The night before our flight back to Warlington, Grace gets a sudden boost of inspiration, and I don’t hesitate—I get her laptop from her bag and leave her room with the promise of getting her snacks downstairs.
So that’s where I find myself five minutes later, scanning the packed fridge, when a voice behind me almost makes me drop the water bottle I’ve just grabbed.
“Hey, Cal.”
“Shit.” My hand goes to my heart as I turn around to see Daniel staring at me with camouflaged amusement. “Fuck. I mean, crap. Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”
“It’s all right. Sorry I scared you.” His lips curve into the tiniest of smiles, but that’s a sight so rare on the serious man I think I might be imagining it.
“No worries,” I say quickly. Closing the fridge after finding only water, I muster all my courage and ask him, “Do you have any snacks around? I wanted to take some upstairs for Grace since she’s writing, but I couldn’t find anything in here.”
“Sure. They’re over here.” He walks over to one of the cabinets above the counter and, sure enough, it’s full of goodies. Daniel grabs a box of Cheez-Its and hands it to me. “She was obsessed with these as a kid.”
My lips curl with amusement. I didn’t know that particular fact about her, and it feels all the more special that I’ve learned it from her hardass Dad of all people. “Thank you.”
I manage a small smile his way and a half-turn towards the stairs before he speaks again, “Can I speak to you for a moment?”
Well, fuck me.
I do my best to mask the utter dread I’m feeling and say as nonchalantly as I manage, “Sure.”
As I follow Daniel to the living room, I wonder if he hates me so much he’s going to demand I stay away from his daughter. I don’t think I would, not if Grace wants us to be together, but the possibility of her father not seeing me as the right man for her would devastate me.
He takes a seat on the gigantic couch, so I place the snacks on the coffee table and do the same. I should’ve suspected that, being a kickass lawyer and all, Daniel would be a straight-forward, no-bullshit kind of man. Still, I haven’t fully braced myself for impact when he blurts out, “Do you love Grace?”
Despite the brutal way my heart is pounding right now, I don’t hesitate. “I do, sir.”
Silence stretches between us as he sits back on the couch. It only lasts a couple of seconds, five tops, but my brain is on overdrive, and it feels like a damn eternity before he finally says, “I believe you.”
What?
“Y-You do?”
His intense stare pins me down and I fight every instinct not to cower under it. I might be a six-foot-three wall of pure muscle, but I can recognize a threat when I see it.
Slowly, Daniel nods and puts me out of my misery. “It’s in the little things,” he starts, eyes sweeping across the living room. “She told us about the sketches.”
I gulp, not sure why. He’s just told me he thinks my feelings for his daughter are sincere, but that doesn’t mean he likes me.
I’m thankful that he keeps talking, because I don’t think I could utter a single word right now even if I tried. My stupid throat is clogged up.
“She told us everything,” Daniel continues. “How you picked her up from that party and took her to some food truck. How you always support her choices and lift her up. All those times you were there when she needed a friend.”
I swallow past the lump in my throat. “I’d do anything for her.”
Now, I’m not imagining the smug smirk on his face. “Aaron told me as much.”
Hold on—
“You talked to Aaron about me?”
“Sure did.” He shifts on the couch, his gaze meeting mine. “When Grace told us she was going to spend Christmas with a friend, and that friend also happened to be a friend of Aaron, I called him for details. It’s my duty as a father to make sure my daughter is always safe and cared for no matter who she’s with.”
“I understand.”
“Good.” By the intense way he’s staring at me, one would think he’s trying to see right into my soul. He probably can, to be honest. “You know what my nephew told me?” He doesn’t wait for my response. “He laughed and told me you were, and I quote, ‘Totally her boyfriend. Those two aren’t subtle at all’ but that I shouldn’t worry about it.”
That little shit—
“He said you are a good man,” Daniel continues. “And that he trusted you with her. So, in a way, I trusted you too. And then I met you, and I’m relieved to know my gut feeling wasn’t wrong.” He shifts until his elbows rest on his knees. Grace’s dad looks directly at me as he says, “I’m assuming she told you what happened to her.”
“She did.”
“How is she?”
His question takes me by surprise, and he must notice because he adds, “We ask her about her mental health all the time, but I’m not naive enough to believe she tells us everything. Parents aren’t supposed to know every little detail about their children’s lives, and that’s all right. But she’s never been in a relationship before, serious or not, and I can’t help but feel worried about how this change might be affecting her.”
“I can assure you that she’s fine, sir,” I tell him with honesty. “There are times where she feels a little more… insecure, I would say. But we work through it. She’s still seeing her therapist and I think that helps a lot. She very rarely gets uncomfortable about something, and when she does, we talk about it and work it out. I would never, ever dare to disrespect her boundaries.”
He nods, seemingly deep in thoughts and my head starts spinning again. Maybe that was the wrong thing to say? But that’s the truth. That’s our truth. Grace isn’t uncomfortable around me—I know she’d tell me if she were because that’s our number one rule.
However, it hits me that I might not be seeing the full picture. It’s possible that her father sees something that I don’t, that he knows better than I do what Grace needs and—
“You don’t have to call me sir.” Wait, what? “Daniel is fine. We’re family now, after all.”
Am I dreaming right now?
“Don’t look so stunned.” He smirks.
I blink. “I’m sorry si… Daniel. Shit, sorry. Sorry. I just thought…” I scratch the back of my neck like a nervous young boy. “I thought maybe you didn’t like me very much.”
He chuckles. “Oh, I like you Cal. Don’t even worry about it.” His eyes light up as they focus somewhere behind me. “See, darling? I can still pull off the Scary Dad act.”
Marcus comes down the stairs towards us, rolling his eyes affectionately at his husband. A few seconds later, a hand clamps my shoulder as he sits next to me on the couch.
“I tried to stop him from having the Scary Dad talk with you, but he wouldn’t listen,” Marcus tells me, the smile never leaving his face. Blood related or not, he’s all sunshine like his daughter. Now I see where she gets it from. “He wanted to be a dramatic ass.”
Now it’s Daniel’s turn to roll his eyes. “Well, it worked. Cal here thought I hated him.”
Marcus’ booming laughter fills the room. “Don’t trust this guy, Cal. We liked you from the start. Where’s Gracie, by the way?”
As the minutes go by, the snacks sit forgotten on the coffee table as I talk to Grace’s dads about anything and everything. They ask me some more about Maddie, and after they insist on seeing pictures of her, they think it’s only fair to bring out the family albums so they can embarrass their daughter some more.
A shit-eating grin dominates my face the whole time we browse through the pictures of baby and toddler Grace.
“We took that one on her first day of school,” Marcus says.
Indeed, a miniature version of Grace is smiling widely in front of a school, wearing a blue uniform and her blonde hair in two plates. But, for some reason, what catches my eye is the pink backpack she’s holding with both of her little hands.
Images of Maddie flood my head, mixing with all the baby pictures of Grace I wish I could embed in my mind forever, because suddenly it hits me out of the blue with the force of a thousand explosions.
‘It’ being baby fever.
And it’s hitting hard.
A warm feeling grows inside my chest as I imagine, and not for the first time, a perfect future in which I get to have my sunshine, my princess and another little sunshine who will look so much like her mom she would steal my heart right away.
I realize then and there that nothing would make me happier than spending the rest of my life with my girls. And maybe a dog or two.
The mere thought of being a dad should probably scare me, given how I never had any father figure worth looking up to when I was younger. But Grace is right—I’m a kickass older brother and, as long as she’s by my side, I’m going to be the best dad I can be.
“I know you didn’t just bring out the photo albums,” a sharp voice starts behind us. “I know it.”
I laugh, looking over my shoulder where Grace is currently sending death glares to her dads. “Aw, sunshine, come on. Look at those chubby cheeks.”
She snatches the album right out of my grip and snaps it shut. “Took you two long enough to embarrass me again.”
Marcus chuckles. “There’s nothing embarrassing about your baby pictures, you drama queen. We were just showing Cal how adorable you looked as a baby.”
“And here I thought you were getting me snacks.” She glares at me as she sits on the coffee table and opens her box of Cheez-Its. “I should’ve known you were going to gang up on me sooner than later.”
Daniel throws an arm around the back of the couch and gives his daughter a smug smile. “You poor thing.”
Grace sticks her tongue out at him. “Not fair. There’s too much testosterone in this house, I need Maddie.”
Her words wrap around my heart and squeeze. “Nuh-uh. You two sure gang up on me all the time. Give me a break,” I say casually even though my heart couldn’t be beating faster.
“Sucks to suck.” She smirks.
Despite her aversion to me seeing her baby pictures, she ends up snuggling next to me as the four of us browse through the family albums. After my conversation with Daniel, the air in the room becomes lighter and I feel… at home, like I belong. I always feel at home when I’m with Grace, but this time it’s different. Now, just like she does with Maddie, I also feel like her family is also part of mine.
When I wrap her in my arms hours later, I fall asleep to the thought of starting our own someday.
