“Zee, you better watch it!” I hear Maddison’s amused voice from somewhere down the hall.
“Sooooo good!” I call out just to piss him off.
“If you weren’t holding my son, I’d kick your ass.” Walking into the living room, he picks up his daughter on the way over to the couch. “But she does look good,” Maddison continues. “Ella Jo, doesn’t your mama look pretty?”
“So pretty,” Ella sighs before resting her head on her dad’s shoulder, seeming sleepy.
Maddison walks around the back of the couch behind Logan. “I think it’s someone’s nap time. I’ll be right back, baby.” He gives his wife a quick kiss.
Before he carries Ella off to her room, he rounds the couch to me and bends down, puckering his lips. “Be right back, baby.”
“Frick off.” I shove his face away from me with a laugh.
My eyes flicker to the floor-to-ceiling windows behind Logan. “Damn, sometimes I forget how much you guys can see into my apartment.” Squinting my eyes, I can spot my marble kitchen island from here.
Logan turns around, looking out the windows and across the street. Facing me again, she can’t hold back her blushed smile as her dimples pop out.
“Trust me. We don’t forget. Do you know how many times Eli or I have caught you with someone in your kitchen? Why do you think we installed these drapes?” She motions towards the extra-long black-out curtains currently pushed to the wall, letting the sunshine through. “I’m surprised I haven’t gouged my eyeballs out yet.”
“You know how many women would kill to have your guys’ view? Just appreciate the show.”
“So gross,” she giggles.
I laugh right along with her before noting the shift in her expression.
“Eli said your mom got ahold of your sister.”
I let out a heavy sigh, but I’m also kind of thankful for this topic change. Logan is sort of my makeshift therapist, regardless that I have a licensed one I see once or twice a week. I tell Logan almost everything, and I’ve needed to get this off my chest since that night in Denver.
“Yeah, Lindsey said she’s been blowing her up nonstop, trying to get in touch with me.”
“I’m sorry, Zee. Is there anything we can do?”
“I don’t know. Just hope she doesn’t show up again or get my number, I guess.”
Logan stays silent for a moment before her eyes dart to me then back to the ground. “Have you told your dad?”
Have I told my dad? I haven’t told my dad much of anything since I left his house for college. He isn’t exactly the most caring or supportive man these days. I don’t think he could give two shits about the fact I’m a professional athlete, making millions of dollars a year. Which vastly contradicts my mother’s current intentions for wanting to worm her way into my life.
He wasn’t always this way, though. In fact, when I was a kid, we couldn’t have been closer. My dad was at every one of my travel hockey tournaments. We would talk sports all day, he’d help me work on my technique in the backyard, and he was always on my ass about my grades, knowing I needed to keep them up in order to qualify for a scholarship.
My dad is an overall good person, but he buried himself in work as soon as my mom left us. Maybe he was trying to be the man she wanted, or at the least make the kind of money she wanted, hoping she would come back to him, I’m not sure. But he abandoned me like my mother did, just in a different way.
He no longer cared about my grades or came to watch me play high school hockey. Instead, he would stay late at work, distracting himself from his broken heart. By the time he would come home, I was usually in bed after microwaving something to eat for dinner. Lindsey was already off at college at the time, and I had never felt so alone.
That’s when the panic attacks started. That’s when the anger started. That’s when the constant reminder that no one loved me started. That’s when I realized no one had ever loved me enough to stick around.
It wasn’t until years later, when I was in my third year of college, that I started going to therapy and working on my shit. I realized it was no one else’s responsibility to love me. So, I started loving myself. No one else was going to.
“Zee,” Logan softly says.
“Hmm?” Pulling myself out of the daze of my past, I softly stroke MJ’s swaddle with my thumb as he sleeps soundly in my arms.
“Have you told your dad that your mom has been trying to reach you?”