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I’d brought the topic up a few months before when Lainey started to really pick up on names, but kind of stumbled on what to call Coast.

I’d been worried it was too fast. Even if everything in our life had been going quickly. Getting together, moving into a house together, getting a pretty engagement ring on my left finger.

So when I’d broached the topic, I’d done so telling him that there was no pressure if he decided that wasn’t a step he was ready for.

But he’d been quick to grab me by the hips and pull me close.

“I’d be fucking honored to be her dad.”

And so it was.

He had the title.

For the position he’d held since she was three months old.

Of course, maybe he regretted it when Lainey would loudly holler for him day and night.

Dadadadadadadada.

She rarely ever called me like she did him.

It was too sweet to be jealous of.

“Get ready for a lot offucks,” she said, whispering the curse, “in your future. At the most inopportune times. In the line at the bank. At church…”

“Luckily, I don’t give a fuck what strangers think,” Coast said, shrugging.

“Which is what I might like most about you. Okay. I have a video call with the audiobook company. I’m gonna gather my gremlins and hit the road.”

“How’d the filming go?” Coast asked, reaching for my hips, pulling me close.

“Good. I think we got enough content for the next two weeks.” Without, I might add, all of the screaming and degradation that happened the last time I was on social media.

It felt like a reclamation.

Of my love of dance.

Of my online image.

Of my relationship with filming.

I couldn’t ask for a better assistant than the encouraging Brooke—who thought even my worst dances were brilliant. And the response from former fans was really heartwarming.

“More free time for me,” Coast said, his hands sliding from my hips to my ass.

“Where’s Lainey?”

“Nap after that epic fit she threw over the stuffed dog going in the washing machine.”

She’d had some odd sleep regression lately, so she—and we—were running on fumes.

If she was out, we probably should have been sleeping too.

But as Coast’s hands started to massage my ass and his head tipped toward my neck, all I could think of was him.

“Know one of my favorite parts of having our own place?” Coast asked, his lips on my neck, making a shiver work its way down my spine.

“What’s that?” I asked, desire pooling in my core and surging through my veins.