“That’s different. You don’t have to.”
“I don’t have to either, Papa.” Cecily strokes my arm. “I just like cooking with him.”
“That’s called Stockholm syndrome.”
Cecily laughs as if I’m being ridiculous. “He didn’t kidnap me.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he did. He looks like the type. Also, there doesn’t need to be a kidnapping for the syndrome to happen.”
My daughter shakes her head, Kim rolls her eyes, and the fucker pretends like he didn’t hear a word I said.
I take a deep breath and try to remain calm when Kim fawns over him, shows him where he can wash up, and even gives him one of her green aprons that only Cecily and Kirian have had the honor to wear.
She even has the boldness to whisper, “Would you please stop with the long face and be a bit more understanding?” to me after I change my clothes and sit opposite their workspace in the kitchen, glaring the fucker down.
He doesn’t take the hint to piss off and takes his job as Kim’s sous-chef very seriously.
“Papa.” My daughter touches my arm, forcing me to slide my attention from the soon-to-be ex-boyfriend to her. She’s sitting beside me on the cozy kitchen bench, since I was deemed not helpful by her mother. Or maybe she sent her on a mission to keep an eye on me so I don’t start any funny business. “Don’t you watch the economic news at this time?”
“I can see a recap later.” I take her hand in mine so that we’re facing each other. “Honeybee, you know you can tell me if he hurt you, right? Is he blackmailing you? Forcing you to do anything? I know boys like him well. They’re little twats wrapped in sophisticated charm, and I’ll be damned if I let him play around with you.”
Her eyes slide to him, and they widen, brighten, and explode in a rainbow of fucking colors that burn in my chest. She looks at him like her mother looks at me sometimes, and I know, because I’ve been searching for this type of expression in her eyes for years. Whether when she was with Jonah or when I thought she had a crush on that tool Landon—thank fuck that was a false alarm. Captain, Levi, is my friend, but that son of his should’ve been in a mental institute along with Aiden’s son, Eli, the moment they were born.
Point is, this is the first time she’s looked at someone like this, with warmth and adoration. Respect, even.
Is it too late to execute my plan B which consists of murdering the fucker in his sleep, hiding his body, and pretending he left in the middle of the night?
“He’s not playing around with me, Papa.” Cecily finally looks at me, this time with a blush on her cheeks. “Also, you raised me better than that. I wouldn’t allow anyone to ridicule me or step on my pride.”
“That’s my girl.” Though I’m fucking gutted at the prospect that whatever shit she has with her soon-to-be ex-boyfriend is actually real and could be unstoppable. “You can still have someone better than him.”
Having no one at all would be much more preferable, but I can try to tolerate someone other than this insolent tool.
Who am I kidding? I won’t. But I can convince her and her mother that I would. Under certain circumstances.
“Jeremy makes me the best version of myself. He cares about my well-being, makes sure my comfort comes before his, built me a bookshelf in his house and filled it with my mangas, and even lets me sleep on his lap. So no, I don’t want someone better.”
“Wait. Go back. He lets you sleep on his lap, as in, you spend nights with him. As in,withhim?”
Her face turns a deep shape of red, and a sense of nausea mounts in my chest. The thought that my little girl has already grown up so much that she does that stuff is enough to give me a midlife crisis.
Yes, I’ve thought about this moment countless times since she was born, but reality is a very different beast.
That’s it. I’m going to kill the motherfucker.
Cecily opens her mouth, and I hold up a hand. “Don’t answer that question.”
My daughter wraps her arms around my waist and lays her chin on my shoulder, as if knowing the exact type of distress I’m going through.
“I know this is hard for you to accept, but it’d mean so much to me if you would.” She nuzzles her nose in my shoulder. “No matter what, you’ll always be my number one hero. No one will ever take your place, Papa.”
I groan when she bats her lashes at me. I swear she’s doing this on purpose, knowing exactly how I’d rather gut myself open than hurt her.
So despite my murder plans, I force myself to not glare at the bastard too much. At least not when Kim and Cecily are looking.
By the time we sit down for dinner, I’ve cooled down. But only a bit and just enough to change tactics about shaking the pest away and removing whatever rosy binoculars my wife is looking at him with.
I take a bite of my steak and stare at him. I made sure my wife and daughter are on my right while he’s all alone on my left.