I sigh and pull her into my chest to drag my hand through her hair the way that makes her fall asleep in no time. As much as I want to bring up the subject of the other female currently residing under my roof, I’m not cracking that can right now. Abbott avoids Bella like the plague.
She won’t look at her.
She barely responds if Bella speaks to her.
The only time she recognizes the fact Bella is here is when she asks when Bella is leaving.
I knew it wasn’t going to be easy but I’m not sure it could be worse.
I have no idea what the Carson household was like while I was at work today, but from the moment I got home, Bella hasn’t left my bedroom. In any other cosmos, I’d be fucking jolly about my Brit never leaving my bed, but not now. Now, I need Abbott to like Bella and Bella to want to stay. I want to rip the band aid off and I don’t care how painful it’ll be.
But quick is not on the agenda. Hell, we’re not even taking a step in the right direction. As the days click on, we’re one step deeper into this awkward hell.
“We could use some more girls around here,” I agree.
My daughter is as smart as a whip, which I take complete credit for because she sure as shit didn’t get it from her mother. “Just a cat. That’s enough girls.”
I put my fingers to her chin and lift her face from my chest where she’s resting. “I know what that means and I don’t like it.”
She pulls her face away and burrows back into my T-shirt. This time she stays silent.
“Abbs, I need you to try. Bella is important to me and once you get to know her, you’ll like her.”
“Grandpa doesn’t like her.”
“Your grandpa doesn’t like a lot of people. He can be a crotchety old man.”
“He loves me.”
“More than anything. But Grandpa also doesn’t see the world for what it is sometimes. I don’t want you to be like that, and Bella has a good heart. Your Grandpa will come around, like you need to.”
She yawns and her little body sinks into my chest. There, she mumbles, “Doesn’t matter. She’s leaving soon. She said so when Grandpa told her to today.”
What the fuck?
My hand freezes on her head for a quick second but I force my muscles to relax. I need to pull all the information out of her I can without her knowing she’s selling out her best friend. “Grandpa’s ornery.”
I feel her smile against my chest. “I know.”
“What’d he say?”
Through a yawn, the words are jumbled yet still clear as day. “He told her to get her show on the road like he says to me when I’m a slow-poke. And some other stuff. She said she’d leave. That’s when Grandpa gave me my iPad.”
Shit. There’s nothing else to get out of Abbott because when she’s staring at a screen, the rest of the world might as well melt away. I can barely get her to acknowledge me, let alone get her to comprehend. I want to stomp on the damn thing some days and it’s not even connected to the internet. “Not too much time on the iPad, okay, baby?”
She yawns again. “I know.”
“Go to sleep and dream about cat names.”
She doesn’t answer this time.
“Love you, Abbs.”
“Love you, Daddy.”
It doesn’t take but another few minutes for her breaths to deepen and her body to become heavy on mine. But I don’t get up. If I do, I know for a fact a bomb will detonate and my father might not survive. I don’t need a wedge between him and me, but hell if I need another force pushing Bella away. There are too many as it is.
I warned Red. And to have my own father stab me in the back…
Bella
I’m not sure the days here in Virginia could drag any longer or be more utterly miserable, but here I lie. The day will not end, no matter how much I will it to.
At least I’m exhausted. I didn’t nap today.
After I walked Cole’s property three times at a pace slower than a slug—which was more than frustrating—I managed a shower and found myself some dinner. That was before Cole came home. Luckily Red and Abbott were in the backyard nosing around the vegetable garden.