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Liliana and Richard came with us.

Both my parents were stoic as we drove from the Callahans’ house back to our house, and we went inside to change before all four of us walked next door.

While the suit was fine, the long-sleeve Aces tee I threw into my bag is much more comfortable.

Harper was nervous as we approached the front door, but the moment we walked inside, she seemed to relax.

The house was quiet, just as Caroline and Simon left it. I’m not sure whether Harper has been back here since everything happened, but she was over at the Callahans’ house when the accident occurred, and I suspect she’s been there ever since.

“Are you comfortable here?” my father asked Harper once we walked in through the door.

She nodded, and in that moment, she looked far older than her ten years. “It feels good to be home.”

My mother fixed Harper a snack, and then we put on a movie of her choosing so we could just sit and veg. My parents went into Simon’s office, and the two of them talked in there a while as they presumably started figuring out what comes next.

How do you even go through someone else’s entire house?

How do I even tell this little girl I’m her father and I’m going to uproot her entire life even though we just met today?

When the movie was over, she told me she could handle showering and picking out her pajamas. My parents came out of Simon’s office to tell her goodnight, and they asked her if she felt comfortable with just me staying over.

“I’ve never trusted someone the day I met them as much as him.” She jerked her thumb playfully at me, but her words burrowed into my soul.

It’s not a responsibility I take lightly. I will fight to keep that trust for the rest of my life.

I’m not sure if it’s because she knows my parents or if it’s because we somehow formed a bond in one day, but it was exactly what I needed to hear in order to feel confident that we can do this.

My parents head out while she showers, and I wander around the family room and glance at each of the framed family photos as I think back to what happened between Caroline and me over a decade ago.

I’m not happy. I told Simon I’m leaving him.

I can still hear Caroline’s voice echoing in my mind.

Come on, Travis. You know you want it.

She stood in front of me and dropped the strap of her summer dress like in some cheesy movie, but it was real life.

She wasn’t wearing a bra or panties beneath that summer dress. She was naked, and she took a step toward me. She didn’t reach out to touch me. Instead, she straddled my knee where I sat and rubbed her wet, naked pussy on my leg. She gyrated on me like she was having sex with my thigh.

I was only eighteen. I was young, dumb, and horny. What the fuck choice did I have? A gorgeous, experienced woman fifteen years older than me was coming onto me—quite literally.

It wasn’t my first rodeo beneath the sheets, but it was my first rodeo with someone like her.

She reached into my shorts and fisted my cock, and I remember hissing at how good it felt to have her hand wrapped around me.

I was hard, and I wanted her, too.

I’d wanted her for a long time.

She was my first crush.

She was the next door neighbor who changed in front of the window, and if my window was open and I was lying in bed at the exact right angle, I could see her lift her shirt over her head every single night.

It was right before I was sent away to boarding school. I was eleven, but those tits made me a man.

I rubbed more than a few out to the thought of her tits back then.

Maybe it was for the best. At least the way it happened, she didn’t seduce me until I was legal…even if I was barely so.

I push the thought of her naked body from my mind as I realize I haven’t even thought about sex in the last twenty-four hours…not since I hit on that smoke show at the Gridiron.

The Randalls don’t look unhappy in the family photos, but from what I’ve pieced together over the years, Simon was devastated he couldn’t have children, and so was Caroline. So she made it happen.

It was their little secret, and I have no idea how it strengthened or tore apart their marriage. They were still married at the time of their accident, so they must’ve had some sort of understanding.

I wonder what to do with this house. It belongs to Harper now, but she’s ten. It’s not like she can decide whether she wants to keep it, so I guess the responsibility for figuring that sort of shit out lands either on the attorney executing the will or on the custodian of the child it belongs to.

I blow out a breath.

This really isn’t how I saw my off-season going, yet here I am.

Some powerful force inside me refuses to let this little girl down.

Harper appears in the doorway. “Travis?”

I glance over at her. She’s so small as she stands there in pajamas with cupcakes on them, her wet hair tangled in knots and those bright blue peepers looking nervously in my direction.

“What’s up, kid?”

“Will you…” She looks embarrassed for a beat, but then she draws in a deep breath. “I don’t want to be by myself, and you’re the only one around. So, uh, will you lay on my floor while I fall asleep?”

I nod as my chest cracks clean in half. “Of course I will.”

We head upstairs. The house is familiar since I was in it a few times over my childhood for different dinner parties and events, but I don’t know that I’ve ever been up here. When Caroline came onto me, we were in my backyard. It was late at night, and everyone in my house was asleep except for me. I was out on the patio sneaking in vodka, and we were hidden beneath the trees that swayed over the pool to provide shade.

Harper turns into the first door on the right off the staircase, and we enter into a magical pink wonderland complete with a fluffy pink rug in the middle of the floor.

I spot a hairbrush on the dresser, and she heads over and grabs it. She hands it to me. “Can you get the knotties out? Mommy always did it right before bed.”

I nod. I’ve never, not once in my life, brushed a little girl’s hair before.

She turns around so her hair is in front of me, and I run the brush through the smooth strands on top until it gets stuck in a knot near the bottom. I gently pull the brush away. “How do I get the knots out?”

She grabs a bottle off the dresser. “My mom always said this stuff was magic. Spray it on the knots.” She fists a chunk of her hair and grabs the brush from my hand, and she gently pulls it through a few times. “Hold a bunch up here so it doesn’t pull,” she says. “Then just slide the brush through the bottom, but I can’t reach the ones all the way in the back.”

I give it a try, sectioning off some hair and pulling the brush through. It doesn’t go smoothly, but after I try a few times, the knots start to loosen a little. Soon I’m sliding the brush through her silky, wet hair.

I set the brush on the dresser and look around the room. “What grade are you in?”

“Fifth.”

“Do you like school?”

She climbs into bed. “Not really.”

I laugh. “I never really liked it, either.”

“Why not?” She lays back onto her pillow, and I naturally pull her covers up to her chin for her.

“Why don’t you like it?” I ask, throwing her question back at her.

“It’s boring.”

I laugh. “Probably because you’re so smart.”

“Can you tuck in the side?” she asks, nodding toward her blankets.

I push the sheets and blankets under the mattress.

“That’s perfect. Thanks.”

“Sure thing, kid. So now what?”

“Now what what?” Her little brows pinch together.

“I don’t know. Do you like…read a book? Or sing a song? Or do you just go to bed?”

“Do you know ‘All the Pretty Little Horses’?” she asks.

“I’ve never heard of it, but I know a Lil Nas X song about horses if that’ll help. Or ‘Dark Horse’ by Katy Perry?” One of my hidden superpowers is listening to a song once or twice and memorizing the lyrics, though I don’t typically sing them for anyone but myself when I’m alone in my car. Or the shower. Or my kitchen. Okay, fine. I sing all damn day long when I’m alone, but never around anybody else.

Never.

“Oh. My mom always sang it to me.”

I get the sense she was very close to her mom, and something about her mom being the one to name me custodian gives me a little sense of peace—like she somehow knew that we’d be able to handle each other if it ever came down to it. And here we are.

“I can find it on YouTube if you want,” I suggest.

She shakes her head. “How about ‘Twinkle Twinkle’?”

I nod. “That one I know.” I flick off the light, the room illuminated by glowing stars on the ceiling and a nightlight across from the bed. I lay on the fluffy rug, which is surprisingly plush, and then I start my rendition of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”

“You have a nice voice,” she says when I’m done. She doesn’t sound sleepy.

“Thanks. You sing me one now.”

“Hush-a-bye,” she begins, and she sings a sweet song.

“You have a nice voice, too,” I say.

She laughs a little but quickly grows silent. I think she might’ve fallen asleep for a moment, but then I hear a sniffle.

I sit up.

“Are you okay?” I ask softly.

“It just feels wrong to laugh,” she says.

“Laughter is sometimes the best medicine.” I recite the cliché, the truth of them plowing into me. “You’re allowed to feel whatever you’re feeling, Harper.”

“I know.”

“You want to talk about it?”

She starts to cry in earnest, and I leap up from my spot on the floor. I climb into the bed beside her, and I wrap my arms around her, letting her cry as I hold onto her.

“It’s okay,” I murmur. “I’ve got you.”

“I’m scared,” she sobs.

“It’s okay to be scared. I’m right here for you,” I whisper.

She cries some more. “I miss them.”

“Of course you do.” I don’t know how much a ten-year-old girl understands about the permanence of this situation.

She draws in a deep breath, and I think it’s followed by a yawn but she’s facing away from me so it’s hard to tell.

“What’s gonna happen next?” she asks, her voice small. “Will I be sent away to live with people I’ve never met before?”

“That won’t happen,” I murmur. “I promise.”

“Okay.” Her single grunted word holds a lot of relief in it, and her breathing evens out after she says it.

I close my eyes as more of those strange emotions I’ve never felt before flow through me, and I realize it’s nothing short of true love. It’s not the type of love women have chased after when it comes to me that I have yet to return with any of them, but it’s this different type of thing I didn’t know existed.

It’s unconditional and sacrificial, it’s patient and selfless. I met her today and I already know I will spend the rest of my life on this Earth providing for her, caring for her, and loving her.

My life is about to change in vast and unexpected ways I never knew I needed all because of one phone call.