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I look back at the little girl with copper pigtails, and for the first time in weeks, maybe longer, something feels right. Like maybe this distraction isn’t a detour after all. Like maybe life is trying to hand me something else.
What’s going to happen when he has to face the reality that Poppy is his daughter? I guess that’s when we’ll see the true man that Rocket Caldwell really is.
“Everything says something if you’re listening loud enough.”
“Clearly, you come from a good home, have a career path that you love, but what makes you, you? What is it that you desire?” I quirk my eyebrows. “Desire is a loaded word.” “So was that bathing suit you had on earlier,” he says without missing a beat, “but I managed to cope just fine, now didn’t I?”
“I have everything I’ve ever wanted. Money. Fame. Notoriety. I never have to worry about anything again. And then all of a sudden, the one thing I never wanted, the one thing my childhood fucked me up and told me I never wanted, shows up on my doorstep. I had no fucking choice in the matter.”
“I’m an asshole, right? Like she just lost her mom, and I’m here feeling sorry for myself that I have to grow the fuck up when I don’t want to.” “Or maybe you’re worried you have to actually be the man you thought you could never be.”
“You probably don’t want to be around me right now,” he finally says, voice gravel smoothed by sandpaper, as he moves back around the table to hit another ball. “Why?” I ask, drawn into the room and him in a way I’ve never been with someone before. “Because I’ve drank more than is reasonable. Because I’m pissed. And because when both of those things happen, I typically like to fuck them out of my system and, Wills . . .”—he tsks and turns toward me for the first time, eyes flashing with a glint of something that borders on danger and desire—“. . . you’re within reach.”
I want to earn the right to be her dad. Not because I have no choice. Not because the court says I have to be. But because she’s mine.
“You, Rocket. I want you—inside me, on me, fucking me, drowning in me.”
“Let’s just say I’m starting to like the quiet. You’ve made me like the quiet.”
“In case you misunderstood what my lips just did, I’ll repeat myself with words. I want to kiss you every goddamn second I’m around you, Willow. Just give me time to figure out how to do it without losing everything in the process.”
“I love you, Willow. I’ve tried to square it away a million different ways, tried to tell myself it was too fast or too complicated or too fucking risky. But I do. And I don’t know what the hell to do with it.”
You can’t make someone love you. Common sense says that. But it’s even harder to know someone loves you but actively chooses not to fight for you. I deserve better than that.
