“Yes! He has theexactsame eyes as Irie. It's impossible to look at him and not see his daughter staring back at you. And then seeing how good he was with Irie?”
“Mom! Then why did you go on that guilt trip in front of Lance, about how Irie's dad was missing all the precious moments from her life?”
She shrugged. “Well, I dunno. I thought it might help.”
Paige buried her face in her hands. “I guess that's where I get it from …”
“More importantly,” Dad cut in, “what is Lance going to do now that he knows about Irie?”
Paige gulped. “Yeah. I guess I need to tell you all aboutthat, too …”
Chapter 29
Lance
“Lance. Oh, for God's sake. Lance, wake up!”
It was Honey Badger's voice. And thanks to his pounding headache, she sounded more shrill and demanding than usual. Lance gave a grunt, dismissively waved his arm at her as if to tell her togo the hell away, and rolled on his opposite side.
Ella stamped through his bedroom, stumbling over the clothes and trash on his floor in the process. “Ugh, gross. I can't believe you're a millionaire and yet you stilllive like apig.I'm so tired of telling you that. If your lady sees your room like this, she'll never take you back. And I wouldn't blame her, either.”
She went from window to window, yanking the cords to his Venetian blinds. The wooden blinds flew up like a locomotive with a skull-splittingclickety-clackety-clack!Then the bright white winter sun burned into Lance's retinas. He shielded his eyes, hissing like a vampire, and crawled under his pillow for refuge. But Ella hurried over and pulled it right off him.
“The hell, Honey Badger?”
“Get up, Lance!”
“It's so early,” he moaned.
“Actually, it's past noon.”
“But I'm hungover as hell.”
“I can see that, genius. Itoldyou to stop drinking or you wouldn't be able to do anything today. Wait. Youdoremember asking for my help last night, right?”
A lot of last night was still foggy, but hedidremember it clearly. At Club Regret, he told Ella all about Paige and Irie. How had she reacted? At first, she told him he was an idiot. He'd knocked up a girl that he didn't even know? “Stupid! Dumb! You moron, Lance!”
But she stopped flinging insults when she realized how truly heart broken he was over losing Paige and Irie. Until she heardwhyhe lost them, anyway. “You left them at the airport?! What the hell is wrong with you!?”
And then he showed her the videos: first, the one from the hockey game, when he and Irie first saw each other. “Ohmygod she's so adorable!”And then he showed her the pictures and videos he took at Paige's apartment, when he got to spend a lot of quality time with Irie. Ella's jaw nearly hit the floor when she saw those. “You're actually kind of a good dad, Lance. Whoa. Never saw that coming. That isdefinitelyyour baby girl, by the way.”
And then he told Ella all about his plans to move them to Boston but then Kip Sterling stepped in and now he'd fucked it all up and Paige didn't want anything to do with him anymore. And they spent the rest of the night brainstorming ideas how he could win her back.
Ella tapped her feet impatiently at his bedside. “Hellooo? Earth to Lance! Do you remember asking for my help last night or not?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I remember.”
“So do you want my help or not?”
“I do.”
“Then you're going to get up, take a shower, and then you're going to clean your room.” She swore under her breath. “I can't believe how much I sound like our Mom right now, thanks to you.”
“Alright, alright.” Lance clambered out of bed.
But before he dragged his lifeless body to the shower, he paused.
“Hey, Ella.”
