Page 169 of Sloane

My baby girl was chattering away on her blanket on the family room floor. I wanted her to know her dad, but he needed to want that relationship, too, and if he wasn’t interested, he needed to stay away. It seemed like he was more interested in regaining his career than forming a bond with his daughter.

But I also didn’t want to be the one making the decision to cut him from her life, so I’d done nothing about severing his rights.

I could tell my three nosy roommates—Crash, Stu, and our newest guy, Bobby Doyle, a mastery gunnery sergeant in the Marines who lost an arm and leg when his JLTV was hit by a roadside bomb, were hanging around the kitchen hoping to sneak a peek at who the letter was from. I was sure they had an idea.

Crash and Stu had filled Bobby in on my personal drama with their former roommate during our PT sessions, and I was certain they gave him even more dirt when they were by themselves.

Bobby loved Millie as much as the other guys, and, having never met Sloane, he was even less tolerant of her dad never visiting her than Stu and Crash.

I tucked the unopened envelope in my back pocket to read later when I was upstairs away from prying eyes.

“Did Sloane pay you this month?” Stu asked.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but yes, he did.”

“At least he’s not a deadbeat dad,” Crash grumbled.

Maybe that was what the letter was about. An investment account for Millie.

“Just an absentee one,” Bobby added.

Even though he was right, that got my hackles up.

“You guys don’t get an opinion on this.”

“Sorry,” they mumbled, and Stu and Bobby dispersed back to their usual places on the couch, while Crash dropped to the floor next to Millie.

“I’m going to come visit you all the time,” he told her with wide eyes and a broad smile as he tickled her belly.

She kicked her legs and waved her arms as she squealed in response.

“She’s going to miss her Uncle Crash,” I told him. “We all are.”

“Think you can talk your friend Tammy into coming to my going away party?”

“You’re having a party?”

“I am if she agrees to come to one,” he said with a wicked grin.

“You’re incorrigible.”

“And you’re going to miss me—you already said so, and you can’t take it back.”

“I would never take it back; I am going to miss you. But I’m excited for you.”

“Me too. And a little nervous.”

“That’s understandable. But it’s going to be great, and you’re going to love having your own place.”

He was being honorably discharged and starting college in January at San Diego State, same as Sloane had. With his tuition being paid courtesy of the U.S. government, same as Sloane’s had been. Crash, however, was leaving the military—unlike Sloane.

“I’m going to miss living on the beach, though.”

“Bro,” Stu chastised. “You’re only going to be a few blocks from the ocean. You can walk there.”

“Damn right I can.”

I echoed his proclamation with a smile and held my hand up for a high five.

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