Page 7 of Before We Fell

I wipedsweat off my forehead with the back of my forearm. Heat was already beating down on me and it was only seven o’clock in the morning. Some days I felt like a dick for getting up so early to renovate the house I’d bought when I’d moved Riley back to Carlton. It was summer, though, and if I didn’t get work done before it reached the mid-nineties, I would never get this house finished the way I wanted.

Life really knew how to give a swift kick to a man’s balls. Six months ago, I was living my life by my rules. I was a lion in the courtroom, having accumulated far more wins than losses than any other attorney in my firm. I was on track to make partner and living the life I’d always wanted.

Then life swept me off my feet and didn’t only send me reeling, but my entire family as well.

It wasn’t just that we lost Amanda and my brother-in-law, Jake, it was that I lost the only woman outside my own mom who meant a damn thing to me. I lost the woman who could hold me accountable, tell me when I was being a dumbass, and somehow…theyreally thought I’d be the best guy to take care of their daughter.

Surely when they were filling out their will they figured nothing would ever happen to them if their first choice was to leave me—the guy who didn’t know jackshit about being a parent—with a girl who had more needs than an accused man with a pile of evidence stacked against him.

I dropped my arm to my side and surveyed the kitchen that looked more like a wrecking ball had plowed through it than a place where meals could eventually be cooked.

Seriously, Amanda. What were you thinking?

Probably that they’d never have to rely on me, and that thought always socked a punch to my gut.

I was the cool uncle, the man who showed up every few weeks with a lollipop and took Riley out for too much ice cream too close to her bedtime. I was the guy who gifted her movies too old for her to watch and sent her flowers on her birthday because what in the hell did little girls like?

I had no fucking clue.

And now I was raising her.

People had never been my strong suit. Facts were. Puzzles were. Solving problems and needing square pegs to go into square holes and round pegs into round ones was where I excelled.

People? Especially kids? That was a whole school I never attended.

I wasn’t a complete dick.

I didn’t expect this adjustment to be easy. I didn’t expect Riley to do as she was told, pick herself up and move on.

I’d lost the one person I talked to all day, every day without fail. I fucking missed Amanda. Jake, too, because even though I didn’t like the guy when they first started dating, he was damn good for my sister.

And logically, I knew Riley lost her parents. I was a poor substitute for either of them. Kids didn’t exactly like the idea of “It’s done. Nothing you can do about it. Move on.”

It killed me more and more every day when she’d look at me, the light dimming from her eyes more every morning and as the months dragged on, she talked less and less.

Hell, currently, I could barely get Riley to answer questions that required more than a yes or no answer. On a good day, I’d get an “I don’t care” or “I don’t know” in response.

I lived for the good days when she’d say those three words. Gone was the girl who could prattle incessantly about princesses and princes and how she was going to grow up to be one.

In her place, was a shell of the beautiful and vibrant girl my niece used to be.

And it was all my damn fault.

I was failing at all of it and I didn’t fail. Unfortunately it didn’t matter to Riley one damn bit how successful and victorious I was. She lost her mom and dad, and I had no clue how to make it better for her.

I lifted my arm and swung the hammer at the kitchen countertop. I’d rip this damn room out by the end of the day if it killed me. A chunk of the Formica countertop splintered off and I ducked before it slashed across my face.

Taking a therapist’s advice to give Riley as stable of an environment as possible hadn’t been easy. When I first got custody of her, my instinct was not to follow through. My parents were in their mid-fifties, as energetic and healthy as they always were. They were young enough to take her. Plus, they at least had raised two decent humans in their life. They knew what they were doing.

I’d tried to convince my mom one night to take Riley.

Not my finest hour. Not evenclose. But damn it, I was clueless.

I didn’t know much about women except they were emotional, beautiful, and how to make them come…which wasnotconducive to figuring how to suddenly be responsible for an eight-year-old.

My parents refused. Amanda’s last wishes would be carried out, but they offered to help as much as possible. After struggling for months and losing Riley a little more every day, I knew the best thing for her wasn’t to be raised by a nanny while her uncle worked sixty hours a week and lived in a condo in the city.

It was with family.

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