“Relax,” Loni said, wrapping an arm around my shoulder and giving me a hug. “It’s just a party and a sleepover. He’ll do fine.”
“That’s what scares me,” I admitted. “What if she likes him better than me? All he ever does is fun stuff with her. I’m the one stuck doing the real work and telling her no. At this rate she’ll hate me by the time she’s twelve, and then he’ll get married someday and she’ll want to go live with him and her new stepmom and I’ll be all alone and—”
“Mel!” Jess said, snapping her fingers in front of my face. I looked at her. “Pack up the crazy, babe. She’s only two.”
I blinked at her.
Shit, she was right. You’re losing it.
“I have a date tonight,” I admitted. “I’m a little freaked out by that, too . . .”
“A date?” Loni asked, staring at me. “Seriously?”
“Hey, it’s not that weird,” I said, frowning. “I date.”
“Twice,” Jessica said. “You’ve gone out twice since Izzy was born, and both times you cut it short to come home and check on her. It’s unhealthy—you deserve a life. And Painter should take on some of the responsibility. She’s his kid, too.”
In the distance, I heard Izzy screaming excitedly as Painter swung her up and onto his shoulders. Then he and Reese started across the grass toward us, laughing and talking along the way. Reese had been great, I had to admit. He and his daughters had welcomed me into the fold like one of their own, so much that I had to work hard to keep my distance or I would’ve gotten sucked into the Reapers’ extended family.
It wouldn’t have been all bad, I knew that . . . The girls had offered to babysit for me time and again, and I knew they meant well. But every time I saw the Reapers colors, I thought about Painter missing Isabella’s birth. About the endless nights sitting up with her in the NICU, still recovering from surgery. Then we finally made it home, and I’d spent weeks alone in the dark, holding her, terrified to sleep because the only thing standing between my baby and death was an electronic monitor that was supposed to go off if she stopped breathing.
I didn’t trust that monitor.
Not after the night I woke up needing to pee, only to find Izzy had turned blue from lack of oxygen. Fucking machine was useless. I’d never been so alone or afraid in my life, and it felt like forever before she grew out of it. Rebuilding my life hadn’t been easy, but I’d gotten there. Mostly. Eventually I made new friends. I wasn’t the only single mom in the nursing program at the college. Having Izzy had delayed my education some, but I’d done pretty well on my own.
Better than well, actually.
Now I had my own apartment, a decent job, and health insurance. No more state assistance, either—that was a nice change. Most of my childhood had been spent on welfare, and I remembered all too well how people looked down on me and my mom for that. They’d looked down on my dad, too, but I didn’t care about that. He was just the drunk in the living room.
“So what’s the plan?” Reese asked as they reached the picnic shelter.
“Cake!” Izzie shouted. “Cake cake cake cake! Izzy cake!”
“Sounds like we’re having cake,” I said dryly, shaking off my darker thoughts. “I’ll grab the matches.”
“Got it,” Reese said, pulling out a Zippo. He didn’t smoke, so I’d never quite understood why he carried it—guess the ability to set fires at any time is a useful one. He handed it over to Loni, who lit the candles as I pulled out my phone to record the moment. Painter swung Izzy down and plopped her in front of the sticky pyramid.
“Happy birthday to you . . .” we all sang, with Isabella singing the loudest. She clapped her hands, and when we finished she lunged for a cupcake, grabbing the one with the candles still flaming.
“Shit,” Painter said, jumping forward to catch it. Izzy turned on him in a rage, smacking his arm.
“Mine!”
“Isabella, that’s not okay,” I said firmly. She glared at me.
“Izzy cake.”
“You can have the cake when you say sorry,” I told her. Her glare turned dark and she looked even more like her daddy, only this was funny instead of scary. Jess snorted. “No inappropriate feedback, please.”
Painter shot me a look. “It’s her birthday, Mel. Don’t be a hard-ass.”
Oh no. No fucking way—he didn’t get to undermine me like that. Not to mention his language . . .
“Izzy can have the cake when she says sorry for hitting you,” I said. He set the cupcake down in front of her, deliberately. I cocked my head, glaring at him.
“Isabella, say sorry,” Jess said, catching her attention. “Say it with Auntie Jess?”
The little girl looked at Jessica and smiled. “Sowwy.”
I sighed in relief, realizing this could be a sign of things to come—Izzy was a smart kid. Too smart. If she realized she could play her parents against each other, we’d be screwed by the time she hit middle school.
I felt another wave of near panic hit—if I couldn’t control a two-year-old, how was I supposed to control a middle schooler?
“Okay, princess. Cupcake time,” Painter said, swinging a leg over to straddle the bench next to her. She beamed at him, shoving it into her mouth without paying the slightest attention to me. It was always like that . . . Izzy was daddy’s girl, through and through.