Defensive Daddy

I didn’t text her back, choosing instead to ask her what was wrong face-to-face. I knocked on her door, waiting.

She answered, but she only pulled the door open partway. “Hey.” She sounded distant, and I hadn’t even said anything yet. “I said I was—”

“Busy, I know. What’s wrong?”

Her stiff posture, unimpressed tone of voice, and neutral expression told me all I needed to know, but the doorway held between us...well, that was a barrier between me and her, and I didn’t much care for it.

“Nothing, I just—”

“Something happened. I can see it in your eyes.” She might have been able to lie to me, but only if she was hidden behind the safety net of a text message.

Her eyes gave her away every time.

“I said everything’s fine.”

“You did, and I don’t buy it.”

“I don’t care if you believe me, Cooper.” Her eyes narrowed into slits. “Now, if you’ll excuse—”

I put a hand on the door, intent on pushing it open to widen the space between us, but she pushed back, keeping it firmly in place. “What’s going on, Samantha?”

“You tell me,” she snapped. Then, as though thinking better of it, she shook her head. “Better yet, don’t. I don’t want to do this tonight.”

“Do what?” I exclaimed, my hand still on the door. “I’m pretty sure you don’t want to have a snippy conversation tomorrow morning when I come over to watch Levi, so you’d better fill me in now.”

“Yeah, about Levi...” Her gaze suddenly fell toward the floor. “I’ve found him a spot at a daycare over on Carrington Avenue. He’ll go there during the week now, so you’re off the hook, Cooper. You’re free.”

She may as well have slapped me in the face. Frankly, stabbing me in the fucking chest with a red-hot poker would have hurt less than hearing her explain she was putting an end to my days with Little Man Levi.

“I didn’t ask to be off the hook, Samantha.” I swallowed down the anger, hating that she made it sound like some sort of business transaction between us, and not the beginnings of what could be a family for all of us.

Then, something else occurred to me. “Free of what?” The idea of not having Levi around during the day sounded like the furthest thing from freedom to me.

“Free of us.” Samantha’s jaw clenched. “Free to do whatever you want,” she added. “Or, whoever you want.”

My head snapped up, and I glared at her. Like a tsunami, it hit me. “Is this about Zoey?” I blurted out. “I don’t know what you think you—”

“I know exactly what I saw!” She threw the door open the rest of the way. If she was going to tear into me, she was obviously going to do it with an unobstructed view. “I saw you kissing someone else who looked an awful fucking lot like me, Cooper.”

“Looked like you—what? S

hit, Samantha, no.” I ran my hands through my hair, mentally cursing Zoey for ever showing her face here this morning. “That’s not what it was like at all.”

“So, you didn’t kiss her?”

“She kissed me—”

Samantha slapped me across the face, hard. “I fucking trusted you!” she hissed. “You made me trust you.”

“And you should! Samantha, it wasn’t what you think.”

She pushed me, and I took a large step back into the hallway. “Don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot, Cooper. I should’ve known you were too good to be true. You might be some big hotshot hockey player, but you’re just fucking like him.”

Oh, hell no. “Jesus Christ, Samantha. Forgive me.”

“You want me to forgive—”

I covered her mouth with my hand. “Not for that,” I told her. “For this.” I felt like I was manhandling her, and I was, but I tried to be as gentle as I could as I clamped my hand harder over her mouth and half-guided, half-pushed her back into the apartment, kicking the door closed behind me. The last thing we needed was the nosy damn neighbors with their ears to their doors, listening to us hash this out in the hallway.