I have a kid. A daughter. From the second I saw her, I knew she was mine. Only thing that resembles Ella are her eyes, everything else is me.

Two times I’ve been left speechless. Meeting my daughter and seeing Ella for the first time.

I pull up my driveway, seeing Taylor’s little sports car already parked to the side. I start fighting with what I’m actually going to say to her but come up blank. Walking through the front door, the smell of food hits me first, and then the music is what gets me second.

“Hey!” She tosses a dishcloth onto the table. “You okay? You seemed a little blank on the phone?” Then she picks up her wine glass and takes a sip. Truth is, Taylor is fucking sexy as shit. She cooks, cleans, does all the right things. She seems straight but doesn’t give a fuck that I’m as crooked as they come. She tells me she’s from a normal boring ass family and life and has the same boring normal ass job. By normal, I mean she owns a business downtown, even though I haven’t given enough of a fuck to go check it out—or her life in general, because of what I was really doing. Ella and Pax being here has definitely thrown all that shit out the window.

“Yeah, we need to talk.”

“Okay.” She pulls her long dark hair into a high ponytail. She’s appealing, and one of those girls you’d see walking down the street and would need to take another three or four glances at again just to be sure that she’s real. That’s how hot she is, but…

She walks her little body into the living room and sits on the couch. “It’s never a good thing when someone leads with that sentence.”

Fuck it. “I have a daughter.”

She freezes. Opens her mouth, and then closes it again.

“My ex, it’s a long story. Actually, I don’t even know if she’s classified as my ex.”

“Ella…” Hearing Ella’s name come out of Taylor’s mouth has me angsty as fuck.

My eyes snap to hers. “How do you know her name?” I’ve never been able to explain how Ella makes me feel. I don’t have the vocab to even muster words that could give her justice, hence the reason why Taylor saying her name, makes me want to go fucking caveman and cradle that fucking name close to my chest. No one should speak of her, and if they do say her name, they better damn well know they’d be walking a fine line between life and death with me, providing they don’t misword their following sentence. Now that she’s the mother of my daughter, too, yeah, that’s raised it to a whole new level. However, I’m still fucking pissed at her for hiding Pax from me for so long. So many years I fucking missed and will never see. Never wanted a kid until I saw my own.

Her face falls. “I’ve heard through the old ladies at the club.”

Fucking Melissa and Meadow no doubt. Rubbing that shit in just to be bitches. The only thing scarier than my brothers? Is their women. Taylor isn’t really cut for that life, but she’s been keeping my dick heated and, she’s not bad of a chick which has made all this that much easier. It’s those ones you need to be careful of, though. The crazy ones? Like Ella, Meadow, and Melissa? You don’t need to worry about them. They don’t hide shit. They own their crazy. Girls who seem like ‘okay’ girls, are usually the ones you gotta think twice about. No one is that ok all the time.

“What’d they tell you?” I ask, leaning back on the sofa and throwing my arms over the top.

She laughs nervously, picking up her glass and drinking it all in one go. “Only that you guys had a thing and that she’s irreplaceable.”

They weren’t lying.

When I don’t answer or correct her, she looks at me, pinning me with her brown eyes. “I see,” she whispers. “So, it’s true?”

“Listen,” I brush her off, leaning on my elbows. “If this is too much for you to handle, I’d get it that you’d need to walk away. Hell, I know for a fact I wouldn’t be able to handle that shit.”

She swallows, and I sit there waiting for her to answer. Hoping she bitches out because it would cause a whole lot less stress on me if she does.

“No.” She shakes her head, stands, and walks into the kitchen, taking the pot off the stove. She places her hands on the counter, seems to take a few breaths with closed eyes, and then opens them to me over her shoulder. “I won’t run from this, from you. I’ll be fine. I can handle this.”

“You sure?” I ask, searching both of her eyes, and then her mouth.

She nods. “Yes, Frost. I can handle this.” She walks toward me and straddles my lap, grinding herself on top of me. “Promise I can.”

My hands come to her hips, but it ain’t hers I’m thinking about.

Ella fucking McKenna.

* * *

Later that night, I’m tossing and turning in bed, unable to sleep. The full moon is glistening into my bedroom, shining brightly onto Taylor whose naked body is wrapped up in the sheet beside me. I bring my fingers to the bridge of my nose and squeeze. Fuck. I’m here, but I want to be with my daughter. My fucking loyalty to my brothers. My phone vibrates on the bedside table and I blindly reach for it, swiping it unlocked.

“What do you want?”

“Frost?”

I shoot off the bed. “Is Pax all right?”

Ella quickly cuts in. “Yeah, sorry, she’s okay. She’s asleep and hasn’t moved since you left.”

I relax, laying back down on the bed. “Whassup?”

“I can’t sleep.”

I pause and gape out the window again, the raindrops pelting against the glass brings realization in. “The storm.”

“Yeah,” she murmurs, then it’s silent again. “Frost?”

“What, Ella?”

“Are we going to be ok?”

I exhale, swinging my legs off the bed and resting my elbow on my knee. I whisper out hoarsely, “We will always be ok, baby.”

I hear her sharp intake of breath.

“Fuck it, I can’t sleep.” Then I hang up, stand, and walk to my closet. I throw on some jeans, a shirt, and a hoodie, then shrug on my patch. I flip on a cap and grab my keys, I take one last look at Taylor, and then without thinking twice about it, I stalk out the doors, get onto my bike, and ride to the Mac Mansion.