Page 104 of Cross Check Daddies
“Good, because I am.”
“But you’re also allowed to be excited.”
I laugh, but it’s shaky. “I think I skipped that part.”
“You’ll circle back. You always do.”
She lets the silence hang there, soft and unpressured.
“Am I selfish?” I ask finally. “For keeping all of them close like this? For not choosing? For needing so much?”
“No.” Her answer is instant. “You’re honest. That’s rare.”
I nod slowly.
There’s a knock a few minutes later, just as dusk starts stretching across the window. A tall figure walks in, holding flowers and a pink duffel bag. Daisy.
She lights up the room without even trying.
“You look like hell,” she says affectionately, coming to kiss my cheek.
“Thanks,” I smile. “I’ve been told.”
She glances at the empty chairs. Cam and Tanner are back asleep, heads tilted toward each other like brothers who lost the fight to exhaustion. “Where’s Ace?”
“He took Jackson home. Needed to feed Buddy. Said he’d be back soon.”
Daisy nods. “Makes sense. He texted me.”
She sets the flowers in a makeshift vase, then pulls the chair up close.
“I’m proud of you,” she says.
“For fainting on a stage?”
“For surviving everything else.”
I sink back against the pillows. “I don’t feel like I am.”
“Well, you are. And I brought something for you.”
She pulls out a flyer and sets it on my lap. “Beau bought a cabin last year. Just outside Miami. No press, no Wi-Fi if you don’t want it.”
I lift a brow. “Are you saying I need to disappear?”
“I’m saying... recover. Breathe. You don’t owe the world your strength every day.”
My eyes sting. “I don’t even know how to do that.”
“You will,” she says, smoothing the blanket over my legs. “You’ve got the launch behind you. The season’s halfway done. The men are already tripping over themselves to be at your side.”
“And the twins,” I murmur.
“And the twins.”
I finally let myself rest.
And I start to believe, just a little, that I’m going to be okay.
