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I snort and ruffle Nessa’s hair. “Is that right? I’ll have to see what you girls put together. How was school Ave?” I head deeper into the kitchen to check the oven to see if Lillian made me a plate. I wouldn't blame her if she didn’t.

Alas, there’s a massive plate awaiting me. Grilled chicken with steamed broccoli and carrots. I sigh under my breath as I grab some silverware and head to the empty seat beside Avery and dig in. The pasta smells so much better, but I’m still appreciative.

“It’s fine. One of my friends is having a birthday party this weekend. Lily told me to ask you about it since it’s out of the community and not at school.”

I grunt and finish my bite in what feels like two bites. “Where’s it at?”

Avery smiles, her hazel eyes lighting up. “It’s at a trampoline park by my school. They even have a baby area for Nessa and Tilly! It’s going to be so cool, dad. They’re having a pizza party there, and cake, and cupcakes. I need to get her a gift, too.”

I snort and hold up my hand. “Slow down, Ave. I didn’t say yes, I was asking where it was at.”

She sighs and picks at her plate with her fork, pushing her food around. “I’ve never been to a birthday party before, dad… I’ve never even had one. Even this year all we did was hang out at home.”

I press my lips together and glance over to Lillian who is staring down at her food. I see the tears in her eyes from here though. Shit, I fucked up. “I asked you what you wanted to do Avery, you told me that you just wanted to be with me and have a nice day at home.”

She snorts. “Yeah, because I knew we wouldn’t do anything else, you’ve never really been around much before. And when you are around all you care about is the paparazzi and who will notice you.”

I push away my plate and rub my hand down my face. “We have company right now. We’ll talk about this when you’re getting into bed, okay? It’s not a no, but we have to take precautions. What if some bad people follow you and take photos, or hound you in public?”

She rolls her eyes and jumps off her stool, moving to grab her plate to wash it off.

“Whatever, dad.” She scrapes her plate in the garbage, then rinses it off with rage in the sink before stomping out of the room.

I look over at Nessa and Tilly who are happily eating their food, completely ignoring everything else.

“Lillian… what do you think?”

She hums and shakes her head. “Nope. These are your daughters and you know what’s best and how to keep them safe. I don’t have the pull to call around and ensure their safety, nor the resources.”

I glance up at the ceiling and hold my breath for a few moments. “I’ll call the place and see if I can offer them money for tightened security and to enforce a no recording or photography rule for the few hours they’re there…”

She chuckles and nods, “Sounds good.” She grabs everyone’s plates and sends me a look as she loads my plate up with more food. “You at least need the protein, eat more please.” I pull my plate back to me and salute her as I finish off my meal. I’ll talk to Avery, smooth that over. Hopefully.

I hope that Lillian’s friend will be okay. I have no idea what she does for a living, but if she wants to stay, I’m sure we can figure something out when she’s ready.

Maybe I can have Marie come over and check her out if she needs another checkup.

I clear my throat and Mackenzie snaps her head over to me.

“One of my good friends is engaged to a physician’s assistant, she’s a woman…

would you like to see her in a few days?

Or whenever you want? They don’t live too far from here.

I’ve known her for years, she works with the players so she’s used to, umm. ” I stop talking as she winces.

She glances down at her lap and nods. “That would be wonderful, thank you.” Her voice is so quiet, so hoarse. I’m terrified to see what the poor woman’s neck looks like.

I nod and hold back from patting her shoulder or something. “Of course. Lillian has my number if you want to put my contact in your phone, anything you need, you just let me know, okay?”

She nods and steps out of the room, shuffling down the hall towards the bedrooms. Lillian clears her throat and sends me a look.

“Thank you… I still haven’t gotten the full story, but I knew as soon as I saw her,” she blows out a breath.

“I know we have a lot to talk about, but I really need to see if she will open up to me… she’s terrified of her own shadow right now.

I have no idea how she got on a plane today.

” She shakes her hands out at her side, her dark hair is almost as messy as it was last night after our time in the backyard.

“I… I’m going to come clean really quick, okay?” She helps Nessa and Tilly clean up before telling them to play in the playroom for a few minutes.

My stomach clenches and now I’m terrified of what she’s going to say. Is she going to come clean about the hormone treatments? About the not being able to get pregnant thing?

She steps closer and leans against the island, staring up at the ceiling for a few moments.

When she meets my eyes, her gray eyes are distant and sad.

“When I was about sixteen, I was having issues with my cycles. I was bleeding frequently, literally every two weeks. I was in debilitating pain, not able to get out of bed for days. I was also on psych meds at the time, and the doctors blamed all of my problems on my trauma and medications. Even though I was a virgin… when they read my files and read about my past, they assumed I was having issues from sexual abuse, even though it was never that severe.”

I close my eyes and am worried to hear the rest now.

“Years go by and it never gets better. In college, I had to use prescription meds to even get out of bed, to sleep, and to eat. I saw so many doctors that I was starting to give up. I wasn’t diagnosed until I was twenty three.

I have endometriosis. My endometrial lining was growing all over my reproductive organs, and when they went in to treat it, to scrape it off, I even had it reaching my other organs.

Causing me so many problems. In come more hormones, different birth controls, more pain meds.

“I was able to get off of all of my psych meds to see if it did help, but of course it was bullshit. After some more heavy therapy I was fine off of them anyway. But when I was twenty-five I started bleeding so heavily and the doctors didn’t know what to do to stop it.

I was losing too much blood, so pale and weak I kept passing out.

“The next week I went on hormones to be able to extract my eggs to freeze for the future, just in case my uterus couldn’t be saved after the next surgery that was coming up.

The hormones made me worse in so many ways.

But it worked. They were able to retrieve thirteen of them and they’re frozen in San Francisco.

” She smiles and her eyes grow even more glassy.

“During my surgery my doctor knew there was nothing they could do at that point. The pain and tissue growth was just… too severe to keep continuing on this way. So she woke me up, had me sign the forms, and then I went right back under for a complete hysterectomy. I take hormones to replace what my ovaries used to provide me. I don’t bleed.

I don’t suffer. But I’m twenty-seven years old and can’t have children. ”

I place my hand over my face. Holy fucking shit. I’m a fucking asshole. I’m a complete and utter jackass.

I shake my head and pull her against me, breathing her in and hugging her so tight that she groans under her breath.

“I am so sorry I overreacted… Fucking hell, Lillian, I’m such an idiot.

I even went to fucking Andy and asked for your medical records…

Nothing came back yet but I was fucking terrified that you were on fertility drugs or something. Just waiting for me to fuck you.”

She snorts and slaps my back. “You could have just asked, I don’t know how I feel about people digging into my records… but, um thank you for telling me?”

I pull out my phone and dial Andy’s number holding my thumb over the call button. “I’ll tell him to call off the PI. I… I’m so sorry. What are you going to do with the eggs?”

She winces. “I have no idea. Maybe if I’m not in love or married by like thirty five, I’ll donate them to people who want or need them.”

I smile and press my forehead to hers. “Go check on the girls. Let me call Andy.” She kisses my cheek and scurries out of the room.

Fuck, I hope Malek hasn’t been able to pull anything up yet. I feel like shit now.

Just goes to show to not overreact until you have all of the information. How hard that must have been for her to muster up the courage to tell me jack shit, we’re not even together. Are we? Do I want to be?

Fuck if I know, but hell yes.