Page 98 of Deacon

“I saw you,” I went on. “Saw your eyes. Saw your mama’s eyes. Then I saw how much you looked like me, and I just knew. Without a doubt, I knew you were ours. And everything suddenly felt...” Words failed where instinct hadn’t. “Not easy. But right. Like somethin’ I didn’t even know was missing had just slammed back into place.”

A tear slipped down Jade’s cheek. She wiped it away quickly, almost irritated by it.

“If you loved my momma,” she asked, holding my gaze, “and you’re happy about me, why’d you leave her?”

There it was. The one answer I couldn’t give her.

I looked at Lila before returning to Jade. “Sweet girl, I know you want answers. But that’s a conversation I can only have with your momma.”

Lila’s jaw clenched.

“And even then,” I said, meeting her eyes, “as much as she’s gonna hate me for it, I can only tell her so much.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Lila snapped.

The truth I could offer was still a fraction of the whole. “It means, Lilabug, I can’t tell you everything.” Old guilt sat bitter on my tongue. “There are things I can’t tell you. I hate that I can’t tell you, but I just fuckin’ can’t. And that is why I had to go.”

Jade stood, reading the room faster than either of us gave her credit for. “I think this is the part where I go ahead and let you two talk,” she said. Then she looked at me, the edge in her expression softening. “Maybe we can talk again tomorrow?”

The question landed harder than Matty’s fist.

“You’d want that?” I asked before I could hide how much I needed the answer.

She looked almost confused that I had to ask. “Of course I’d want that. I’ve wanted to know who my dad is my whole life.”

My throat closed around everything I wanted to promise her. I looked at Lila instead. Jade had been hers for sixteen years before I even knew what I had missed, and I wasn’t about to claim rights Lila hadn’t given me.

“As long as it’s okay with your momma,” I said.

Lila answered without hesitation. “I’d never take opportunities for you to see your daughter from you, Jackson,” she said quietly. “Or for Jade to see her dad.”

Gratitude and grief hit too close together to separate. I managed one nod.

Jade came around the coffee table slowly, stopping in front of me.

“Can I have a hug?”

Jesus. My chest locked around the simple question. “Of course,” I said, and my voice gave away everything else.

She stepped into my arms.

I held her carefully at first because I knew nothing yet about the little things a father should know. Whether she liked being squeezed tight. Whether she hated fussing. Whether comfort made her stay or pull away. Then her arms came around my shoulders and held on.

That was all it took. Sixteen years still sat between us, packed into everything I didn’t know, but I could do more than count what I had missed. I could learn her now: her laugh, what pissed her off, what she dreamed about, what she wanted after high school. Every ordinary piece of her life she was willing to give me from this point forward.

I had no intention of wasting any of it.

When Jade pulled back, I kept my hands on her shoulders long enough to look at her. Lila’s green eyes stared back from my kid’s face, and the fierce little tilt of her chin was pure trouble.

The most precious thing in the world stood in front of me. Well. Next to her mother. Always next to her mother.

And from the look Lila was giving me across the room, meeting my daughter had been the easy part.

27

Lila

Is he flipping kidding me?