Mila. Not us.
I repeat this like a mantra, because it would be so easy to be us again.
Two and a half years have passed, secrets have broken hearts, and emotions have been twisted into complete messes, but nothing has changed.
Not really.
And I don’t have a damn clue what to do about that.
“Back so soon?” Sofie snaps and opens the door.
A smirk tugs at my lips. I can’t help it. I’m mad at her, sure, but if I can’t appreciate the way those baby blues spark at me when she’s mad, I’m a shit excuse for a man.
“It would appear that way,” I answer.
“Don’t you have better things to do?”
“Like what?” I throw at her as I walk into the house.
“Oh, I don’t know. Practice, maybe? Fight off rabid fangirls? Get in said fangirls’ pants?”
“Jealously doesn’t suit you, princess.” I smirk again. “Where’s Mila?”
“In the yard screaming ‘bunny.’ One came out of the woods an hour ago and she thought it was for her.” She shuts the door and follows me through. “And I’m not jealous. I have nothing to be jealous of.”
“Definitely not rabid fangirls who want me in their pants, huh?”
“Definitely not.”
I find Mila in the middle of yard, shouting “Bunna! Bunna!”
“Hey!” I call over her yelling.
“Bunna!” she screams, pointing into the woods.
“Can I have a cuddle?”
“Bunna!”
“Please?”
“Bunnaaaa!”
I look back at Sofie. She’s sitting in a deck chair, her feet on the table, her lips twisted in amusement.
“Bunnaaaaaaaa!”
“Help?” I say lamely.
Shit. I have no idea how to calm a kid down.
“Welcome to parenthood,” she says. “It’s a hoot.”
So she’s playing that card. “Fine.”
I walk to Mila and bend down. “Hey, baby. What’s up?”
“Bunna!”
If I thought what she was doing before was a scream, I was mistaken. I blink harshly at the rawness of her yell, and when I focus, tiny tears are streaming down her cheeks.
“Sofie? Sof? Why is she crying?”
No answer. I turn and she’s grinning. She lifts one shoulder and sips juice through a straw.
Fuck. I have no idea what to do with a crying toddler.
“Okay. Mila? Calm down,” I say softly.
When she starts to scream through her tears and drops onto her butt, my eyes widen. But no, she’s not done. She throws her head back so she’s lying flat, then rolls over and punches the ground. And kicks it.
Oh hell.
“Oookay,” Sofie exhales and gets up.
She lifts Mila under the arms and carries her inside. I follow, feeling more than a little useless and watch Sof as she flawlessly deals with her.
As she sits her on a beanbag in the dining room and squats in front of her. As she makes Mila look at her and tells her she’s sitting there until she can calm down. As she tells her they’ll talk about the bunny when she’s not crying anymore.
Then she gets up, leaving her screaming, and motions for me to follow her back out to the yard.
I do, dumbly. Because what the hell just happened?
“Don’t be hard on yourself,” she says, looking at me. “That’s a Mila-style meltdown. They’re more frequent than I’d like to admit.”
“You—you deal with those all the time?” I look back toward the house. “Like . . . alone?”
Sofie raises an eyebrow. “Um, yes? How do you think I’ve brought her up? I don’t have a secret boyfriend to take the reins when it gets tough, you know.”
“Better not,” I mutter under my breath.
She raises her other eyebrow but doesn’t say anything. I don’t care if she heard me or not. Someone else bringing up my daughter isn’t something I’m gonna take.
Mila takes the screaming up another notch yet and Sofie sighs.
“She’s usually on the bottom stair, but I don’t have a baby gate yet, so I don’t want her anywhere near there. She doesn’t understand why she’s on the beanbag and not the stair.”
“Is that why she sounds like she’s being mauled by dogs?”
Sofie’s eyes flicker with laughter. “That would be why.”
I look between her and the door. “Are you okay for a bit without me?”
Her look says it all. I hold my hands up and leave quickly. I dart past Mila before she realizes I’m leaving and get into the car.
A baby gate. How hard are they to buy?
I drive out of Shelton Bay and into the next town over. Asking Sofie if she’d be okay was a dumb question—of course she’s okay. I’m the one that froze up like a little girl when Mila started crying. Sof barely even batted an eyelid.
And despite doing this for her, that makes me fucking angry. That I can’t even calm my own daughter. It doesn’t matter it’s only been twenty-four hours since I met her for the first time, because it should have happened way before now.
I should know how to calm her. No fucking arguments.
I pull up in the parking lot outside the supermarket and drum my fingers against the steering wheel. As far as anyone knows, a friend of my sister’s has just had a baby and I offered to pick up a baby gate.
I repeat this over and over in my mind as I enter the store and look for the baby section.
At the back. Why is it always the back?
I dart through the store as quickly as I can, fearing being hounded by teenage girls. And those fears aren’t unwarranted because I can already hear some gaspy-giggles.
I look around quickly and grab a store clerk. I tell him what I’m looking for and give him my excuse. He looks kind of shocked to be grabbed by Conner Burke, but he rolls with it when I discreetly nod to the girls at the end of the aisle.
He shows me their best and most expensive model. Whatever—I grab it and carry it toward the cashiers.
Shit. Mila’s bunny. “Do you have stuffed bunnies?”
The clerk raises an eyebrow. “Yes. Follow me, sir.”
I follow him toward the toy aisle and he points me toward the stuffed animals. Dogs, bears, tigers . . . There, rabbits. The clerk takes the gate from me, and I pick the softest white bunny on the shelf.
“You can pay for these at customer service,” the clerk informs me, leading me in the direction of the desk.
“Thank you.”
He sets the gate on the counter and leaves me with a smile. I put the bunny on top and give the old woman in front of me my most charming smile.