Big Nick Energy by Lani Lynn Vale

Author:Lani Lynn Vale [Vale, Lani Lynn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lani Lynn Vale
Published: 2023-12-18T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER 2

I think my clutch is gone. I can’t get my butt in gear.

-Kristoff to Marlow

KRISTOFF

I saw her from across the entire circus.

She was hard to miss, actually.

She was wearing neon.

Bright green short shorts that looked freakin’ delectable against her lightly tanned skin.

But what surprised me was her hand.

Her hand that was wrapped around a little one that she clearly was enjoying being around.

In that moment, everything had changed.

“Thank you, Amber,” I said quietly. “Hope you have a great Christmas.”

Amber, the circus’s childcare giver, waved and skipped off with a sweet, “You, too, Kristoff. Love ya!”

Amber was a sweet girl.

But that was exactly what she was. A girl.

Ulitza pressed her hand to my throat and said, “Cookies!”

I patted her thigh and tucked her closer into my arms.

It was cold out today, and the weatherman said that there was only a matter of time before it snowed.

“You have a baby,” she said, sounding tongue-tied.

I looked at my daughter, then back at her.

Ulitza looked at Marlow, too.

Damn, she was pretty.

“The day I stood you up was the day I found out that I had a kid,” I said softly. “I went to the airport to meet you, and instead flew out on the first flight available to go pick her up. Her mom had left her in the hospital with a note with my name on it.”

Her mouth fell open.

“You could’ve told me that,” she pointed out.

I winced. “You said you didn’t want kids.”

“You heard what you wanted,” she corrected me.

I opened my mouth, then closed it.

“I might have,” I admitted. “But that wasn’t something that I could control at the time. When I finally got everything under control…let’s just say I didn’t think anyone would want to deal with that when we were literally just meeting for the first time.”

She ground her teeth together, causing the molars in her jaw to work.

“I told you that I had my own issues,” she said. “You said that we could handle them together. Why wouldn’t you give me the same courtesy?”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

Because honestly, that had been something I’d said to her.

And when she put it that way, it did make me sound bad.

“I…”

She sighed when her phone dinged with a message.

With one last longing look at me, she placed the headphones over her ears and turned around, dismissing me without a word.

I watched her go, and I had a sudden, terrible feeling that if I didn’t follow her right now, I’d never get the same chance again.

I started moving, unable to stop myself, following her through the circus.

When she got to a spot near the middle, she met up with her friend who’d stepped in front of her earlier, obviously stopping a freakout before it happened.

I remembered her telling me about her issues.

I had said that I would be willing to help her in any way I could, if only she gave me a chance.

And it broke my heart a little bit that in the year and five months since we’d talked, she hadn’t progressed at all.

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