Chapter 22

Some things in life are better left unsaid. Which I generally realize after I’ve said them.

-Face of Life

Travis

“I’m hungry, Daddy.”

I looked up from the motor I was tinkering with and let my eyes move to the clock.

Then my stomach dropped.

Six forty-nine pm.

Holy fuck.

I dropped the wrench I was using to tighten a bolt and reached for Alex’s hand. “Come on, we have to go get…”

The door of the garage was kicked open, and Reggie came barreling inside, two Happy Meals in her hands. “I got food!”

Alex semi-clapped her hands together due to the cast on her arm and reached for the meal that Reggie was holding out to her.

Together they turned on their heels and walked back inside, and I followed at a much more sedate pace.

I could hear TJ hollering his displeasure the moment I rounded the corner of the kitchen, and I winced when I saw Hannah standing at the sink staring down at the dirty dishes…dishes I was also supposed to do.

TJ was in the seat on the counter directly next to the sink, and she started muttering under her breath when she turned on the faucet.

When she reached for the first pot, I stopped her by saying, “I’ll do that.”

She turned only her head and glared. “If you were going to do them, I’d think you’d have already done them.”

I didn’t have much to say to that.

She was partially right and partially wrong. I’d forgotten, yes. But that didn’t mean that I wasn’t going to do them at all. Eventually, I would’ve come into the kitchen and seen them there filling up the sink, and then I would’ve washed them. Sure, it might be after dinner…oh, shit.

Not only had I forgotten to pick the kids up from daycare, but I’d also forgotten to cook dinner. Oh, and let’s not forget to wash the goddamn dishes.

I barely restrained myself from slapping my forehead in complete and utter failure.

“Hannah,” I started.

She shook her head. “I’m not in a good place right now. Please don’t make me start yelling at you in front of the kids.”

I snapped my mouth shut and then walked over to where she was standing.

I’d had a bad day.

I’d had a really, really bad day.

I’d started it out bad by Hannah walking in and overhearing what I was saying to Baylor—which had been me talking out of my ass, doing something stupid.

Then, I’d had to deal with all that shit swirling around me due to what Allegra had done.

The icing on the cake had been arriving outside once it was all over and seeing Hannah get on the back of a man’s bike—a man that I had a lot of unfinished business with.

Then I’d gotten my girl so I could have a talk with her about her mother, and what had gone down that day. And she’d calmed me down by saying just a few short words— ‘I want to stay with you, Daddy. I don’t want to go with her.’

And that had been the last of my anger.

So we’d talked, and caught up, and I hadn’t thought much about the rest of the afternoon. I hadn’t thought about dinner or getting the kids from daycare.

I hadn’t thought much of anything but spending time with a kid that didn’t tell me she hated me every chance she got anymore.

And I could tell without even speaking to her that Hannah was pissed.

Honestly, I couldn’t say that I blamed her.

“Okay,” I said, knowing when to stop. I was by no means finished with this conversation, but I knew that it needed to happen without the kids aware of every single thing that came out of our mouths.

So instead, I picked my son up and cradled his angry body to my chest.

He only wailed louder.

This, although kind of sucky, I could handle.

I could handle angry babies.

I could handle angry kids.

I could not handle Hannah’s anger. It hurt.

It physically hurt my heart to think of her upset in any way, and I knew that I was the one to make her upset. I was the one that put that frown on her face. I was the one that said something this morning that I didn’t mean.

Yeah, I had a lot of shit to make up for.

And I’d do that starting now.

Stopping next to TJ’s diaper bag, I pulled out the pacifier and popped it into his mouth.

It wouldn’t stop him from crying for long, but until he figured out that he didn’t like it, the screaming would be at an end.

“Travis, you forgot us.”

I winced at Reggie’s accusing words.

“I’m sorry, girl,” I told her sincerely. “I didn’t mean to forget you. I was working out in the garage, and since there were no windows, I couldn’t see that the sun was setting—signaling it was time to come get you. I’m sorry, Reg. Forgive me?”

Which was the truth. The garage had no windows, and if the garage door wasn’t up, then I had no basis for what time of day it was unless I looked at the clock on the wall. And even then, it was hit or miss on whether or not that was the real time or not.

That wasn’t a good enough excuse, though, and we both knew it.

“If you got me a phone, I could’ve called you and told you it was time to go,” she pointed out.

I grinned at her. “I think you mentioned needing a phone, but tell me, does an eight-year-old really need a phone?”

She nodded enthusiastically, as did my daughter.

“We really do.”

I rolled my eyes and looked down at TJ, who was sucking on his paci without a word of protest. The champ.

I sighed. “I’ll think about it.”

Reggie grinned. “In that case, yes, I forgive you.”

I wish it was going to be that easy to deal with her mother.

A mother who was staring at me over her shoulder like I’d just promised her daughter a one-way trip straight to hell.

Shit.

Deeper and deeper I went.

Her eyes fell to TJ who was happily chilling in my arms and then back to my face before she turned around and started washing the dishes again.

“You want some bacon and eggs?” I asked her.

That I could make fast, and I knew that she liked them.

Hannah shrugged.

“I managed to go get Bear’s Smokehouse bacon on the way home…”

Hannah’s shoulders slumped slightly.

“And I got buttermilk. I can make pancakes,” I continued.

Hannah sighed.

Still she didn’t speak.

So that was either one of two things. Yes or no.

I decided to go with yes and went about getting the electric skillet out and plugging it in before I got the bacon out.

I shifted TJ up to my shoulder and bounced him lightly as I used one hand to open the bacon and start setting it out on the quickly heating surface.

The bacon sizzled, filling the room with noise, as Reggie and Alex continued to talk about the benefits of having a phone as an eight-year-old.

They were on number seven, which was being able to call me or Hannah anytime they wanted—and yes this was number seven instead of number one—when Hannah shut off the sink, signaling the end of the dishes.

“You all right with him for a little while?”

I nodded, but needn’t have bothered. She was already walking out of the room by the time my head started to nod an affirmative.

“Can I have some bacon?”

I looked over to see both girls staring at me.

“Didn’t y’all just eat?” I queried, eyeing their trash.

Reggie nodded. “We did, but we’re still hungry.”

Of course, they were.

I added six more pieces of bacon to the skillet before transferring TJ over to the other arm.

He was heavy for two months old, but I guess that was my fault, too.

I was a big kid growing up, and it was more likely than not that TJ would be, too.

The paci came out of TJ’s mouth when I moved him, causing him to start winding up for a good scream. Luckily, I was able to bend down, pick it up, and pop it back into his mouth.

“Mommy doesn’t like when I give that to him when it hit the floor,” Reggie pointed out.

“What Mommy doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” I told her.

“I heard that.”

I winced and looked over my shoulder to see Hannah striding into the room.

She was now dressed in loose wide-legged pants, a gray ribbed tank top, and white socks.

She wasn’t wearing a bra, and I instantly felt my reaction to her in the way my jeans fit.

“Over easy or scrambled?” I asked her.

She didn’t answer. What she did do was take TJ out of my arms, and then go sit in the recliner on the other side of the counter in the living room, and pulled her shirt down to expose her breast.

I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes, counting to ten.

Yeah, I’d fucked up. She was pissed. It didn’t take a genius to figure that out.

Fuck.

The silent treatment was answer enough.

Dinner went like this.

The girls spoke.

They ate my bacon.

Hannah ate her food in the living room—as far away from me as she could get.

I washed up, put the dishes in the dishwasher, and cleaned up my mess.

All the while she said not one single word to me.

Alex and Reggie chattered like nothing was wrong, and I guess, in their little world, that there wasn’t anything wrong. Which meant I was doing my job correctly as a parent, and so was Hannah.

That was something that Allegra never really got in control of.

If she was pissed, everyone within a square mile of her would fucking know it.

It was like a breath of fresh air not having Hannah light into me with the kids around.

“Daddy, can we get into your shower?”

I looked over at Hannah, who had her back to me.

She subtly nodded, and I looked back toward Alex.

“Yes, y’all can,” I said. “But make sure you hang your towels up, and if I find all those Barbie dolls in the shower again, you won’t take another one in there again, got it?”

Both girls nodded eagerly and ran toward Hannah’s bedroom.

“You want anything to drink?”

She shook her head no.

Goddammit.

“Daddy, I can’t get it hot!”

I sighed and made my way to the bathroom, turned it ‘hot’ for them, and sat down on the bed and waited for them to finish.

They did, twenty minutes later, and I still was no closer to figuring out what to do or say to Hannah than I had been when I walked to their room and sat down on Reggie’s bed to wait for them.

When they came in fully dressed, I pointed to their beds.

They hopped in them and situated themselves, but continued to carry on as if it were midday instead of nearing two hours past their bedtime.

“G’night, girls,” I drawled to the two giggling hyenas. “Don’t make me come in here and turn this TV off because y’all are talking, okay?”

Both girls nodded enthusiastically, and I gave them each a kiss before leaving the room.

When I came out from saying goodnight to them, Hannah was just coming out of TJ’s room.

We both stilled in the hallway, staring at each other.

She much more warily than I was.

“Wanna take this to our room?”

She didn’t say anything but headed in the direction of the bedroom. The moment we both crossed the threshold, I closed the door and locked it for good measure before turning around to study her.

She was sitting in a chair that usually had clothes in it in the corner of the room.

I didn’t know where to begin. There was so much that I needed to apologize for, that I went with my gut.

“I don’t understand why me not celebrating Valentine’s Day is a cause for you to go off on me,” I blurted.

I mean, nobody could ever say that I wasn’t good at words. Right?

She tilted her head.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She crossed her arms angrily over her chest. “I went off on you today because you made Reggie cry.”

My heart thudded against my rib cage.

“I never meant to make her cry, Han,” I told her. “But Joshua isn’t going to be a part of her life. I’ve been in her life for a year now, and not once have I seen him. If he were going to be around, he’d be here by now. I would’ve seen him.” I hesitated in what I had to say next, knowing that it wasn’t going to be nice to hear. “You’re doing her a disservice by not telling her that he’s a piece of shit.”

“I can’t tell my daughter that her father is a piece of shit,” she shot back.

I waved my hand in the air to clear it. “That’s not what I mean, and you know it. You need to stop telling her you’ll call. You need to tell her that it’s a possibility that he’s not going to come, and stop giving her false hope that today will be the day that he actually shows.”

She looked away.

I knew that I’d hit home with that one.

“In the year or so that I’ve been in her life, I’ve watched her cry over the fact that he’s not around, and it fucking hurts to see. I know it does. The problem is that I’m a better father than he ever has been, or will be.”

“Yeah, right,” she snorted. “You forgot my kids today. I noticed how you didn’t forget yours.”

I clenched and unclenched my jaw.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I never, not ever, would’ve forgotten Reggie or TJ on purpose. I was in the garage, I’d left my phone in the house, and I had to take my watch off to work on the pistons in the motor,” I told her. “I’m not used to picking them up, Han.”

She shot me a glare.

“Well, that’s the truth.”

My stomach tightened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that you don’t have anything to do with picking them up. I have to pay for the daycare. I’m the one that lost my job because of your ex-wife. I’m the one that had to scramble to find something, and take it even though I really didn’t want to do that job.”

“Every time I give you money for the daycare bill, you leave it on the counter.”

She looked away.

“Why?”

She took a deep breath, and then let it out.

“Joshua tried to control our marriage with money,” she said, finally giving me her eyes for the first time since this discussion started. “It started out with help with nursing school, then morphed into him paying for Reggie’s daycare, my car note, the house note. It all spiraled, and when he left, I was financially dependent on him for everything. It nearly broke me.”

I fucking hated Joshua. He was a jerk and a half. As if I didn’t hate him enough for what he’d done to Reggie each time that she waited outside for a man that was never going to show up, now I had to hear this.

“TJ is half my child, Han,” I told her gently. “And my mother would love to watch them for free. Which she offered to you from the beginning.” I held my hand up when she went to argue with me. “And I know that you don’t want to put her out, but my mother would absolutely adore watching him.”

She blew out a breath.

“She can watch him.”

“As for what Allegra did, I can’t change that now. I’ve already spoken with my lawyer on the matter. He says that in all actuality, the clinic didn’t need to give you any explanation to why they fired you at all. I know that it was Allegra. You know that it was Allegra. And honestly, I know that the family you told that you’d work for is nice, but that’s not your passion. You could’ve just as easily applied at the hospital the next town over. You could also work for me, but I didn’t want to offer that and you think that I’m offering my fiancée a handout when it’s just the opposite. I need someone there that I can trust. Someone that can take care of all the shit that I don’t have time for. Stuff that Dante used to take care of before he left.”

That’s when tears hit her eyes.

“Fiancée?” She laughed even as tears started to stream down her cheeks. “That’s rich after what I heard today.”

I frowned. “That’s the second time you’ve mentioned that now. What exactly do you think you heard?”

“I’m not doing it again. I’m glad that I didn’t do it because then she’d probably expect it,” she said with so much derision that it nearly gutted me.

I frowned as I thought back to what I’d said earlier.

“If you didn’t want to marry me, you should’ve just told me. I would’ve understood. It would’ve hurt, but not anywhere near as much as hearing you say that to your brother when you thought I was gone.”

That’s when I finally understood. She’d overheard my conversation earlier about Valentine’s Day and had then thought that I was talking about not marrying her. That I wouldn’t do it again.

I got up and crossed the room in half a second, and was leaning over her chair, my fists on either side of her, as I bent over and gave her my eyes. My angry eyes.

“I’m going to tell you this once, and once only.” I leaned further forward until our faces were only inches apart. “I am marrying you. I don’t care what Allegra says. I don’t care what you say. I don’t care what the fuckin’ Pope says. You. Are. Mine.”