Page 24 of Fierce-Jax (Fierce Matchmaking #18)

A DONE DEAL

H is family knew how much he wanted children, but the last thing he expected was them to all turn their attention on him when Dillion said she wanted another. And acted as if she wanted one soon.

Jax wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

He’d spent so much of the past decade not jumping when it came to women to not feel like a complete failure for misinterpreting the signs. Did everyone think since the Fierces put their stamp of approval on this it was a done deal?

He’d like to think it but wasn’t crazy enough to just ride that car on autopilot.

But here he was almost two weeks later driving to Dillion’s to have dinner at her house and meet her daughter.

Was he nervous?

Hell yes.

More than he’d been over any other meeting of a family member.

He loved kids.

Wanted them too.

But he also knew that Gianna’s reaction to him would set the tone of their future.

If this little four-year-old didn’t like him or accept him, he wouldn’t blame Dillion for calling it off.

She’d be putting her daughter first. Like most parents did.

She’d been fine without him for four years and he was positive she’d be fine going it alone too.

He pulled into her driveway, took a deep breath, shut his car off and grabbed the gift bag on the seat next to him.

He knew Gianna loved dolls and stuffed animals and it wasn’t beneath him to bribe a kid for her friendship.

The garage door opened so he went in that direction, Dillion coming out to meet him.

“What’s her mood like?” he asked.

“She’s fine,” she said. “Gianna is a very open friendly child. She loves meeting people.”

“Like her mother,” he said, leaning down to get a kiss. It might be the only one he got today. He wouldn’t do anything in front of the child.

“She is like me a lot. Looks like me too.”

“Very much so,” he said.

He’d seen several pictures of Gianna in the house and the ones that Dillion showed him on her phone.

His girlfriend had been very open sharing information about her child, but he’d let her control the pace of when the introduction would be.

If all went well, he’d be meeting her parents on Sunday.

“Are you ready for this?” she asked, her head dropping to check out the bag. “Bribery?”

“You betcha. It’s a pound of chocolate. Oh, wait, that works better on her mother.”

Dillion poked him in the side with her finger. “It’d work well with her too, but then we’d have a wound-up child and an angry mother trying to deal with it.”

“As much as I want your daughter to like me, I wouldn’t do it at the risk of pissing you off.”

“Thank you,” she said. “What did you get her?”

“A parrot that talks.”

“What?” she asked. “You bought my daughter a talking stuffed animal? Like it records what she says or has pre-programmed sayings?”

He cringed over the tone. “It records it. But I’ll take the batteries out of the bag and she’ll never know.”

He was reaching into the bag to remove the batteries he bought. He hadn’t installed them since the bird was in a box.

“You thought to get her toy batteries?” she asked, her voice had gotten a little soft. He couldn’t figure out where any of this was going.

“Well, yeah. You can’t give a kid a toy that needs batteries and then not have the batteries in the house. That’s like putting an empty glass in front of someone who has been in the desert for days.”

“No,” she said, “you can’t. And you can give it to her. It was very thoughtful. We’ll just have to teach her to say nice things to it.”

“I can’t imagine she’s going to say anything that isn’t nice.”

“She’s four,” she said. “I told you she called a boy in her class fat.”

“Not very active,” he said. “That is how I described Bethany back in the day.”

She rolled her eyes. “You always were the nice guy,” she said. “Even in middle school.”

“Guess I was just born with that gene,” he said.

“It looks fantastic on you,” she said. “Along with these jeans.” Then she slapped his ass hard.

He hadn’t been expecting that, but Dillion had been surprising him a lot since he met her.

They went into the house and he set the bag on the counter while Dillion went to get Gianna.

He heard little feet making a lot of noise barreling down the hallway.

“Hi,” Gianna said, coming to a stop in front of him. “You’re tall.” She had black leggings on like her mother, but a green shirt with yellow sleeves, white on the belly, and coincidentally, a parrot in the center of the white.

If there was a dating fairy out there, she was flying around his head in the store this morning.

“Gianna,” Dillion said, “this is Jax Hollister. Jax, Gianna.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” he said, crunching down. His heart was racing, his palms were sweating, there might be a patch of dampness on the back of his neck.

He’d never been more terrified in his life.

How humbling to know a thirty-pound human controlled his destiny.

“What’s that?” Gianna asked, pointing to the bag in his hand.

“It’s for you,” he said. “I heard you liked stuffed animals.”

“I do,” Gianna said, her eyes getting big. She reached for it and he handed it over.

“I hope you like it,” he said. More than hope. Freaking wished on everything superstitious that he could think of on the way here.

She squealed when she pulled it out of the box and then jumped up and down, slipping and sliding on the floor in her mismatched printed socks.

It made him smile over her excitement. Maybe he had this after all.

“I don’t have a stuffed parrot,” Gianna said. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“You don’t?” he asked.

“Look, Gianna,” Dillion said. “It almost matches your shirt.”

There was a fresh round of sounds, then his legs were hit with a hug. “Are you going to be my daddy now?”

He gulped and looked at Dillion. He was certain he couldn’t stretch his eyes open any wider.

“No,” his girlfriend said fast. “Remember what I said. Jax is my friend.”

“So I get to call him Uncle Jax like Nikki said she does to the guys her mother brings home?”

“What school do you bring your kid to?” he asked, holding back his laugh over the horrified look on Dillion’s face. Glad to know her eyes could get as large as his.

“Obviously not one that is well monitored,” she said. “Gianna, Jax, and I are friends. You can call him Jax, just like I do.”

“Thank you, Jax,” Gianna said again, trying to open the box.

“Here,” he said. “I’ll do it. Then I can put the batteries in it for you. You can talk to it and it will talk back.”

The comical expression on the child’s face reminded him of overacting in a movie.

Jaw dropped, eyes wide, cheeks high, and some kind of dance move he wasn’t sure he could describe.

“I can’t wait,” Gianna said.

“Let Jax open it and put the batteries in,” Dillion said. “And we’ll try to figure it out. Remember, say only nice things, right?”

“I’ll be nice, Mom,” Gianna said. “If it’s going to talk to me I don’t want it to say mean things. I want it to be friendly to me.”

“That’s right,” he said. “Good thinking.”

He opened the box while Dillion took the batteries out of the package and handed them over.

Gianna took the bird out of his hand while he read the instructions to squeeze the tail feather, wait for the beep, then say your words. Pressing the belly would replay the words back.

“Can I try?” Gianna asked. “Is it ready?”

“I think so,” he said. “Hold this feather down, wait for the beep, and speak.”

She did as instructed, the bird beeped and Gianna said, “Jax is my new best friend.”

Dillion moved over and put her arm around his waist. “Suck up.”