7. Felix

CHAPTER SEVEN

felix

“Man, she’s a happy baby.” I smile at Hazel as she sits on the folded blanket and plays around with her toys—yes, another purchase. But how could I not buy her toys?

I might be attached.

This could be a problem.

“Yeah. I have no idea where she got that from.” I look up at Henry from my position on the floor with Hazel and see him gazing at her with so much damn love in his eyes. Man, he’s beautiful. His lips are pulled up in a small smile, his cheekbones cut sharp, and his longish sandy-blond hair frames his face perfectly.

But not only that—he’s a good person too. I don’t know what brought him here, or what landed them in the shelter, but he loves his daughter more than anything, and it shows. He’s also really great in the gym—knowledgeable and helpful.

Okay . . . so maybe after two weeks, I’m getting a little attached to both of them.

I look at the cute baby girl who’s now six months old. “Not from her mother?” I had to ask. His expression darkens, but he tries to hide it, and I try to lighten the mood a little. “Hey, I waited a whole two weeks to bring it up again.”

He doesn’t smile, but his expression does lift a little. “Maggie.”

“Maggie,” I say the name softly, playing with Hazel’s toy until she takes it from my hand and rattles it around, making as much sound as she can.

“I met her in foster care.” My chest clenches tight, hearing that, but I keep my mouth shut. “I told you my parents weren’t really in the picture. They couldn’t get their shit together long enough to keep custody of me past age five. I bounced around a lot, and when I was fourteen, I met Maggie.”

“Was she in foster care too?” I climb off the floor and sit on the couch with him.

“Yeah, but not for as long as I was. We met in a group home, where they dumped us between more permanent placements.”

“Are group homes co-ed?” I don’t know much about the foster care system, but I didn’t think so.

“Everything was full. I was lucky to get a bed in there that night, but they moved me out quickly. We didn’t have cellphones or anything, but I managed to keep track of Mags.”

I hear the pain in his words and almost tell him to stop, but my curiosity is too great. Who is she? Why isn’t she here now? How can she leave Hazel and Henry? Surely it wasn’t her choice.

“When we graduated from high school, we moved into our own place. A shitty little studio apartment in a horrible neighborhood, but it was ours. Well, ours to rent,” he says with a sad smile. “We got jobs at a little casino, and we were doing really well. I mean, it was more stability than we ever knew.”

I listen, nodding slowly as my eyes drift to the baby, lying on her belly, now fast asleep. I’m shocked she fell asleep so suddenly and turn to Henry, not wanting to change the subject now that he’s finally talking to me . . . but seriously? Is that normal? “Did she really just fall asleep, playing like that?”

He looks at Hazel with that sweet gaze he reserves only for her, and then back at me. “Oh, yeah. Totally normal. She plays hard, and she sleeps hard.”

I smile and feel a wave of nerves come over me that I may have ruined the moment. Still—I had to check. “Please go on,” I say, barely recognizing my own voice because it’s so quiet.

I want to hear the details of his life so badly.

“Mags always liked to go to parties. Even when we were fourteen, she drank as much as she could at those things. I’d go along. It scared the hell out of me, thinking about her at those places and what could happen . . .” He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat, and I hear the worry in his words. “But when we got our own place . . . she seemed better. More at peace.”

He looks at me, like maybe he thinks what he said doesn’t make sense. But I understand and tell him so with a nod. We’re sitting close on the couch, and every part of me wants to reach out. Comfort him somehow. But I don’t move.

“But then, things started to change. I don’t really know when exactly. She started missing work. She was moody. She didn’t really want to do anything. I thought maybe she was depressed . . .”

I listen to him, my heart aching.

“I found her one day in our apartment. I used my break to go check on her because she didn’t show up for work.” His voice is strained. Broken. “She was passed out with a needle in her arm.”

“You don’t have to keep going,” I say, almost afraid of where this story leads.

“I thought she was gone.” He looks pale, and I move closer to him, almost unwillingly. “But she woke up. High as hell and totally out of it, but alive. Turns out, she’d been using for a while. And I didn’t know.”

“She was an addict?” I ask quietly.

He nods. “I knew she still drank a lot. She didn’t have a good childhood. It was . . .”—he swallows thickly and then clears his throat—“bad. Really bad. I know she looked to alcohol to quiet her mind, but I never saw that coming. She promised me she’d stop, that she could control it. I tried to help her.” His eyes move to his still-sleeping daughter and then back to me. “I took her to meetings. She’d get better, but then she’d fall back into it again.”

“Addiction is hard to overcome.” I don’t tell him, but I’ve volunteered a lot at shelters, and I’ve met plenty of people struggling with addiction. It’s painful to watch because you know they want to beat it, but some just can’t. Some can only find peace from the hell that plagues them in that high. It’s the only thing that shuts down their thoughts.

“We’d fight a lot. She’d leave for days, but she always came back. And when she came back sober, I’d see the real her—the Maggie I loved more than anything, the girl who was always by my side and loved me.”

I nod and take his hand, afraid he might pull away, but needing him to feel my understanding. He doesn’t jerk away from me. He lets me hold onto his hand, and I breathe a sigh of relief.

“When she told me she was pregnant, I’d never felt so afraid.” I can’t imagine. “She swore she was clean and that she’d stay that way. I’d always been so careful. The thought of making a baby terrified me. But she’d been sober for months, and I slipped up.”

I look over at the sweet, sleeping baby, with her chubby little cheek smashed against the blanket, then look back at him and smile. “She’s perfect.”

He cracks a small smile and nods solemnly. “Yeah I guess the universe knew better than me. And Mags, she did so well. She stayed sober. She drank lots of water and ate healthy. Went to all her appointments. I thought . . .” His voice cracks, and I pull him to me in a side hug.

He surprises me by leaning his head on my shoulder while still letting me hold his hand.

“I thought maybe the baby had healed her in ways nothing else could. I had so much damn hope.”

“What happened?” I ask cautiously.

He doesn’t speak, but his entire body becomes rigid next to mine.

“She’s gone.”

My heart squeezes in my chest, and I don’t want to force him to say anything else.

I smooth my hand over his hair and just let him lie against me, trying not to breathe in the scent of his shampoo, desperately trying not to get too attached to this sweet, broken man.

Because I know myself, and that’s kind of my thing. I want to make things better. But I swear it started as just wanting to be his friend. To help.

But as I stroke his hair and think about everything he’s been through, I know in my heart it’s so much more.

And that . . . is a big, big problem.