Total pages in book: 197
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
But he’d really love the new days they would have, too.
“I love you, too, Lucia,” he murmured. “Always.”
“Can we stop at The Shop?”
“They don’t even have clothes for little girls there. That’s for big girls like ma.”
“Yeah, but, please?”
Lord.
He did not know how to tell his kid no.
“Yeah, we’ll stop. See if we can find something for you.”
“And if we can’t?”
Lucian grinned down at his girl. “Then, we’ll find something to bring home to Ma.”
“Yas!”
Lucian made sure to keep his promise to his daughter, but then again, he always did. It was the one thing he wanted all his children to be able to count on where he was concerned. It didn’t matter what he promised to them—he would make it happen.
He was their dad.
Dads never failed.
His never did.
After they’d gotten Lucia’s gelato, stopped at The Shop—which they ended up finding something for Lucia and Jordyn—Lucian buckled his youngest daughter into her booster seat while the sky started to darken overhead. By the time he got on the highway and headed home, he bet Lucia would already be asleep. If she was tired, she could barely stand to stay awake in a moving vehicle. It was sweet, really.
All over again, like earlier in the day, his tired little girl looked up at him with her wide eyes that matched his but a face that matched her mother’s and asked, “Daddy?”
“Hmm, yes?”
“What’s that one for?”
“What do you mean?”
Lucia reached out and grabbed his hand in her much smaller one. Before he really understood what she wanted or was doing, she flipped his hand over and then pointed with her tiny index finger at the black heart—smaller than a penny—tattooed on the inside of his palm.
As Lucian had gotten older, he tattooed his body less and less. Instead, he found himself maintaining the tattoos he loved the most, or otherwise, covering ones he wished he had never gotten in the first place.
“This one—the little heart,” Lucia said. “What’s it for? Your wings are like Uncle Dante and Gio’s, right?”
Lucian grinned. “Something like theirs, yes.”
“Did you just like hearts, Daddy?”
Kids, man.
So innocent.
“It’s where I hold my love the safest,” he told his girl, “right in the palm of my hand.”
She peered up at him. “Oh.”
Once, a long time ago, Jordyn asked Lucian why he didn’t have a tattoo for love. So, he got one. And there, in the palm of his hand, he kept it safe.
Lucia bent down and kissed the little heart.
Lucian kissed the top of her head.
“Love you, Daddy.”
“Love you, Lucia.”
The Kids
“Absolutely not.”
“But why, Daddy? Aren’t I pretty?”
Lucian pressed his lips together, and glanced sideways to catch his wife’s eye from across the kitchen table. How did one tell their eight year old that, no, she didn’t look pretty after getting into her mother’s makeup—for the tenth time, at least—and hell to the fuck no, she would not be going to school the next day looking like a clown.
His mother had once told him that fathers were the first defense in their daughter’s lives. The men they watched around them set the tones for the rest of their lives. How they treated their little girls could affect so much. He tried to remember that in times like these, referring back to his ma’s statement as a reminder, but also as a reference.
He didn’t think this fell into that category of things he shouldn’t say, but as he didn’t grow up with sisters, he wasn’t a female, and he sure as fuck didn’t wear makeup, he wasn’t sure what he should say. Instead, he looked to his wife for help.
Jordyn stayed stone-faced.
Because of course.
He hoped she saw the pleading in his eyes.
The terror.
And that she was happy.
“Daddy?”
Lucian let out a sigh, and turned to face his daughter. Leaning down a bit so the two of them could be pretty much eye-level, he said, “You always look pretty—always.”
Liliana beamed.
“But you can’t wear that to school, and you need to go wash it off your face.”
“But why?”
“Pimples.”
Lucian glanced up as his fourteen year old son waltzed into the kitchen when he was supposed to be upstairs studying. But as he just helped his father, likely knowing it too, he chose not to tell his son to get his ass back upstairs.
“What?” Liliana gasped.
She was a good five years or so away from even having to worry about a fucking pimple ... but John was in full blown puberty, which meant his younger sisters got to see him battle with all the fun shit that came along with it.
Liliana’s greatest fear?
Pimples.
Putting her fists to her hips, Liliana turned to face her brother who was currently heading for the fridge—fuck, he never stopped eating. Ever. Like never. Lucian couldn’t remember if he and his brothers had ate as much and as often as his son did, but he made a mental note to ask his mother, eventually.