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Chapter Fourteen

STELLA

“All right, little miss, if you don’t get moving now, I’m gonna pick your outfit.”

Harper’s hand freezes with the block hovering above the highest point of the tower she’s been building for the past thirty minutes. The glare she casts my way would almost be comical if I wasn’t scrambling to get her ready to go.

“I dress myself,” Harper sasses back. She is fully committed to choosing her own clothes and dressing herself. Her struggles with getting her arms and head through the right holes don’t deter her from trying. It just means I’m always on standby to help her get out of the tangle she finds herself in.

“Then why are you still in your jammies?” I question back, holding eye contact as I finish off the last of my coffee.

“Lele needs a house,” she says, referring to the well-loved stuffed unicorn that sits beside her. Nana had gotten it for her when she was two and Harper rarely goes anywhere without it. If I was smart, I would have gotten her a second one the moment she formed an attachment to it so I could rotate between the two.

I cross the room, dropping to a crouch on the other side of the blocks.

“How about this? You go pick out what you want to wear so we can get ready for our day of fun. I won’t touch or put away any of this.” I motion to the scattering of blocks spilling from their bin. “And we can finish building her house when we get back.”

Harper taps her chin as she thinks over my offer. Her brows lift in excitement as if she just had the best idea ever and I brace myself for whatever she’s come up with.

“Lele will need ice cream when I make her new home,” she says seriously.

I bite the corner of my lip, knowing full well she thinks she’s winning, even though we have dessert almost every night.

“She will.” I nod seriously. “Which means you better get a move on getting dressed. The sooner we get our day started, the sooner Lele gets her ice cream.”

Harper drops her block with an excited squeal and pushes to her feet just as the doorbell rings. Her eyes go wide as saucers.

“Zoey!” she shrieks and changes course to the front door.

“No, Harper, that’s not who’s here.”

She stops her attempts at twisting the handle and I’m suddenly very thankful she can’t reach the deadbolt lock, or she would have gotten the door open.

“Who is it?” Harper yells through the door and I laugh even though my stomach is a mess with nerves.

“Uh, Greyson.” His muffled voice comes through the door. After bending down to pick her up, I unlock the door.

Harper eyes Grey warily as she rests her head on my shoulder. All her earlier sass is completely gone in the face of a stranger.

“Honey, this is…a friend of mine. We used to go to school together.”

Her arms tighten around my neck, but she doesn’t stop staring at Grey. I offer him an apologetic smile, but he doesn’t seem completely bothered by her shyness.

“These are for you,” he says carefully, holding out a small bouquet of colorful daisies toward Harper before lifting a bigger bouquet of yellow roses toward me. My heart does an odd pitter-patter in my chest at the tentative smile.

Greyson’s always been good-looking, but the man in front of me now is breathtaking. His hair is long, pulled back in a half ponytail while the rest hangs to his shoulders. The muscles of his arms are mouthwatering, and I tear my gaze from dropping any further.

There will be no drooling over my baby’s daddy.

“Thank you,” I say, adjusting my hold to balance Harper on one hip before reaching for the roses with a faint blush rising on my cheeks.

“Those are for me?” Harper asks quietly, her Th coming out with more of a D sound.

Greyson nods, his eyes bouncing between the two of us.

“Yes, they are. I didn’t know what your favorite color was.” He fidgets with the plastic around the multicolored daisies. “So I found ones with every color in them.”

“I like the rainbow!” Harper exclaims, much louder than I was expecting. I jerk my head to the side but cling to my now wiggly toddler as she dives forward to take the flowers.

“What do we say, sweetie?” I offer gently.

“Thanks,” she tosses out, squirming in my arms to get down. “They need a cup, Mama!”

She runs off toward the kitchen and I motion for Greyson to come in before following her.

“They’re pre-cut, so it should be easier to get hers in water,” Greyson says as he closes the door behind him.

“Smart thinking,” I say and head into the kitchen to show Harper how to put the packet of flower food into the cup with water before adding the flowers.

“Now yours, Mama!” She claps, running to the cupboard where her cups are kept.

“Hold on, honey, Mama’s need something bigger to hold them,” I tell her, crossing over toward the fridge. I stare up at the cabinet that I know the vase is in and curse under my breath. I’m not that short. I’ve been five-foot-eight since high school. But whoever designs a kitchen with storage above a refrigerator clearly never thought of anyone below six feet.

I push to my tiptoes, fumbling with the cabinet handle, when warmth closes in at my back. Greyson steps up behind me, reaches around, and opens the cabinet with ease. My cheeks flush even more at the feel of his body pressing against mine and I’m grateful he can’t see my face.

He spots the vase and grabs it to hand to me, and I mumble out a rushed thank you before spinning around him to show Harper. I feel Grey watching us as I show Harper how to trim my roses and put them in the vase, but I don’t dare risk a glance at him. Especially while holding scissors so close to Harper.

Once both our bouquets are in water and they’re both organized to Harper’s liking on the table, I start guiding her toward the stairs.

“All right, now you really need to get dressed.”

“Where are we going?” she asks and before I can answer, Greyson speaks up.

“I was planning for the aquarium?”

“Wanna go see some fish and dolphins?” I aim the question at Harper, even though I already know the answer.

“I know what to wear!” Harper claps her hands and twirls to rush up the stairs.

I shake my head and glance over at Grey. “She has very strong outfit opinions. If I pick out the wrong clothes, it’s the end of the world, so it’s easier to let her choose.”

He grins, shoving his hands in his pockets while leaning against the counter.

“Sorry we’re running behind,” I offer and head to clean up our dishes from breakfast.

“It’s no big deal. I’m not in a rush. As long as I get to spend the day with you two, nothing else matters.”

And there goes my damn heart beating irregularly again.

I squash my own excitement and remind myself he’s here to get to know his daughter. We haven’t had a chance to talk about the two of us. However, we’ve both had our worlds flipped upside down. While it turns out he didn’t have anything to do with it, the trust we had in each other was shattered. I’ve spent the past five years believing he didn’t want me. Even if none of that’s true, the damage was done. We can’t just jump back into any sort of intimate or romantic relationship again. Especially since we have Harper to look out for.

All I’ve ever wanted for her is to be happy and surrounded by love. All my reservations and precautions with not telling Harper who Greyson is yet are simply to make sure she doesn’t get hurt. As long as he truly is here to be in her life, I refuse to do anything that would end in Greyson leaving us.

Besides, outside of the kiss at the gala, Greyson has given no signs that he even wants me back. For heaven’s sake, the poor guy’s just learned he’s a father. Our relationship is probably the last thing on his mind.

“I talked to my mom yesterday,” Greyson says, pulling me from my thoughts. I almost drop the mug in my hand as I whirl around to face him.

“What?” I clear my throat and get my thoughts together a bit more before adding, “What did she have to say?”

He ducks his head, gripping at the back of his neck.

“She claims she was just trying to protect me.” Even with his head down, I catch the roll of his eyes. He goes on, filling me in on her reasoning for causing me to leave. By the time he’s finished telling me everything, my heart is breaking a bit for him.

Wiping my hands off on the dish rag, I close the distance between us and reach out to place my hand on his that’s resting on the counter.

“I’m sorry she put you in this position,” I whisper.

He turns his hand, taking mine in his, and looks up at me.

“She did this to herself. It’s bad enough she separated us, but to keep Harper from me?” He shakes his head, glancing over his shoulder toward the stairs as if she’ll appear. “I don’t know how I’ll ever forgive her.”

I can’t help but laugh sadly. “I’m not exactly the best person to give parental advice considering I went no contact with mine five years ago.”

His eyes snap back to me, a triad of emotions swirling in the deep depths. “Completely cut off?” he asks, without judgment.

“They never came to check on me after the accident.” Needing the distraction, I pull my hand from his and move to wipe down the counter as I continue. “I woke up in the hospital and one of the nurses told me they got in touch with my dad. He told them to have me call when I was awake. Once they found out my injuries were all superficial, he said ‘that’s good, we really didn’t want to miss the dinner.’ My mom transferred some money into my account to replace my broken phone and pay the hospital bills but…”

I keep moving as I talk, bending down to pick up some stray clothes that Harper managed to leave strewn across the living room floor.

“When I found out I was pregnant and after everything with your mom, I knew I needed to leave. So I called Nana. She didn’t even know I was hurt.” I flash him a smile for the first time. “It was fun watching her go off on them. Not that it changed their choices. They didn’t care that I was pregnant or even that I was moving. They were relieved they could sell the house and have one less thing weighing them down. So I cut them off. My mom tried showing up for the baby shower, but I told her if she didn’t plan to be around in my daughter’s life, to just leave and never talk to me again. I haven’t heard from them since.”

I don’t even notice that Greyson has left the kitchen until I stand with my arm full of blankets and clothes and collide with his chest. He pulls me in for a hug, ignoring the small mound of dirty laundry between us as he cradles my head with one hand and wraps the other around my waist.

“We have shitty parents,” he grumbles into the top of my head, and I sink into his embrace. “Does this fear of being a shitty parent because of how we were raised ever lessen?”

“Nope.” I pull back enough to tilt my head back and look up at him. “But spite is a great motivator. If I’m doing my best, I know I’m doing better than they did.”

Greyson laughs, but before he can say anything else, the sound of Harper marching down the stairs pulls us apart.

She hops off the bottom step and does a twirl, making the skirt of her shiny blue dress flare out. “Ready!”

“Did you remember to put shorts on?” I ask, dropping the laundry in an empty basket behind the couch. Harper scrunches her eyebrows at me and crosses her arms.

“No,” she grumbles, and I head toward her.

“No shorts means no twirling or playing on any playgrounds we might pass,” I tell her, snatching up a pair of black shorts from the pile of folded clothes that I keep forgetting to bring upstairs.

Bending down to her level, I hold the shorts out for her to step into, which she does quickly, talking about needing to spin to show off the sparkles in her dress.

It takes another ten minutes to get her out the door. Every time something caught her eye, she just had to show Greyson and tell him some elaborate story that went along with it. All it took was colorful flowers and any reservations about him being a stranger seemed to have disappeared. He smiles the entire time, engaging and encouraging her outlandish stories. Not that I blame him. Harper has a way to drag anyone around her in.

By the time we get to the aquarium, Harper surprises both of us when she takes Greyson’s hand and drags him to the outdoor otter exhibit. He looks over his shoulder toward me, eyes wide with shock before turning back to answer whatever Harper asked him.

I hang back, letting him have this moment with her, and take out my phone to snap a picture of the two of them. My heart melts at the sight of them laughing as one of the otter’s swims past. For someone who had a child literally sprung on him, he fits right in with ease.

It’s barely been an hour of us spending time together, and already it’s difficult to deny how right this all feels. It’s almost easy to ignore the mess that got us here and just pretend that we’re all here together.

Harper gives him no warning as she throws her arms around his neck and demands he take her to see the fish. Grey wraps his arms around her, picking her up and immediately turning to find me. His eyes seem almost glassy as he walks over holding our daughter and when he silently holds out a hand for me, I know mine most likely are as well.

“I can carry her upstairs for you,” Greyson offers. We’re standing beside my parked car in front of my townhouse after spending all day out and about. We were dragged around the aquarium all afternoon, bouncing between the sharks, dolphins, and fish. Harper loved every second of it, although I also think she was happier that Greyson did every little thing she asked. She used him as her own personal lift so she could get better views of whatever tank we were in front of.

It took me a solid ten minutes to convince her we didn’t need to go around the aquarium for a third time, and even that came with a bribery of finding a playground after we got dinner.

“It’s okay. I can do it.” I wave off his offer, hyping myself up to carry thirty-six pounds of dead weight. He was already suckered into carrying her around while she was awake, and considering this is his first day with her, I don’t want to risk overwhelming him. He says he wants to be a part of her life, but so far, he’s only experienced the good moments. I’m used to the back-breaking moments that come from having a toddler.

I’m reaching for the handle when he gently puts his hand out to stop me and positions himself between me and the car door.

“I know you can do it. I’m not offering because I think you’re incapable, and I don’t want to overstep.” He takes my hand in his, slowly rubbing his thumb back and forth over mine. My breath hitches at the vulnerability in his eyes. “I’m offering because I’m not ready for the day to be over and I’m hoping you’ll let me help you with this to keep it going just a little while longer.”

Well, shit…can’t argue with that.

“I’ll get her bag,” I whisper, reluctantly dropping his hand. As I gather our things from the trunk, I take a second to tell myself this has nothing to do with me. He’s here for our daughter. I can’t let myself get caught up in the affection he’s showing.

Greyson meets me at the front of my car, Harper unaffected by the movement and still passed out in his arms. I swear that girl could sleep through a hurricane.

He follows me inside and up to her bedroom where he carefully lowers her to the bed. I step in, not bothering to wake her up to change into pajamas. Once I take off her sneakers, I tuck her in with her favorite unicorn and turn on her nightlight before slowly backing out of the room with Grey behind me. I should probably wake her up before I go to bed and make her go to the bathroom. She hasn’t had any accidents in a few months, but I don’t want to risk that streak simply because I didn’t want to wake her for five minutes.

We stop at the bottom of the stairs, awkwardly facing each other as we hover between the entryway and living room.

“Thank you,” Greyson says in a whisper.

“It’s no problem,” I dismiss him, speaking in a regular voice so he knows it’s okay.

“Today was the best day I’ve had in, well, in five years if I’m being honest.” His cheeks are stained a light pink at the admission, and I have to cross my arms in order to resist touching him.

“Harper had so much fun,” I say, chuckling as I think over all the excitement from today.

“Did you?” Greyson asks, throwing me off with the question.

“Did I…what?” My heart thuds heavily in my chest as he takes a calculated step closer.

“Did you have fun?” His tone is patient, completely unbothered with having to spell it out for me. My head bobs in answer and he raises a brow at me.

“Yes.” My voice cracks as I answer, but I ignore it. “That doesn’t matter, though. Today was about Harper and you getting to spend time together.”

Greyson stares at me, eyes tracing over my face as he searches for something I’m not quite sure of. It takes all my willpower not to fidget under his assessing gaze.

I can tell the moment he finds what he was looking for. His shoulders drop and his eyes close.

“I should have chased you back then. I should have known that you would never just leave me like that, but I was hurt and angry. I was…” He shakes his head and looks at me with desperation in his eyes while he struggles to find the words.

“Just a teenager?” I offer with an understanding smile.

“Yeah.” He huffs out a strained laugh.

“I think…” I start, hesitating and thinking over my words before trying again. “We need to find a way to move forward. Neither of us can change the damage that’s been done. Lingering on the pain is only going to prevent us from enjoying what we have now.”

I sigh, stepping back to lean against the archway. “We’ll never be the best versions of ourselves if we’re still letting our parents’ actions dictate everything. Harper deserves better than that.”

“So do you,” Greyson adds on and I forget to breathe for a second at the intensity I find when I look at him. “You’re a good mom, Stella. The way you put her interests and well-being first with every move you make…You were made to be her mother.”

Tears threaten to spill from the corners of my eyes, and I duck my head to look at my feet. Grey closes the distance between us and hooks his finger under my chin so he can force me to look at him.

“I want to help. I will probably fumble some things since I definitely don’t know anything about kids, but I want to be here for both of you.” His hand spreads out and he cups my cheek in his palm. “I’m all for not living in the past when it comes to the pain, but the one thing I don’t think I’ll ever be able to let go of is how deeply I care for you.”

I close my eyes and hang my head forward so my forehead rests on his chest.

“We’re still technically contractually bound.” It’s a lame response to his heartfelt emotions, but Greyson doesn’t point that out.

“I emailed Garrett while you and Harper went to the bathroom at one point to set up a meeting. I didn’t tell him why, but he deserves to know what’s going on.” He steps back, sliding both hands up my arms and neck until he’s carefully holding my face between his hands. “I also don’t want there to be any doubt in your mind as to why I am around. I’m not here because of a contract. I’m here for you. For our daughter. I will do whatever I need to do to prove that I’m here to stay because this is where I belong.”

He bends down and my eyes slide closed as his lips gently press against my forehead. The feeling of his kiss lingers long after he’s left and despite all the doubt that creeps in, I can’t stop myself from believing him.