Page 8 of Trusting You
His hands fall right off his thighs, hanging loose as if without bone. “I’m sorry, what?”
“She—”
“Dead?”
“Cancer,” I say quickly, so I don’t have to sink into the memories for too long. “She was diagnosed soon after she had Lily. She lived about nine months after that.”
“Holy shit.”
“I know.” Despite my attempts, I tear up anyway and use the cuff of my denim jacket to swipe them away. It only manages to smear streaks across my cheeks.
“That fucking sucks,” he says.
I dig my nails into the denim. If it were possible for a single glare to open a hole underneath a person and send them into a demon realm, mine just did.
“More than you could ever know,” I grit out. Then I clear my throat. “Paige’s parents are both dead. Same with her grandparents. She was an only child. Her parents had no family. You see where I’m going here.”
“Uh, yeah.” Lachlan blinks. “But what about you? You’re here.”
I nod. Can’t help but picture Lily holding her hands out to me so she can be picked up. Squishing her cheeks with my kisses. Squeezing her chunky, adorable thighs and letting her rip out of my hold so she could crawl to her mother, little legs and hands smacking across the floorboards.
“I’m not family according to the courts,” I say. “The law says you’re the next of kin. Of course, a DNA test will have to be done to prove you’re the father, since Paige never put you on the birth certificate, but—”
“Wait. Hold up. Stop right there.” Lachlan spears out a hand, palm out like he could physically keep me from saying anything more. “I’m not…no way. I can’t have her. You can’t bring her here.” His voice is getting higher the longer he talks. “I’m no father.”
“Lachlan,” I say quietly. “You’re all she has.”
“Locke, call me Locke.”
I shake my head. “Fine. Locke. You’re all she has.”
“No, I’m not. There’s you. Let me sign whatever I need to sign, and I’ll hand her over to you. You can be her new mom.”
I am zero-point-two seconds away from flinging myself into his face, claws out, maybe using my teeth to chew off his nose. I expect Lachlan—sorry, Locke—to be shocked, upset, deny, deny, deny. But I didn’t think he’d be so cavalier as to dismiss Lily’s mom and want to hand Lily over to someone else like she was a trophy he didn’t want, then go on about his day.
“Hey—ow!”
I throw the half empty can of soda at him instead.
“You haven’t even met Lily, never mind seen her,” I say, coming to a stand and seething. “You have no clue what a wonderful, vivacious, incredibly gorgeous baby you made, and I was willing to give you credit for that. How could you know when Paige never clued you in? But here? Now? Lily is with a foster family. You got that? Strangers who didn’t raise her, people who the state employs to take care of a baby until a family member can get her. And believe me when I say I wish, with everything I have left in me, that I could be the one to take her. That it could be me to hold her, tell her everything’s okay.” My voice cracks. “But I can’t. Some judge in Gainesville tells me I can’t. So here I am, trying to find Lily a person who wants her as badly as I do.”
Suddenly, a cool, collected calm falls across my shoulders, and I level Locke with a look. “You know what? You’re right. You don’t deserve her.”
His brows jump like I’d tossed so many words at him and he was still collecting the meanings.
“You want to sign away your parental rights, fine. But here.” I fumble in my back pocket, pulling out my phone and angrily tapping until I find what I need. “This is her.”
Lily was almost six months old on her playroom floor in the picture, stubby legs splayed out in a V, her favorite toy bunny in her hands, gumming it up for the camera with a toothless smile. Her blonde ringlets were just coming in, little curlicues around her ears. Her eyes, a stunning blue, were no less bright even while crinkled with a grin.
“I…” Locke lifts his hand for the phone as if programmed on automatic. “Oh, my God.”
“This is who you want to pass off to strangers. This little girl who has done nothing but bring light into our lives, who did nothing to deserve losing her mom. All she asks is to be loved.” I smack my chest. “And I love her. Which is why I’m here, before CPS comes, before you’re given some official document instead of Lily’s face to decide whether you want her, to tell you that Lily…” I glance around Locke’s space, cringing outwardly and deep down in my soul. I can’t give her up like this.
“You’re terrible for her,” I admit.
Locke peels his eyes away from my phone’s screen. “Huh?”
“You’re a bad idea.” I nod, cross my arms, swallow, and pretend not to notice how his expression has softened, how he strokes the screen like he’s bringing Lily to life. “But you’re her father. And Lily doesn’t need a new family. She needs her father.”