Look After Me (11 page)

She nods as she walks inside. Once she’s in the middle of the room, she smiles fondly at Lily. “Wow, she’s gorgeous. She looks just like you,” she whispers.

“You can speak normally, by the way. This girl could sleep through a frigging hurricane.” Addison laughs and the very sound does strange things to me as my skin tingles in tiny goose bumps. Never in my life has somebody affected me the way Addison just did. Disturbed by the sudden tremor of emotions, I shake the uneasy feeling off me until it’s pushed completely out of my mind.

“So what have you guys been up to today?” Addison asks as we walk towards the sofa.

“We had a trip to the zoo and as you can tell it’s tired this one right out.” I can’t imagine Ava will be pleased to know Lily’s sleeping so close to her bedtime, but that thought makes me a little happy. She’ll likely be up all night. “It was nice to spend some quality time with her.”

“I bet,” Addison says with a genuine smile. My smile falters at the sound of the buzzer, indicating the arrival of Ava. Trying to hide my look of disappointment, I slap a smile on my face as I wander over to the intercom and buzz Ava up.

“That must be Ava now. Um, just make yourself at home. I shouldn’t be long.” After a few long moments I open the door on a trembling breath, and hatred quickly fills my veins, an automatic reflex that consumes my body at the sight of the woman I love yet loathe.

“Hi.”

Her eyes wander over to Lily and my heart fills with pride at the look of disappointment that flits across her eyes. “How long has she been asleep for?”

“About an hour.” I shrug.

An audible sigh leaves her mouth. “Sebastian, she’s never going to sleep tonight.”

I stare down at her, anger bubbling. “How am I supposed to stop a one-year-old from falling asleep on my shoulder?” I ask defensively. “She was tired, Ava.”

“I know and I don’t blame you. It’s just if she doesn’t follow her routine and take a nap in the early afternoon, she becomes fussy when it’s her bedtime.”

“Well, I suppose that’s something a dad would know if he saw his daughter more than once a week.”

“Sebastian—”

“I’m just stating the facts.” I gaze down at my sleeping beauty and immediately it calms me. However, I can only bask in the calmness for a few seconds before my blood pressure spikes up again at the sound of her voice.

“Eventually, we can discuss you having her for a night, or maybe even a full weekend. But for now, while you’re getting back on your feet, I think once a week is for the best.”

“The best for who? You?”

“For
you,
” Ava says gently. “You’re barely three weeks out of rehab. I don’t want to cause any extra stress.”

“Well, that’s awfully kind of you,” I mock, “but you have nothing to worry about. My daughter is the only stress-free thing I have in my life right now.”
She’s the only thing I have in my life right now.

A look of guilt flashes in her eyes. “Okay, I guess we could try one night. I’ll speak to Ashton and—”

Is she fucking kidding me?

“I’m her father, not Ashton. He doesn’t get to have a say in
our
daughter’s life!”

Ava flinches at my raised voice. On a shaky inhale, she closes her eyes for a split second before reopening them. “I’m not here to argue with you. I—”

“Shit. Shit. Crap!”

The sound of glass breaking and explicit cussing from inside of the apartment halts Ava’s words. “Who’s that?”

I ignore her and rush inside. If I weren’t so angry with the whole Ava crap, I would have laughed. Addison is standing in the middle of the kitchen covered head to toe in flour. I walk around the breakfast bar and notice shards of glass around her feet, along with a variety of pantry items.

“I’m so sorry!” Addison exclaims, her cheeks burning with embarrassment. “I went to get the tea bags out of the cupboard and everything just kind of fell on top of me.”

“Are you all right?” I ask with amused concern.

“Yeah, except for the fact that I’m covered in flour!” she says with a burst of nervous laughter. I notice she flushes with more embarrassment as she locks eyes with Ava behind me. “Well, isn’t this
embarrassing,
” Addison mumbles with a sarcastic tone to her voice.

“Why don’t you get cleaned up? I’ll bring you some clean clothes in a minute. The bathroom is down the hall, the first door on the left.” Addison nods. She steps on the broken glass, the shards crunching under her heels with each move she makes. She gives Ava a sheepish look as she walks past. I feel Ava’s eyes on me, but I ignore her and grab Lily’s stuff from the living room.

After a minute of silence, Ava is the first to speak. “Who is she?”

I swear I detect the sound of jealousy in her voice but when I look at her, I see nothing. Fueled by my broken heart, I give an angry smirk as I haul Lily’s diaper bag over my other shoulder and grab her stuffed monkey.

“I never pegged you as the jealous type,” I goad, wanting to get a reaction from her.

“I’m not jealous,” she scoffs, a little offended that I would even bring the subject up. “I just want to know who that woman is because if she’s just a fling, I don’t particularly want my daughter being introduced to some woman who’s not going to be in your life in a week’s time. It’s not fair on Lily.”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but that’s Addison. She’s my drug counselor. She’s here for my weekly appointment. It’s part of my recovery.”

Her face turns red with her mistake. “Oh, I just thought . . .”

“Well, you thought wrong.” Lily stirs against my shoulder, waking up from her nap. She lifts her head and looks up at me. “Hi, baby, did you have a good nap?”

She gives out a big yawn, her eyes roaming my face. I adjust her in my arms and hold her against my chest as I press my lips against the tender spot on her head. I inhale her pretty smell and try to lock it in memory.

“Look who’s here to take you home,” I say with fake excitement. I turn her in my arms and she squeals at the sight of Ava. Reluctantly, I pass Lily over to Ava, trying to hide my disappointment. I watch as Ava covers her entire face with tiny kisses.

“I’ve missed you, baby. Did you had fun with Daddy today?”

Lily’s little face beams, but then her chin begins to wobble when she realizes she’s missing something. Her monkey. She hadn’t let it go once after we’d purchased it from the gift shop.

“Are you looking for this?” I hold the soft toy out for her and her eyes light up the moment she spots the brown furry monkey. She pulls it from my hands with a huge smile on her face.

“We should get going,” Ava says after a minute of silence. I can only give a pensive nod as I hand her Lily’s diaper bag. She places the straps over her shoulder and adjusts Lily a little higher in her arms. “Say goodbye to Daddy.”

I step closer and press a delicate kiss on her little button nose. “Bye, baby, I’ll see you next week. I love you.” As I walk a few steps back, I plaster a smile on my face and wave. Lily gives a gentle wave back before Ava turns and walks out of the apartment, taking what feels like another chunk of my heart away. When they are out of sight, I slam the front door shut with frustration and angrily slap my hands against the oak wood before I rest my head against it.

“Are you okay?”

I turn and almost swallow my own tongue at the sight before me. Addison’s stood in the middle of the hallway wrapped in a huge towel, her arms gripping the material tightly.

“Sebastian?”

I make the mistake of looking down at her amazingly toned legs, and my cock begins to spring to life. When I realize I haven’t said anything, I stand up straight, avoiding her eyes. “Um, I just need a minute. I’ll grab you a change of clothes.”

“Okay, thank you. Do you mind if I take a shower? I’ve literally got flour
everywhere,
” she says with a small chuckle.

Images of Addison naked in the shower slam to the forefront of my mind and I have the sudden urge to wrap those sexy legs around my waist, push her against the wall, and fuck her into submission. With a shake of my head, I force the perverted thoughts clean from my mind. Shit. I can’t think of Addison in that way. She’s my counselor, my friend—if I can even call her that—and any kind of sexual thoughts are off limits.

I barely glance in her direction when I say, “Of course. I’ll, um, grab the clothes and clean up.” I head straight to my room and try and rid myself of my painfully stiff erection.

The moment I’m enclosed within the confines of my room, the rational side returns, which thankfully helps reduce the blood flow in my lower region quite quickly. However, my angry side soon overrides my rational side when I think back to a few minutes earlier. The bitterness that has made me the man I am today begins to regurgitate in the pit of my stomach, and my hatred for life returns full speed.

After a few minutes of wallowing in self-pity, I finally grab Addison a pair of sweatpants that will be
way
too big for her and a t-shirt that will look more like a dress on her tiny frame. Once out of the bedroom, I knock on the bathroom door. “I have a change of clothes for you.”

“Great! Can you leave them on the toilet seat, please?”

Images of Addison in the shower resurface in my mind and it takes all the willpower in the world to diminish them. It’s hard to fight against it when the sound of the falling shower, together with the etched memory of those killer legs gives more of a vivid authenticity to the x-rated images roaming around in my head. I stare at my crotch, willing my cock to behave for just a moment before I turn the door handle and enter. I catch a glimpse of Addison’s pink lace panties and my entire resolve goes up in flames. I’m rock hard again. Inwardly groaning, I place the change of clothes on the toilet seat, and rush out, slamming the door behind me.

When she exits the bathroom fifteen minutes later, I find my hormones have cooled down dramatically and my cock is now on its best behavior. Believe me, it wasn’t an easy task but when I began picturing naked ninety year olds, my cock soon lost interest.

As I empty the broken glass into the trash can, Addison takes a seat at the breakfast bar with a look of embarrassment coloring her cheeks.

“I’m really sorry about earlier. I could overhear your heated conversation with your ex and I just wanted to busy myself so it didn’t seem like I was eavesdropping. As I reached for the teabags, everything fell on top of me. Hence needing to take a shower.”

At the mention of the shower, my mind goes straight to those sexy panties and it takes every effort to push the image of her panties away. “Addison, there’s nothing to be sorry about. Ava just makes me fucking crazy, but your interruption couldn’t have come at a more perfect time. So thank you.”

“Well, I’m glad I could be of assistance. Although I would have preferred not being covered in flour in the process.” She laughs but when my smile doesn’t quite meet my eyes, her laughter quickly fades away. “Are you okay?” Addison asks after a few moments.

I shrug my shoulders. I could try and beat around the bush and say I’m okay, but she’d see right through me, so I decide to give it to her straight. “No. I had the best day with my daughter and my life felt good for a couple of hours. But then I was suddenly reminded of the reality of my life when Ava came to pick her back up again, taking her away from me for another week, and it just motherfucking hurts. I never signed up to this shit. And then when I asked her for a tiny bit more time with Lily, she says she needs to check with Ashton. Ashton? I’m her goddamn father, not him, yet he gets to have a say in my daughter’s life? It’s bullshit!” My entire body is trembling with anger.

“It feels like that guy is living my life! The life I was supposed to have before I was dealt these shitty cards. First he took my fiancée, the one love of my life, now he’s trying to take my daughter away from me, the only person I have left in this crappy world. I want to fight for joint custody, but I know I wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. I’m a recovering drug addict. A judge would take one look at me and brand me as an unfit parent. It doesn’t matter that I’m a veteran, that I risked my life for this country. None of that matters because one look at my history and bam—it’s game over.” I begin pacing every inch of the kitchen space, angrily dragging my hand through my hair, the wrath of my pain swirling through my veins.

“Of course, I have nobody to blame but myself. Nobody forced me to snort coke. That was all me! I wanted to ease the pain and live in a world of pure oblivion where nobody could hurt me. But ironically the only person I actually ended up hurting was myself. And now I’m left with a gaping hole in the middle of my chest and a life, where I have absolutely no idea what I’m supposed to be doing. I mean, what’s the fucking purpose of it? What’s the whole point of life?”

Tears blur my vision and that only fuels my anger. I’ve suddenly unleashed the beast. Consequences be damned.

“I get the feeling maybe life would be better off without me. That maybe I was meant to die at war, and now the big guy upstairs wants to make my life a living hell as punishment for cheating death. And because he obviously doesn’t have the power to kill me considering I’ve cheated death more times than I can count, he’s decided to put me on the road to self-destruction so that I can take matters into my own hands. That’s the only possible theory I can think that makes sense for the constant fucking pain I feel every day in my chest! It hurts so fucking much!” My anger finally hits its climax when my fist outright punches the wall and a piercing cry echoes through the kitchen, leaving me gasping for air.

Addison grips my shirt, pulling me towards her. “That’s it, just scream it out. Let it out. Do your worst.”

Her words of encouragement have me falling to my knees, letting go of all of my emotions. I break down and muffle cries of agonizing pain into her chest, clutching her as if my life depends on it. I can feel the softness of her fingers running through my hair, and the comforting sensation is enough to calm my senses, making my howling cries come to a stop. I pull my face away from her chest—which is now soaked with my hot tears—and look up at her. Embarrassed by my breakdown, I go to speak, but her words beat me to it.