Page 72 of Love You, Mean It
“I’m not that bad.”
“Nah. You’re cautious. And you’re scrappy,” he said.
“I’m not scrappy.” I smacked his chest, and he tightened his hold on me.
“It’s not a bad thing. You protect yourself. You don’t let people in, because you don’t want to be disappointed. I get that more than you know.”
“What was it like being in the foster system?” I asked, rolling onto my stomach and propping up on my elbows so I could look at him. So I could look him in the eye and show him that he could trust me.
He cleared his throat. “It’s not all bad, but it sure as hell wasn’t all good. I was in some shitty homes. I saw things that kids should never have to see.”
“Like what?” I whispered.
“Abuse. Physical and emotional. Not to me. No one ever laid a hand on me. But I kept to myself. I saw drug abuse at a young age, and I knew I’d stay far from that. But if you weren’t someone who knew what you wanted out of life, you could have been drawn into it. You know, there was no guidance. No support emotionally.”
My chest ached at his words, and I ran my hands through his hair. “And you knew at a young age what you wanted out of life?”
“I did.”
“What did you want?”
“Freedom.” He sighed. “Not to be dependent on anyone else. Not to ever be in a situation where I had to live under someone else’s roof and follow their rules. I wanted to follow my own. Live in a home that felt safe, where there was food on the table and running water. A home that was clean and taken care of. A business that I controlled and worked at. Those were things I knew I wanted even as a kid.”
“And you got them,” I said.
“I almost fucked up with Caroline. I got her pregnant, even though we’d been safe. I’d never had unprotected sex, and she shows up at my door pregnant several months after our summer fling. She could have fought me for Harper, taken the one thing I care most about awayfrom me. Luckily for me, she didn’t want to be a mother, and I got to keep my baby girl. But that could have gone differently, as I was reminded today.”
I sucked in a breath. I’d overheard some of their conversation. “Are you worried she’ll be back?”
“I’m not. She’s too selfish. Her fiancé doesn’t want a kid from another dude. Her parents wanted her to give Harper up for adoption. But I let things go too far. I’m going to get an attorney and force the issue because I can’t let her come in and out of Harper’s life whenever the hell she feels like it. Not after what happened today. I’m going to need to have her put it in writing.”
“Put what in writing?” I asked.
“That she doesn’t want to be a mother. She’s never contributed financially. She’s never contributed emotionally. She doesn’t get to call the shots,” he said, his voice hard.
“Yeah. She’s a real piece of work.” I shook my head with disbelief. “I would have liked to give her a piece of my mind.”
“I could tell. I appreciate the way you stepped up for Harper and stayed with her while I dealt with the mess that Caroline caused today.”
“Unfortunately, it was familiar to me. The way she just showed up when it was a good time for her to do so and then wanted to put on a show. My father was very much that kind of parent.”
“Yeah, it’s a shame that you need a license to drive a car and to order a drink in a bar, but any selfish asshole can be a parent.” He shook his head. “I should have put my foot down a long time ago.”
“Well, you’re doing it now, and that’s all that matters. It sounds like this is the first time that Harper didn’t want to be around her. So you’re following her lead and fixing the situation. In the wedding business, we’d give you a hashtag for this type of behavior,” I said with a laugh.
“A hashtag? What the hell does that mean?”
“You know, we do the hashtags for weddings. Like, hashtag ‘here come the Cooneys.’”
He laughed and said, “‘Here come the Cooneys’? I don’t get it.”
“Like ‘here comes the bride.’” Now we were both laughing. “A hashtag can tell you a lot about a couple. Like Montana has always said that her hashtag would be hashtag ‘you, me, and forever.’”
“Hmm ... sounds very odd, but I get it. So what’s my hashtag?” he asked.
“Yours would be hashtag ‘hot daddy.’”
His body shook with laughter.
