Page 7 of Fierce-Jax (Fierce Matchmaking #18)
HAVE HER HANDS FULL
“ M ommmmmmmm,” Gianna yelled from her room.
Four years of her name being shouted, she was good at deciphering frustration, displeasure, excitement, and injury.
This was a combination of excitement and frustration.
“I’m coming,” she said back loudly. She refused to yell like her daughter but marched up the stairs to Gianna’s room full of purpose to solve her daughter’s problem.
She turned the corner and there was her daughter standing in her heart-covered underwear staring at four pairs of pants on the bed and what looked to be half a dozen shirts tossed haphazardly on the floor.
“I don’t know what to wear,” Gianna whined.
“Gianna Marie,” she said. “It’s a birthday party at the trampoline park. You wear comfortable clothing. No one is going to pay attention to how fashionable you are.”
Her daughter had attended Pre-K two days a week last year. It’d been Dillion’s idea to give her mother a break and let Gianna interact with kids her own age.
This year she was going three days a week, with her mother dropping her off and picking her up.
Gianna’s hands went to her hips. “But in school, everyone says how pretty my clothes are.”
She rolled her eyes. She was going to have her hands full when Gianna got older.
“That’s nice,” she said. “But today is the weekend and it’s not school. It’s a bunch of your friends gathering for a party.”
Dillion walked over and looked at the pants on the bed and picked up a pair of jeans that had stretch to them.
“I like them,” Gianna said.
“Those are the ones you had on already,” she pointed out.
“I wasn’t sure if they’d be right,” Gianna argued. Her daughter was good at arguing too. Not a shy bone in this four-year-old’s body. Nothing like Alec and more like her.
She was always thrilled that her daughter exhibited more of her personality, but there were times that she had to reel it in.
Just like she sure the hell acted shy in her attempt to talk to Jax two days ago though.
Major fail on her part there. She should have just spoken her mind as she was known to do.
He didn’t appear to be catching what she clumsily threw out.
She even chucked out the part of having a daughter so it wasn’t a shock. If he’d acted as if he didn’t like kids or didn’t want them, she would have just moved on in her mind.
But he hadn’t acted any way other than a slight pause over that announcement, then looked down at her hands for rings.
She had none on. She also commented on how hard it was to find someone too.
Guess he wasn’t interested in her.
Which is why it was best to continue on as she was doing.
Going it alone.
This dating thing wasn’t for her and she had more important things to focus on...like her daughter running topless around the room picking up shirts and throwing them over her head as if she were on a hunt for treasure trying to find the one she wanted the most.
“You have three seconds to pick one or I’m doing it,” she said. “One, two, three.”
Dillion went to grab the first one tossed by her feet, but Gianna had another in her hand and was yanking it over her head and giggling.
“Done,” Gianna said. “Now I need socks.”
She rolled her eyes. “You better have them on by the time I’m done putting your clothes away. And be happy that I’m not making you put them away.”
“I’m excited about the party,” Gianna said, batting her long curly eyelashes.
Her daughter was going to be a little boy killer at some point in her life with those big brown wide innocent-looking eyes. Nothing innocent in those eyes now.
“I know,” she said. She picked up the three pairs of pants and folded them to put in the drawer while Gianna was pushing socks around trying to find the perfect unmatched pair that wouldn’t go with her outfit today.
She’d long since given up trying to fix it and let it go.
It was only socks that very few people noticed, though she did make a habit of looking at other kids when she was in public to see if her child was the only one sporting that style.
Gianna wasn’t.
The last shirt was hung up by the time Gianna had pulled two pairs of matched socks to put on one of each. Black with white stars on her right foot, rainbow stripes on the left.
At least her daughter’s shirt had a rainbow on the front, so not all that bad.
“I’m ready,” Gianna said. “Let’s go.”
“We don’t have to leave for thirty minutes,” she said. “It starts at ten.”
It was only a little after nine, but she was going to get there early since she had to sign waivers.
It was not how she wanted to spend two hours of her Saturday morning, hanging out with several moms she’d never met before, but since her mother was the one always dropping her daughter off at school, it was time to make her presence known to her daughter’s friends.
“I don’t want to wait,” Gianna said, jumping around. “Can’t we go early and stop and get a snack?”
“You had breakfast,” she said. “What kind of snack are you talking about?”
“Grandma stops at Dunkin Donuts and I get milk and two munchkins when I’m hungry before school.”
“Grandma is famous for that,” she said. “Even though you eat breakfast at home.”
“But I like them,” Gianna said, putting her hands in front of her face in prayer. “And Grandma gets her big fancy coffee.”
She laughed. “I think you’re tattling on Grandma to get your own way,” she said.
Her mother wasn’t supposed to be drinking those heavily sugared coffees anymore since her last physical said her blood sugar was a bit high.
Gianna shrugged. “Can I please? I can’t sit here and wait.”
Her daughter’s voice sounded as if she was being tortured. “I suppose,” she said. The last thing she wanted to do was develop a headache listening to the pleading.
It wouldn’t hurt for her to get something to drink either. A large iced coffee to keep her awake while she watched kids running all over the place thinking of everything she’d rather be doing.
“Yes,” Gianna said, lifting a fist in the air. “I’m not sure what sneakers to wear.”
“If you don’t pick them out in two seconds we aren’t leaving now.”
Her daughter raced to her closet grabbed the first pair of sneakers on the floor and sat to put them on.
“I’m ready now!” Gianna said, coming over to hug her legs and lift her arms up.
It reminded her of embarrassing herself in front of Jax saying that she still carried her daughter.
But she wouldn’t be embarrassed over her daughter wanting to be held and hugged.
She was going to hold onto her child as much and as long as she could.
She picked her up and got the hug she was craving, gave it back, and started to tickle her daughter to the wiggling and sounds of giggles until Gianna wanted to get down.
“Now you burned enough energy you need to recharge with munchkins.”
“So I can get more than two?” Gianna asked.
She closed one eye at her smart salesman daughter. “You can because you’ll be running around for a few hours.”
“You’re Gianna’s mother?” the birthday girl’s mom said to her thirty minutes later.
They’d gotten their drive-through snack, and her daughter ate it before they entered the place, but Dillion walked in with her half-finished large iced coffee.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m Dillion Patrick.”
“Oh, Gianna’s last name is Cannon. Or did you keep your maiden name? You’re a doctor, right?”
“Yes, I kept my maiden name since it was on my medical license.”
It was just easier to say that half the time. No one needed to know she wasn’t married to Alec.
She was positive this woman in front of her, who hadn’t given her name yet in a proper introduction, knew that Gianna’s father had died and was looking for more information. The long appraisal over her jeans and sweater said all she needed to know.
She was being sized up and it brought her back to high school.
It’s not like her daughter had ever had a father. She knew Grandpa was the only man in her life and she got to spend a lot of time with him, but he’d never been called anything other than Grandpa.
She’d had plenty of talks with her daughter about why she didn’t have a father but didn’t go into a lot of details about how Alec died.
How do you share that with a child that young?
There’d be a time and place for it.
“Sophie, this is just wonderful.”
She turned her head to see another mother come running over and hug the birthday girl’s mom. Okay, so her name was Sophie. If it wasn’t for the fact that Gianna charged Maddy who was wearing a sash announcing it was her birthday, she wouldn’t have had any clue who anyone was.
“Thanks, Avery. This is Dillion, Gianna’s mom. Dillion, Avery Black, Lily’s mom, and here comes Steffi Mazzone, Francisca’s mom.”
She shook hands with everyone, then moved to the side while the three women acted like long-lost best friends at their twentieth reunion.
She was willing to bet anything she was older than them all too.
Twenty minutes later, Sara, Joanna’s mom, said to her, “Don’t let them get to you.” The two of them were sitting by themselves on another bench while the five kids ran around. Sara had come in late. Sophie, Avery, and Steffi had their heads together cackling and pointing. Talk about rude.
“Excuse me?” she asked.
“I swear they are the mean girls of the Pre-K. Some people never grow up. Joanna loves Maddy, but if she didn’t, I wouldn’t have come just to spare myself being subjected to feeling like the loser not accepted into the fold. I’m too old to be brought back to middle school.”
Dillion grinned. “I need to attempt to come to things like this. My mother can’t do it all for me.”
“It’s not easy being a single mother,” Sara said. “My ex, he rarely helps out other than his money in my account every other week and picking Joanna up when required. That’s only half the time. And I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be dumping on you this way.”
“It’s fine,” she said. And reminded herself how good she had it as a single mother. “I’m grateful for my mother’s help. I’m not sure I would have been able to get through my residency and then my fellowship.”
Eight years of college, three years of her residency, and then a year of fellowship.
She’d had Gianna toward the end of her second year of her residency and had been practicing for about two years now.
Not even a full year of owning a practice.
Yeah, she might have been nuts to buy it like her parents said, but she couldn’t pass up the opportunity.
“You don’t get any help from your ex either?” Sara said. “Men suck.”
Dillion could nod her head and let Sara believe that, but she didn’t want people to think Gianna’s dad was a bum.
There were enough secrets she was holding onto in terms of Alec. Ones she’d have to decide if she ever told her daughter.
But she’d had a solid connection and friendship with Alec before their daughter. No one could take that from her.
“No, Gianna’s dad died when she was five weeks old,” she said.
“I’m so sorry,” Sara said, her eyes wide in embarrassment. “Forgive me. I had no idea. Joanna only said that Gianna doesn’t have a Daddy. I guess I just assumed.”
“It’s fine,” she said.
“Well, if there is one thing that I’ve found harder than being a single mother, it’s jumping into the dating pool,” Sara said, laughing.
So much for not putting a lot of her life out there.
“Tell me about it,” she said. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to run to the ladies' room.” She held up her nearly finished coffee and walked away, caught sight of her daughter, and called her over. “Mommy needs to go potty, are you okay?”
“I need to go too,” Gianna said, running ahead of her toward it.
She was going to stay single if the men leering at her walking just now instead of watching their kids were part of the dating pool.
No, thank you!