Page 13 of Losing Faith

It isn’t until we start working on CVC words—consonant, vowel, consonant—that she struggles to recognize and pronounce them, but the school year is still very early, so I’m confused as to why her school is blowing this out of proportion.

“Good job.” I give her a high five when she gets one right and her smile lights up the room.

We work on some other things, and Vidia and Sire join here and there, but after a while, they get up to go do something in their room.

We’re in the middle of a new set of words when there’s a knock at the door.

“Let me get that. You’re so close, keep sounding that one out and use the clues in the picture.” I rise from my seat, and when I open the door, Isabelle’s dad is clearly surprised to see me.

“Hey,” he starts slowly, his brows slightly furrowed as he looks into the apartment, most likely for Sire.

“He’s helping V with something in their room.” I take a step to the side so he can enter, and when he does, I expect him to go walk to his kid, but he stays in front of me.

“Hey,” he voices again.

“You already said that.”

A smile grows on his face as a light blush meets his cheeks. Before I can tease him about it, he gets a phone call. I let the door shut as he brings the phone to his ear.

“Jackson Jones.”

I feel my brows pull together but don’t say anything.

After a beat, he says, “Okay, I’ll check when I get home.” With that, he ends the call and turns back to me. “Sorry about that.”

I tell him it’s fine with a slight head shake. “Is your full name Jackson Jones or do you have two first names?”

“The latter.” He shakes his head, almost like he’s had to explain this plenty of times.

“Mom and Dad couldn’t decide?”

He lets out a low laugh that sounds rich as shit and I’m quickly reminded he’s Sire’s agent, and with the suit he’s in, he’s most likely rich as shit. “That’s actually exactly what happened, which was silly since they only ever call me Jackson.”

My eyes scan the rest of his face and I almost ask how old he is because Harmony was right; he’s hot, too hot to be a dad to a five-year-old unless he had her young, but I know he didn’t.

“How was she?” He gestures behind himself.

“Good,” I tell him honestly. “Your kid’s cute.”

A warm smile touches his lips. “Thanks, Lisette.”

“Demeter.” I act as if I’m correcting him.

His brows slightly furrow. “Last time we spoke it was Lisette?”

“That was months ago, you have shit memory. Lissy is my middle name,” I lie and he nods in understanding.

When I see Sire walk up from behind Jackson, he’s shaking his head at me. “What do you gain from constantly lying about minuscule things like that?”

I shrug in return and he shakes his head at me with a smile as he does a short handshake with Jackson who turns to me.

“Your name isn’t Demeter, is it?”

“Nope.” I walk back to the couch and Isabelle jumps up before I can sit.

“It says lid.”

I give her a high five before I sit down. “I told you you could do it.”

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