Page 40 of Never Stop

“Might as well get chocolate and graham crackers too.”

Her eyes widened. “Going for dad of the year?”

I laughed. “Thisbetterwin me dad of the year because I will never approve the color pink again.”

“You know what else is pink?” She bit her lip.

I groaned, “Yeah, and you better get the fuck out of here before I take you back to the bedroom and eat it.”

“Tomorrow. On the bar.”

I grabbed her face between my palms. “You bet your sweet ass.”

Then I kissed her hard and pulled away before I carried out my threat.

One hour into the party and I was already ready to kill myself.

I heard one girl after another talk about petty drama. How did young girls have that much drama? Some girl at their school thought she was hot shit at tetherball and all the girls hated her. Another girl was talking shit about someone’s clothes. Another was jealous of someone’s phone. They talked about how some girl can’t keep secrets and then…

They started to talk about boys.

Fuck my life.

Some girl stole some other girl’s boyfriend, and I was fuming. I wasn’t fuming because of the drama, though. I was pissed because they had eight years to go before they should be referring to anyone as aboyfriend. I knew I was being hypocritical, but this was my baby girl. Peanut needed to focus on school and softball. Period.

I couldn’t handle it.

“How are you doing?” Brooke asked, coming up to my side as I grilled burgers and hot dogs.

“I need a drink.”

She chuckled. “It’s only been an hour.”

“Yeah, and I want to officially lock Cheyenne in her room until she’s eighteen.”

“It’s not going to be that bad. I went through it with Bailee.”

I hadn’t realized that Brooke would have been in my place—in a sense. I looked down at her. “I think it’s different since I’m her father.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I liked the boys Bailee dated. Hell, one boy was dating her and some other girl at the same time. She found out through Facebook and went ballistic. I wanted to beat the shit out of him, too. But I had to let her live her life and learn from her mistakes. It’s about growing up, babe.”

“You’re not helping,” I stated.

“Trust me, we’ll get through this.”

I smiled as she smiled at me. “Yeah,wewill.”

“By the way, I should take Cheyenne bra shopping.”

My heart froze at the mention of my Peanut going through puberty. “No.” I shook my head.

“No?” Brooke questioned with a slight laugh.

“If we don’t buy her shit like that, then it’s not true, and she’ll stay my baby girl.”

She shoved my shoulder. “It’s gonna happen, and I want to take her. She’ll have questions you can’t answer.”

“You’re killing me.”