I nod and grab some cherry tomatoes to cut for the salad. “I am. It was either that or he wanted me and him to dress up as bags of ice so we could be ‘ice, ice, baby.’”
He shakes with laughter. “Do you have any pictures?”
“Yeah, would you mind grabbing my phone over there?”
He looks down at my phone, shaking his head before passing it to me. “Sorry. It looks like you’ve got a text. I didn’t mean to look.”
“Oh, that’s okay. It’s probably just Dakota. She’s Cadence’s nanny.”
“It wasn’t. Looks like Ian wants to know if you want to grab drinks later,Kenz.”
Ugh. Kill me. Just literally dig my grave and bury me right now.
Out of anyone who could’ve texted me right now, why did it have to be Ian? And Griffin, of all people, knows that I hate being called “Kenz.”
“Did you let Carson choose her costume for this year?” Griffin asks, brushing aside the fact that I was just asked out by another man. He seems completely unphased. I guess he should be. We’re not together. We’re not even friends. I’m just his . . . baby mama. God, I hate the way that sounds.
I nod my head while I finish cutting up the cucumbers for the salad. “Yes,” I sigh. “He wanted to do DC superheroes. Cadence is Wonder Woman, Carse is going to be the Joker, and I got stuck with Catwoman.”
“Do you still need a Batman?”
“Halloween is on Tuesday. That isn’t for another two days, Griff. Don’t you fly out to Detroit tonight for your game tomorrow?”
“I asked my coach for a leave of absence. He said I could have a two-game leave, so I don’t need to be back in Colorado until Thursday evening for our game day skate on Friday morning.”
I place the knife down on the cutting board and look over at him. “Why would you do that?”
“McKenna, how can you ask that? I just found out I have a daughter who is eighteen months old. I missed the first year and a half of her life. Her birth. Her first Halloween, Christmas, and birthday. I missed her first words, her first tooth, her first steps. I couldn’t get on a plane with my team and play as if my whole world didn’t get turned upside down.”
“You haven’t missed her first steps,” I inform him, wanting to reassure him that he hadn’t missed everything. At least, not yet, anyway.
I take him through the years he missed while Cadence naps and I make lunch. The walk down memory lane has me nostalgic. A sense of melancholy spreads over me as I think of all the moments Griff has missed out on.
25
October
Cadence took her first steps. She took her first steps, and I was here to witness them.
God, today has been the best day of my life.
It started when I got to meet my daughter for the first time. She woke up from her nap about an hour after I got to Carson’s house. Kenna had gone into her room to help her wake up, because I guess my daughter is like her mother and likes to take her time waking up, or things get dicey.
Once she was properly woken up, Kenna brought Cadence into the kitchen. I took one look at my daughter, and my world stopped, only to start again. This time, revolving solely around Cadence Aelia. My little ray of sunshine.
My same brown eyes stared back at me in curiosity when Kenna sat her in her highchair next to the stool I was sitting at.
Cadence’s light blonde hair was a happy surprise. With how dark my hair is, I never really imagined any of my kids being blonde. I know that probably sounds stupid, but it’s not like I used to sit up at night and imagine what my future kids would look like. Well, not unless you count the endless nights I spent thinking of Kenna and what our liveswould’ve looked like had I not fucked everything up and pushed her out of my life.
I watched in amazement as Kenna and Cadence went about their routine. It might seem like a mundane thing to be amazed by, but McKenna is a really good mom. Like, really fucking good.
Kenna made lunch for the three of us and it was delicious. I ate like a starved man, and Cadence turned into a feral little monster as soon as Kenna suction-cupped her plate to her highchair tray.
After we cleaned up from lunch, Kenna said Cadence typically liked to play in either the living room or her playroom upstairs. I asked if it was okay for us to play in her playroom, so Kenna gave me a tour of the house. I can tell she did a lot of decorating throughout the house after seeing her bedroom and Cadence’s nursery and playroom.
After about ten minutes of playing on the floor with Cadence, she crawled over to her play table, used it to help her steady herself when she stood up, and then she turned to show me a block she was holding. She drooled all over it before holding it out for me to grab. I asked her to bring it over to me, so she squared herself up to me and took one unsteady step before falling down.
Kenna gasped. “Oh my gosh. Did she just do that? I’ve got to get a video, or Carse will kill me. Stand back up, sweet girl!”
