could shift my thighs without it being obvious as to why, I would.
“Babe.”
“What?”
He tilts his chin up. “Forgetting something?”
I roll my eyes as I lean down to give him a quick kiss. It only makes him grin. This is going to be a long day.
All it takes is Mom seeing how Savannah is with Ian over lunch for her to pull me aside and apologize again. She was also impressed with his apartment since it is an upgrade from my previous one. Unfortunately, I didn’t warn her of touchy subjects beforehand, so she brings up his parents. She was only trying to learn about his family. He does talk about them, but he doesn’t mention that he isn’t currently talking to either of them.
That was the first bump. Mom and Chris learn more about Ian and his life. Logan ended up coming with them, so Savannah jumps back and forth between her daddy, her Papa, and her Lo-Lo. The second bump came when Savannah was about to pitch a fit over something. I’m not sure what because Mom was talking to me and the guys seemed to have a handle on it. But I did hear Logan and Ian say her name at the same time. Ian abruptly stopped and let Logan soothe her ruffled feathers.
Now, we’re in an ice cream shop. Ian is holding Savannah.
“Want strawberry ice cream?” he asks her.
“She doesn’t like strawberry,” Logan tells him.
“Yuck,” Savannah agrees.
“What about chocolate, little Miss?” Ian tries.
“Nope,” Logan says. “Anything chocolate upsets her stomach.”
“Will you shut up?” Ian snaps. It’s such a sudden change in tone that everyone close by stops talking. What in the world?
Savannah pats his beard, her little legs swinging around his waist, as if she can’t tell that he’s suddenly pissed about something. “Banana, Daddy,” she says.
“Banana?” His voice is back to being soft.
“Or vanilla with bananas.”
Logan looks at me with a what the hell just happened expression and I shrug. No clue. Ian doesn’t talk to anyone but Savannah after that. When we get home, he goes straight to our bedroom.
“What did I do?” Logan asks.
“I don’t know. Thanks for coming, though. Savannah loves Lo-Lo.”
He laughs. “Of course she does. I’m the best uncle she’s ever had. Let me know what’s up with him.”
“Maybe.” It might not be any of Logan’s business. I hug Mom and Chris and promise to see them tomorrow before they leave to go home. Then, once I put on some cartoons for Savannah, I walk to our bedroom. Ian is sitting on the bed with the photo albums I gave him, spread on top. He’s flipping through them. “What’s going on?” I ask.
“Nothing,” he replies with a shake of his head.
I walk over and climb on the bed to sit next to him. He’s turning the pages too fast. What is he doing? “Ian, what the hell happened? What are you doing?”
He closes the album and slides it over. “Look at it.”
“Okay.” I open it and look at the photos. This album doesn’t have the photos in any particular order. It’s simply my favorite photos since Savannah was born. “What am I supposed to see?”
“A commonality.”
“Since when do you beat around the bush?” I ask, not feeling like going back and forth.
“Logan. It’s you and Savannah, Savannah, or Savannah and Logan in nearly every photo.”
“Okay,” I drag, still not seeing where he’s going with this.
“He might as well be her father, Sydney.”
“Ew,” I immediately say, frowning. “He’s my stepbrother.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. He’s helped you raise her, Sydney. He’s been there.”
“You’re jealous of Logan?” I interrupt. Seriously? That’s why he snapped at him today?
“Fuck yes I’m jealous of him! That’s my daughter, but for all she knows right now, he could be her dad if you told her to call him that!” Ian stands and starts pacing around the bed. “He immediately stepped in to stop her tantrum today. He knows what her favorite fucking ice cream is and that chocolate apparently doesn’t go well with her stomach. I don’t know any of that shit, and I for damn sure don’t need him there, throwing it in my face that I don’t know it. The only reason she even calls
me Daddy is because you told her to!”
My heart sinks. Oh, god. We’re back to me lying to him. I reach for his arm when he gets close, but he yanks it away. Damn, that stings. “Will you let me make you feel better?” I ask quietly.
He hesitates for too long. He stands there in indecision for too long. I’m not sure how long it actually is, but it’s enough that it hurts that he won’t somewhat immediately let me make him feel better. So, I get up and leave him standing there.
“I wanna color, Mommy.”
“You know what? So do I.”
I grab a pair of coloring books from my purse and dig around until I find the box of crayons. We sit at the dining room table and color. The problem with coloring with Savannah is that sometimes, she wants to tell you which colors you should use. Today is one of those times.
“If you keep telling me how to color, you’re never going to finish yours, buttercup.”
“I will,” she argues. “Use purple.”
She wins today. I’m over arguing.
“Daddy wanna color?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him.”
She wiggles out of her chair and runs down the hall, shouting about how he needs to color with us. A minute or so later, she comes back with Ian and a big grin. “He say no, but I say please and he say yes.” She looks up at him. “Share with Mommy.”
Great. I can’t even color in peace between the little dictator and now having to share with Ian. She runs the conversation and orders us around. I’ve never been worried about putting her to bed before, but I am tonight. What am I supposed to do if Ian and I haven’t settled this by then? I don’t want to go to bed with things as awkward as they are and with him mad.
“Let’s get you ready for bed and tucked in,” I reluctantly say.
“Daddy tucks me in!”
“Well, let’s go,” he says, standing and holding out his hand for hers.
I decide to keep coloring to prolong the inevitable. Maybe I’ll stay up all night. My phone rings and I pick it up.
“Sydney? Any chance that you can come in tonight?” my boss asks. “I hate to ask knowing that you only have one week left, but Tina called in sick and well, you’re my most dependable employee, so I called you first.”
“I’ll be there soon.”
“Thank you so much!”
Prayers answered. I go to the bedroom and start changing into my uniform. Can’t argue with Ian if I’m not here.
“What are you doing?”
I glance over my shoulder at Ian as I pull my shirt into place. “Got called into work to cover for someone.”
“Why didn’t you say no?”
“So I can stay here with you? No, thanks.” I push past him, but don’t make it very far before he grabs my wrist.
“That’s not fair.”
“I don’t care. I could’ve made you feel better and you didn’t want me to. Forgive me if I don’t want to spend time with you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get to work.” I pull out of his hold and leave him behind for the second time today.
Unfortunately, work just makes me feel bad and tired. I totally get where Ian is coming from. When I look at it from his point of view, it couldn’t have been fun for Logan to answer his questions instead of Savannah. And Logan shouldn’t step in when Ian can. Logan is so used to doing that, something will probably have to be said to make sure he doesn’t in the future.
What bugs me is how Ian handled it. I’m almost certain I could’ve eased all of what was bothering him if he would just let me, but no. He wanted to be pissed instead. Fuck that. When the solution is so easily available, why do you want to fight it? He should know that I, more than anyone, want to make sure that he catches up on what he missed and that Savannah grows up never realizing she was missing him…until she notices he’s missing from the photos.
That is easily going to be the decision I regret for the rest of my life.
It’s also disturbing that Ian didn’t want to go ahead and fix things because we’re supposed to be on a new normal, right? So why wouldn’t we jump over a hurdle partly dealing with the past as soon as we can? What if he changes his mind and decides he can’t get over it? What if I’m not forgiven? Did he ever actually say I was? He only said that he could forgive me.
Damn it, I need us to get to our happy place. We’re past due and I need the security of knowing we actually have one. I don’t want a bump in the road so soon. Why can’t I be reassured that there is a happy place first? I shake my head at myself. Things were good. One little mishap can’t send me into a panic.
I’m quiet when I finally make it home around five thirty in the morning. Ian seems to be asleep in our bed. I quickly change and crawl into bed. It’s going to be one lazy Sunday because I already want to sleep the day away and there’s no way Savannah will let me.
Mmm. His bed is so comfortable. I’ll be asleep in no time.
I am dozing off when I’m startled by Ian’s arm coming around my waist.
He tugs me against him. “Make me feel better, gorgeous.”
I roll over to face him and say what I’ve been wanting to say all night. “She calls you Daddy because you are her daddy, and that’s why she was told that’s essentially your name. If it wasn’t because I told her to, she wouldn’t call me Mommy. She’s not old enough to know why she calls us that. Stop putting so much pressure on yourself to know everything about her already. It’ll take time. Time you have. Yes, Logan was there and he helped me, but so did Carey. So did my mom and Chris. Lots of people helped me. It’s second nature for them to still do it. But I can also see how that can get in the way of you getting to know her and learning your way around being a parent, so I can handle that. That’s what I would’ve told you earlier.”
“Sorry for not giving you a chance to say it.”
“Can I sleep now?”
“Yeah. Sleep all you want. I’ll take Savannah to Logan’s in the morning and you can head over there once you’ve woken up.” He kisses me softly and then my body gives in to the exhaustion. Things aren’t completely better, but we’re one step closer to our happy place.
“Where’s Savannah?”
“With Carey. You’re all mine tonight,” I say as I pull her onto my lap. It’s been a couple of days and it’s way past time that I get some time with Sydney without anyone else around. My phone starts ringing before I can enjoy the fact that she’s sitting with me.
“Is it important?” she asks, her arms winding around my neck.
“My dad.” This is the first time he’s tried calling me since I hung up on him last month. I still need to call my mom and tell her. “So, no.” I toss it to the other end of the couch. “Did you want to go out?”
“Can we stay here tonight?”
“Yeah.”
So far, having Sydney live with me feels more like I’m living with her. It didn’t take long at all for her to take over and run the household. I don’t mind it at all, though. I like it a hell of a fucking lot. She also has started leaving me alone with Savannah. When I asked her about it, she said it was so I could spend time with her and get to know her without anyone else around to distract Savannah.
“Are you cooking or am I?” she asks.
“Or, I can pick something up.”
“Chinese,” she immediately says.
“Call it in.”
A little while later, we’re sitting on the couch, eating and watching some TV show she likes. I decide that this is the perfect time for us to talk.
“So, how did you pick Savannah’s name?” Yeah, I’m still thinking about this.
“Well, I searched for a long, long time for names, but none of them seemed to stick with me. I tested them out by using them instead of baby when I talked to her, and there was just something about Savannah. I kept coming back to it.” She shrugs. “That’s how I picked it. I can’t imagine any of the other names working now that I’ve seen her and know her personality.”
“Sounds like you
did good then. Tell me something I don’t know about you.”
She sighs, probably thinking back on how she thinks I already know everything about her. “Why don’t you go first?”
“Okay. The one thing I regret with you is that we weren’t talking, so I couldn’t invite you to come with me to the draft or to that first game.”
“I would’ve liked to be there for that,” she agrees. Sydney seems to be mulling over something, so I stay quiet while she does. “Can I ask you something?” she eventually asks.
“Go ahead.”
She keeps her eyes away from me and her voice is soft when she speaks. “How did it not occur to you that you shouldn’t be with me if you were with her?”
Ah, fuck. “Because I’m an idiot?”
“I’m serious, Ian,” she snaps, clearly annoyed with my answer.
“So am I. I don’t know how. Like,” I sigh because I don’t particularly want to get into this. “I had just started seeing her around prom, but I didn’t consider her a girlfriend. She called me her boyfriend, and I let her. She was with me when you called to tell me that you didn’t have a date, so I went into the hallway to talk to you and then kicked her out while I sorted out how to go see you. Didn’t think about her again until I got back and she got up with me. It wasn’t anything serious at all. And if you called, then you were the only person on my mind. I was nineteen, horny, and couldn’t be with you. We both talked about seeing other people. She was just someone to see.”
“God, that makes you even more of an ass, Ian.” She puts her food on the coffee table and folds her arms over her chest.
“You asked me and I answered honestly. You can’t tell me that you haven’t done the same thing.”
Her eyes widen. “I haven’t!”
“So, during the two years we’ve been seeing each other, you haven’t gone on more than one date with a guy while still sleeping with me?”
“I never slept with anyone else, Ian! You’re the only jackass I’ve ever slept with! That’s the difference!”
Well, that answers the other question I wasn’t going to ask. “It doesn’t matter, gorgeous. Did you go on more than one date with someone?”
It's Our Time (Carolina Rebels Book 4) Page 10