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After the carnage they had witnessed and that phone call with Mick, Ted and Nikki made it their business to have dinner with their daughter before going anywhere. Now Kimmie was sitting on Teddy’s lap at the dinner table and talking nonstop about all that was going on in her young life. But she missed those moments with her father and wanted to fill him in. Although both Teddy and Nikki were subdued because they knew that storm called Mick the Tick was on its way, they appreciated the lightheartedness of the moment. And how happy their child was just to be in their presence.

But then it was getting late and the Nanny came to take her away. “It’s bath time,” she said to Kimmie.

“Daddy, do I have to?”

“Yes, you have to,” Teddy said.

“But when will I see you again?”

“How about in the morning at breakfast?”

“You mean it?”

Teddy smiled, although Nikki could see the strain in his eyes. “I mean it.”

Kimmie kissed him, got down and went and kissed her mother, and then the Nanny took her away to her nighttime rituals of bathing, reading, and bed. Then Ted and Nikki ate in silence.

Until Nikki couldn’t hold out any longer. “Teddy?”

Here we go, Teddy thought. He was waiting for Nikki’s twenty questions. “Yes?”

“Why did you order those ships to sail when we still didn’t know if those threats were credible or not?”

“I was losing Pop millions of dollars and I knew how he was going to react to that. You heard him on that phone. Even with all those men dead, his main concern was the money.”

“You don’t know if that was his main concern. He was concerned about it, as he should be since it’s his money, but he also asked if there were any fatalities too.” Teddy’s phone had been on Speaker when he spoke to his father and Nikki heard the entire conversation.

She exhaled. “Now we’ve been summoned.”

Teddy shook his head. He was still annoyed. “Yeah. Like I wanna hear his shit tonight.”

“You have no choice.”

“I know that. Did I say I didn’t know that?”

He was being snippy with Nikki, but she knew it was just his anxiety. And the fact that it was his call that led to all those men dying. Guilt was kicking his ass even more than his father could kick it. “Teddy, look at me.”

He didn’t want to be cuddled, but he looked at her.

“We’ll get through this,” she said.

It was that look in Nikki’s beautiful, sympathetic eyes that did him in. He dropped his fork, leaned back, and covered his face with his hands. “All those men,” he said. “All those men because of my dumb ass!”

Nikki quickly got up, removed his hands, got on his lap, and held him. “We’ll get through this, Teddy,” she said again. “We’re get through this.”

As she held him, she knew he was fighting back tears. And Teddy, like his father, always won that fight. But even though he wasn’t crying outwardly, she knew he was balling inside. He was beyond devastation.

But what he loved about Nikki was that she didn’t sell him a bill of goods just to make him feel better about the situation. She didn’t say it wasn’t his fault and that he didn’t do anything wrong. Because she knew it was his fault and he did plenty wrong. But she refused to lie to him. That was one of the main reasons why she was his choice.

They held onto each other for nearly ten minutes, just allowing each other processing time and time to take the strain of the day out of the room. And it appeared to be working. Until Teddy’s phone began ringing.

It was sitting on the dinner table so Nikki picked it up and looked at the Caller ID. She exhaled. All they need. “It’s her,” she said.

Teddy frowned. “Who? Ma?”

“Caitlan Downs.”

Teddy frowned. “What she want?”

Nikki couldn’t answer his question, so she handed him his phone.

“Yes?” he said into the phone. To his credit, Nikki thought, he did place the call on Speaker.

“Josh is in the hospital after what your wife did to him.”

What the fuck I care about Josh, Teddy wanted to say. But something else caught his attention. “So you knew that was my wife?”

Nikki could tell there was a hesitation on Caitlan’s end, as if she had said something she knew could go to her motive for coming up on Teddy at that bar in the first place.

But like most homewreckers, Nikki thought, she rolled with the punches. “Of course I knew who she was.”

“Why didn’t you help her if you knew she was my wife?”

“I was scared of Josh! What did you expect me to do? And what I wanna know is why was your wife inside my house?”

That angered Teddy. “Why?”

“Yes why! Why was she, uninvited, inside my house?”

“She was trying to save your ungrateful ass,” Teddy yelled back. “That’s why, bitch!” And he ended the call. Then he took his phone and threw it violently across the room. It crashed against the fireplace mantel.

Nikki knew his rage had something to do with Caitlan Downs and her ungratefulness, but everything else to do with what happened at the docks. It was getting to be too much for him.

He calmed back down, but he was still wound too tight. “Don’t you ever pull a stunt like that again,” he said to Nikki.

Nikki could have argued with him all day long about why it was no big deal that turned into a big deal because of Caitlan’s boyfriend’s abusiveness. But the time was not that time. “I won’t,” she said.

It was enough. Teddy wrapped her in his arms again, and held her even tighter. In that hour of his greatest need, she provided him with her support, not her judgement nor any arguments or counterarguments. Her support. Her love. Her stability .

He needed her.