crinkling her eyes, carving small dimples into her cheeks, showing her slightly crooked teeth.
It gives me pause.
I have a daughter.
One my mother will never meet.
A miniature version of her, that she would’ve adored on sight.
The smell of their breakfast drifts through the house, making my stomach rumble. It’s loud enough for them to hear, alerting them to our presence.
Blake’s voice cuts off almost immediately, eyes darting to me in uncertainty, her smile disappearing almost immediately, replaced with a thin line of caution.
I hate that she was completely comfortable alone in Dominic’s company. A stranger. One that owes her nothing. But I stand a few feet away, her father, and she shuts down.
“Hi,” she tests, after an awkward beat of silence.
“Mornin’,” I respond. “Sleep okay?”
“Dad,” Camryn interrupts. “Let’s, uh, check on that thing you wanted to show me.”
My eyes close on a sigh. “Smooth, Cami.”
“Yes.” Dominic places his spatula down stiffly. “That thing, good idea.”
Blake and I watch them disappear, their quick-moving feet only a tad more awkward than their made-up escape.
“They’re, uh, graceful.”
I smile. “Wanna walk out back?”
Jumping from the stool, she nods. “Sure.”
“Where’s your brother?”
“Sleeping.” Her face softens at his mention, the love shared between the two of them enough to chip away at a small cluster of my guilt for leaving them without family for too long. In reality, they weren’t alone, and from experience, it makes the world of fucking difference.
“He has nightmares,” she tells me openly. “They can be pretty bad. He crashes out pretty heavily after particularly awful nights.”
“Nightmares are somethin’ I have a lot of experience with.”
Neck twisted to scan my profile, she nods in understanding. “I see that.”
We sigh at the same time.
“I ain’t really sure how to navigate this whole situation,” I say.
“The situation being me and Jesse?” she tests hotly.
“The situation being a dad with two teenagers who have been conditioned to hate me.”
“We don’t hate you,” she whispers, her hand brushing across the foliage of a plant as we move past it. “We’ve just spent sixteen years only having one another to lean on. You may be our father biologically, Rocco, but right now, you’re just a stranger.”
That reality burns my throat.
“Can you tell me about you?” I ask.
There’s a dismissal in the way she shrugs. “There’s not much to tell. I’m a happy loner. My brother is my best friend. I like to think of myself as a good human being. In saying that, I’ve stolen and lied and cheated just to survive.”
Her feet stop at the base of a large tree in the back yard, her neck tipping back to take it in, in its entirety. “I have this obsession with sitcoms. The canned laughter and idiotic jokes. They make me laugh.” She smiles at me when she says that. A beautiful grin that reminds me so much of my mother, it lightens my heart in the same way it causes it pain. “It used to make me feel as though the world can’t be that bad of a place if people like me could see the humor in a joke, in the same way, someone riding in their very own private plane.”
Circling the base of the tree, I follow. “I fell out of a tree like this once. I was hiding from Marcus. I broke my arm and Mom was too out of it to take me to the hospital. Jesse and I had to find our own way there,” she muses.
“How old were you?”
Looking at me over her shoulder, she pauses, considering not telling me. “Eight.”
“Jesus.” I scratch at my beard.
She laughs. “It was an adventure. They obviously called child services, but not before they’d put my arm in a cast. We hightailed it out of there when they weren’t looking before they could take us away from one another.”
She recites the memory with a fondness that stabs at my conscience. This is a fucking happy memory.
“Don’t look so murderous,” she sighs, her big eyes rolling to exaggerate her distaste at my self-pity. “I survived. I’m alive. I’m happy-ish.”
“Blake—” I start, but she cuts me off.
“I’m not gonna lie to you, Rocco. I want to know you. But my brother is more important than my need for a family that may or may not work out.”
I stare at her, unblinking, unsure what she’s trying to say.
“If he wants to leave and never see you again...” she offers apologetically.
“You’ll never see me again.”
Refusing to look at me, she nods her head. “I like knowing you exist though.”