I’m doing this for you, I thought as I took her weight and decided not to put her in the playpen yet. Bringing Mo up against my chest, I settled her there, backing up so I could sit in my chair and keep talking to Count Dracula while keeping an eye on him at the same time. It didn’t look like he was carrying around pepper spray in his pockets, and a peek at his knuckles told me he hadn’t busted out brass knuckles. I wouldn’t put it past him, even though that wasn’t really his style.
I should have been looking for a baseball bat, if anything. There was that one time he’d—
I stopped thinking about it. I wasn’t even supposed to know about that.
I pinned him with a look when he just kept standing there looking way too passive-aggressive. I shook my head. “Seriously, Gramps, cut it out. Whatever you’re planning on saying or doing, don’t.”
I held up Mo right off my lap. “Please. Do it for her. Look at those big brown eyes. I kept it a secret because I didn’t want anyone here to know who her deadbeat dad is,” I tried to plead with him, pressing my lips against the top of her full head of hair since she was already right there. She smelled just like the almond soap we used, even though it had been two days since the last bath I’d given her.
He didn’t say anything but still just stood there looking way too broody in his olive-green khaki pants and button-down, long-sleeved shirt with a sweater pulled on over it as he finally peeled the carrier off. He called it his uniform for taking care of an eight-month-old baby, because it was important work. And you dressed for the job you wanted, he claimed.
Seriously, there was a reason we put up with his shit.
But if he wanted to be a pain in the ass, and he did, well, I could play dirty too.
“I didn’t say anything because it’s easier when the person who didn’t want you doesn’t feel like they actually exist.”
He hesitated for a moment before folding the carrier and setting it on top of the chair where he’d set the baby bag. I could see his eyes narrowing again. His mouth moving.
But he settled for a sighed. “Are you trying to guilt trip me?”
I smirked as I rested my cheek on Mo’s head as I set her back down on my lap. “Yeah.” Who did he think he was talking to?
I was positive pride flashed across his eyes even as he made another face. And his answer confirmed it.
“Continue,” he muttered.
I fucking laughed, brushing my mouth across the back of her soft head full of hair and soaking up her scent like a crackhead. I missed her so much while I was at work. If I didn’t know without a doubt that she was in the best hands capable—better hands than my own—leaving for Maio House on a daily basis would have been the hardest thing in the world. “You know, I really wish I could go back in time to meet your mom and ask her if you came out special or if someone hurt you and made you like this.”
His smart-ass expression didn’t move, but I could see the hint of a smirk curl up the corner of his mouth. “Wonderful? Amazing?” He crossed his arms over a chest that hadn’t lost too much of his muscle over the years. “A one of a kind?”
He was joking back with me. That was good.
“A one-of-a-kind something.”
He sniffed, but I could tell he was thinking when he didn’t give me any back talk.
Realistically, I knew he could and would stay mad. He was going to bring this up for the rest of my life, and I didn’t expect any less. But I knew without a doubt that mad at me or not for keeping a secret, for telling him that he couldn’t act a fool when the need ran so strongly in him, he was still going to do the right thing. Because that was what he’d taught me.
To do the right thing.
Most of the time at least.
So when he sighed in the middle of me sniffing Mo’s neck while she giggled, I figured he’d come to some sort of decision. “We’ll do this your way, Elena.“ He rolled his eyes just in case the sighing hadn’t been enough.
I raised my eyebrows at him calling me my first name. Was he that mad? The side look he slid me said yup.
“Let me talk to Peter, and then The General and I will get out of here. I told her we’d go for a walk at the park today while you stay and work,” he countered, rubbing it in that I was stuck here while they got to spend time together.
But I deserved it, and I’d take it.
I nodded. “All right.”
He barely glanced at me as he headed back out onto the floor, really confirming just how mad he was. Oh well. It should have been a miracle he wasn’t rallying his gang of Grandpas on Scooters to find out where Jonah was to go run his ass over.
Shit. He might be waiting to do that, knowing him. I needed to tell him not to do that either.
Figuring that could wait a few minutes, I sighed in my chair and set Mo to sit on my thigh. I smiled at her. She grinned at me right back, sitting there calmly and happily, bringing this sense of peace—even though I shouldn’t feel peaceful at all with her dad somewhere around not telling me why he was here—that nothing and no one else was capable of doing for me. “Ma! Ma, ma, ma!”
She’d started calling me that a couple weeks ago, and it hadn’t gotten old, and I hoped it never would. Ma. Me! I leaned forward and touched the tip of my nose to hers.
And Mo… Mo decided it was the right time to headbutt the fuck out of my face, but I reared out of the way at the last second.
I laughed. “Jesus Christ, short stuff, you trying to break my nose?”
She did a little squeal that I had a feeling meant maybe. She was mine after all. What else did I expect?
I laughed again. “Oh my God, I need to eat your face. Let me get a little bite,” I whispered as she babbled back.
Brushing my fingers lightly into her side just enough to make her squeal again, I dipped my face close, blowing a bubble into her tiny almost nonexistent neck, getting a slightly louder squeal out of her. Her whole body shook with delight and something so pure, it was fucking priceless. It was something to think that I had made this. That she was mine and I was hers, and that there wasn’t a single thing I wouldn’t do for her.
“Ma!”
I lifted her chubby arms over her head and said, “Weighing in at eighteen pounds, the reigning champion of the baby weight division, Mo DeMaioooo!”
She shrieked in excitement like she always did and, oh my God, I loved it.
I clapped her fists together. “Yay!”
“Hi, Lenny,” came the soft voice out of nowhere, making my head jerk up to find the figure standing just inside the office. “Oh. Who’s this?”
But it wasn’t just anybody. And I wasn’t going to wonder right then how the fuck he’d gotten into the building again. Not when I was suddenly holding my damn breath.
I lowered Mo’s arms and had to talk myself out of pulling her in even closer to my body as I watched Jonah take another step. And then one more. His eyes—Mo’s eyes—bounced between the baby who had her back to him and… me.
Resentment, I knew it was resentment, made my stomach sour all of a sudden. Just about every ounce of joy I’d felt over Mo’s presence disappeared in that instant as the big man kept coming into my office, one slow step after another after another. His feet didn’t make a sound on the stained concrete, and I wasn’t sure why I noticed that, but I did. Across from us, that tanned face was curious… but not at all guilty looking or nervous or any of the other shit that I might have expected him to experience as he approached his daughter for the first time ever.