The Mrs. Degree (Accidentally in Love 2)

“Oooo,” Skipper sympathizes, making a sad little noise. “Poor dog. What kind is he?” She scoots closer to Jack as he gets the phone out of his back pocket and scrolls through it for photos of the dog.

“This is Kevin.”

“Kevin? That’s your dog’s name?” Skipper bursts into hysterics as if that’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard, holding her little tummy as she laughs and baring her teeth while her chin disappears. “That’s so funny!”

She’s adorable. I want to squish her cute cheeks and give her a giant kiss on her sweet face. I just love her so much.

Jack catches my eye over the top of her head, his expression one of the saddest expressions I have ever seen in a moment so filled with joy.

What is he thinking right now?

What could he possibly be thinking?

It looks as if he swallowed a bug. Or has a lump forming in his throat.

Oh, no.

No.

Is he going to…

Cry?

Too late, Skipper notices once she’s done whooping it up over the goofy dog with the funny name, lifting her hand to wipe the tear on Jack’s face.

“Don’t cry, Skip.” Wrapping her little arms around his waist, she squeezes, which only seems to make it worse. “Shh, it’s okay. Kevin is fine. He’s not sad.”

Tears well up in my eyes, and my lip is trembling, and this can’t be good…

Suddenly, I’m crying, too.

“Don’t hate me.” I mouth the words over our daughter’s head once he raises his tear-soaked eyes at me.

“I want to, Penn,” Jacks says earnestly, throat hoarse. “But I can’t. I can’t because I love you too much.”

Skipper hears it. She hears his gravelly words—the ones he’d barely spoken out loud.

“You love my mom?” She’s still consoling me, patting me on the back with her tiny hand as if to say, “There, there, Mom.”

Jack only nods, not repeating the sentiment, nor confirming it as his daughter flops back down on her rear, seated between us, two grown adults with a lot of growing to do.

Chapter 10

Jack

“You love my mom?” That little voice echoes in my brain all through the night, and suddenly, I’m dreaming about kids and dogs and babies and not Penelope Halbrook.

The dreams where she was letting me drown beneath the water, reaching a hand out but letting me go?

Those were gone.

“You love my mom?”

Did she sound hopeful when she’d said it? Sure sounded like it, but then again, what the hell do I know about seven-year-old kids?

I settle into the bed in my hotel room, literally googling “what do seven-year-old kids like” and hit SEARCH. Instead of the buttload of information I’m expecting to pop up, a gift guide populates instead. And rather than searching for something new, I tap on the THIRTY BEST GIFTS FOR GIRLS and scroll through the toys.

Legos. Barbies.

Books. Bath bombs, lab kits.

All this shit is so lame. Who’s buying this crap? So okay, maybe Legos aren’t lame, but what kid wants to sit and stare at a rock tumbler for hours at a time? Better yet, what parent wants to listen to that shit? I had one as a kid, and I remember my mom putting it in the garage so we didn’t have to hear the damn thing rolling rocks for days on end.

None of these toys are cheap.

I scroll on, googling one article after the next, reading psychological studies about girls raised with only one parent, the effects, how to tell your child you’re splitting up. How to talk to your child about their biological parent.

My head hurts as much as my heart aches reading this stuff, and before I know it, it’s well past midnight, and I’m still wide awake with thoughts of Penelope and Skipper consuming me.

I thought I had my life figured out. I thought I was at a place in my life where I was…good again. After my parents died, I realized that there are no coincidences in life, merely events put in our path as lessons.

People, too.

It took me years to learn from Penelope leaving me. She taught me that I was capable of loving—and loving hard. She taught me I could be faithful and loyal to the right person, even with the obstacles that being an athlete throws at me. Women, money, fame. None of that is as important as love.

Then the lesson was impressed upon me again the night of my parents’ accident, shattering my world.

Changing my life forever.

My goals.

My priorities.

Gone was the man who dated casually but never got serious. Gone was the man who wasn’t ready to settle down. Gone was the man who assumed he’d have kids… someday, maybe.

The night Mom and Dad died, my life flashed before my eyes, too, in that way fate and karma and destiny have a way of presenting itself.

Suddenly, the man who wasn’t ready to settle down longed for a family. Began dreaming about the one time in his life he was truly, madly happy and in love.