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I hid my warming face in his shirt.
“Do you feel better now?” he asked me while he dragged his lips over my hair.
I thought about it. I did feel better. My body had cooled down, and my insides felt all fuzzy and content. I didn’t feel sick anymore.
“Why don’t you go to sleep now, love?” he said as if reading my mind. “I’m going to go hang out with your brothers for an hour or two so we don’t risk them hunting me down in here.
“I’ll come back after your family thinks I’ve left. You think you can fall asleep on your own or do you want me to stay for a little while?”
I was already half asleep, his deep tone of voice causing my eyes to flutter shut.
“All right, I’ll see you in a little bit. I love you,” he said.
“I love you,” I murmured back.
He kissed my lips one more time before leaving me alone in my bed.
If only that peacefulness could have lasted forever.
“Dotty, your phone is ringing!” Easton called out from his spot at the kitchen island.
I looked up from the sticky pizza dough I was kneading to see my lit-up phone vibrating on the counter in front of my younger brother.
Ace and I were babysitting my siblings so my parents could go out on a date. He was playing some video game upstairs with four of my brothers, while Easton, Felix, Wes, and I got dinner ready.
We were having homemade pizzas. Easton and Griffin chopped up ingredients—
with child-safe knives of course—while I prepared the dough.
Wes was hanging out in his playpen nearby, eating Cheerios out of a dinosaur Tupperware container.
“Who’s calling?”
Easton glanced at the screen. “It’s an unknown number.”
“Oh, okay. You can just ignore it then.”
“Wait, you got a text!” Easton continued as my phone stopped ringing and pinged with a new text message. A frown took over his face. “It says it’s from…Mitchell Cooper.”
My eyes snapped up. “What?”
“It says he needs to talk to you and wants you to answer his call,” Easton said, reading off my phone.
My phone started to ring again.
“Who’s Mitchell Cooper?” Felix asked.
The phone stopped ringing.
I quickly made my way over to the kitchen sink to wash my hands. Even if I was upset with Mitchell for ghosting for years, I wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to talk to him.
“Isn’t that your dad’s name?” Easton continued behind me.
“Her dad’s name is Joe!” Felix argued.
“Mitchell is my biological father,” I explained as I scrubbed at my hands. “Mom was married to Mitchell before she met our dad. Joe is still my real dad.”
I rounded the kitchen island and grabbed my phone off the counter.
Why the hell does he want to talk to me after all this time? How did he even get my number?
Before he went silent on me three years ago, he only called me on my birthday or Christmas, and that was if I was lucky.
Maybe there is some sort of emergency.
“Are you allowed to talk to him?” Easton asked.
I looked up at my younger brother, who was still frowning deeply. “Why wouldn’t I be allowed to talk to him?”
“Well, because…because…” He shifted uneasily on his stool. “Maybe I should go get Ace.”
Before I could answer, he jumped off his chair and raced to the door.
“Wait! Why would Ace need to know…?” My voice trailed off as he rushed out of the room, the sound of his footsteps carrying him upstairs.
Ace had never been a fan of my birth father, but I assumed he would be happy to hear he was reaching out again. He knew how hard the last few years had been for me without any contact with my dad.
“Hey, but I thought your old dad hurt you,” Felix said, pulling my attention back to him. “That’s why you don’t see him anymore.”
I cocked my head to the side. Where the heck did he hear that? ?“What do you mean?” Mitchell wasn’t the best father in the world, but he never hurt me.”
His little eyebrows scrunched together. “He stole your thoughts. O—or I mean”—he struggled to come up with the word—“your memories.”
The kid had to be confused because I had no idea what he was talking about. Maybe he was thinking of a movie or something.
“Mitchell never hurt me,” I assured him. “We just grew apart after Mom remarried.
That’s why I don’t see him anymore.”
My phone started to ring again, lighting up once again with Mitchell’s name. I guess he was really determined to get a hold of me. A thrum of worry fanned through me.
“Keep chopping while I take this, okay?” I told Felix.
Felix kept his eyes on me while he slowly picked up his knife again.
Leaning back against the counter behind me, I accepted my birth father’s call and brought my phone to my ear. “Hello?”
“Dorothy. Hi,” Mitchell breathed out in relief through the phone speaker. “I’m so glad you picked up.”
While he spoke, Ace came bursting into the kitchen, his eyes unusually fierce. He instantly found me, zeroing in on the phone in my hand, and rushed over.
“Who is it?” Ace asked.
Mitchell, ?I mouthed back to him.
Ace’s face twisted into a scowl.
I shrugged and directed my attention back to my conversation. “Yeah, I’m, uh, happy you called. It’s been a while since we talked.”
“It’s been too long,” Mitchell agreed. “I’m sorry we haven’t had the chance to connect over the last few years.”
Ace was crowding my space, standing right next to me, staring at me like some sort of weirdo. I took a step to the side only for him to take two steps forward so he was pushing up against me.
I didn’t mind him touching me at that moment—I didn’t even mind him hearing my conversation with Mitchell; I liked having the support—but he was acting strangely.
I gave him a look that said, What the hell are you doing?
Ace only grunted in response.