I cackledat that as I walked outside, but was surprised to find the three men clustered around my car. Ben still held a sleeping Evie, and the two other men were peering at her, as if soaking up every detail. I sucked in a breath at that, remembering all too well how I’d done the same thing when she was a baby. Tracing the gentle slopes of her cheek, obsessing over her little rosebud of a mouth. I found my steps slowing, unconsciously giving them just a little more time. But when they heard my feet crunch on the gravel, all their attention shifted to me.
“I kept a hold of her until you got out here,” Ben explained. “I didn’t want her getting all grizzly while you were inside the house.”
I snorted. “It’s OK to want to hold your daughter for whatever reason. I’d even go so far to encourage it.”
Ben smiled then and tipped her up so that she was plastered across his chest, his arms holding her tight.
“Time to go home, little cub,” he told her, and she snuffled, then made a little whiny noise. “I’ll be with you in the morning.”
“And I’ll be with you.”
My eyes widened at that purr of a voice, seeing that Damon had sidled up to me. He reached out and ran a finger down my arm.
“No, I’ll be at work.”
“I can keep the shop running,” Jasper said with a smile. “Ring up the books, put the ones in the boxes on the shelves and feed the little old ladies lashings of tea and biscuits until their bladders burst.”
“My job requires a bit more than that,” I said with a splutter.
“But does it tomorrow?” Damon’s voice held a thin thread of challenge. “If you walked away from adult life for just one day, could the shop get by if Jasper did that?”
“Ah…”
Protests rose in me, then fell as I realised they were probably right, and the two men looked at each other then, trading a conspiratorial wink.
“Take the day off, Lils,” Ben insisted. “You deserve it. But you…” He turned to his brother. “Look after Lily and don’t get her caught up in one of those hare-brained ideas of yours.”
“Hare-brained?” Damon turned to me with a smirk. “I wouldn’t think of it.”
Chapter 36
Evie was grumpy and whingey when I got her into the car and even worse when I got her out of it.
“Where’s Daddy?” she complained as I hustled her up the front path. I couldn’t carry her like her fathers could. “I want Daddy.”
“Daddy will be with you in the morning,” I promised. “He’ll come before school and help you get ready.” I had no idea if that was true or not, but right now I needed to say something to appease Evmonster.
“Not in the morning! Now!”
“Evie—”
“Mummy, I want Daddy!”
Her eyes were opening fully now, and they were flashing with an instinctual blend of anger and need. I couldn’t use coping strategies or talk her down, because the part of her brain that thought rationally wasn’t online right now. All of the big feelings she’d been keeping tamped down were coming rushing out, unfettered. So I took a deep breath and walked up to the front door, refusing to engage any further.
She said the same thing again and again as I got inside, her shouts growing louder as I went down the hall. But rather than me having to drag her into the house, she came, because she needed her audience. I walked into her bedroom, whisked back her quilt, piled all her pillows together into a nest at the head of bed and then grabbed her favourite book and action figure and set them beside the bed. Evie came stomping in, eyes flashing.
“I want Daddy! Where’s Daddy! I want my Daddy!”
It was the tears that always got me when this happened. Her rage, her anger, it felt like she was pummelling me physically with her fists when she shouted at me, but this? When she cried out what she wanted, needed, like her fucking heart was breaking, mine broke along with it.
I could’ve rung Ben. He would’ve come around quick smart and that was a reassurance I clung to. To just know there was someone who would, could, drop everything. Carmen and Sophie would, but I always felt guilty about that, but Ben… She was his as well as mine, so feeling like someone would share that burden helped a little.
But not enough.
I watched her rage, pick up her toys and throw them across the room, then advance on me. While her fists were out, I backed up, taking a step, then another step, performing the dance of the dysregulated, until finally I pulled my phone out.
“Stop, Evie!”