1. Leo

Chapter one

Leo

“ H appy twenty-three, Daddy!” Maya shouts as she bounces on my bed. I peek an eye open and peer over at my daughter. She’s kneeling on the bed with a wide grin on her face. She’s fully dressed in a puffy yellow dress that reminds me of Belle’s signature gown from Beauty and the Beast . “Get up. Get up. It’s our birthday!”

“Happy Birthday, baby girl,” I reply.

She scrunches her face. “You don’t need to call me that anymore.”

“Is that so?”

She pouts, placing her tiny hands on her hips and a determined look on her face. “I’m not a baby girl anymore. I’m six today.”

I laugh. “Oh, well excuse me, yesterday you were my baby girl, but today you are what? What should I call you?”

“Your birthday girl!” Maya cheers. She isn’t wrong. I’ve always considered Maya to be my birthday miracle. Even when the little brat jolts me from sleep.

She bounces again. “Now, hurry up and get dressed. Uncle June and Uncle Alec will be here any moment.”

I groan. “Okay, okay. Heaven forbid a guy ask for five more minutes under his warm blankets.” I tug the sheets higher up my body. “It’s my birthday too, you know,” I murmur.

In reply, Maya rips the blankets clean off the bed before she takes off giggling and she runs into the next room. When the hell did she get so strong? If you would have asked me seven years ago, I could never have imagined this would be my life. Not in my wildest dreams.

I chuckle silently, trying to envision asking my teenage self where I’d be five years in the future. I probably would have replied with some cocky response about the NFL. Not that I was that good, but as a teen, I thought I was. When I was sixteen, I met Nancy, a sassy, smart cheerleader with more talent than I possessed in my pinky toe. I was completely smitten. We dated for three months, walking the halls of Frostdale High like we owned the place.

And just like the cliché from a teen movie, we were crowned king and queen of our prom. Later that night, she took my virginity. And yes, she took my virginity. Here I was trying to be a gentleman, and Nancy was the one with all the experience. She reassured me several times that she was on birth control, and to stop worrying. But thanks to my paranoia, I insisted we still use a condom—not that it mattered in the end. Her parents were livid about the pregnancy, but didn’t believe in abortion. They wanted Nancy to put her up for adoption, but I couldn’t imagine giving up my child to some strangers. Fast forward nine months, and Maya was born, on my birthday, no less. The moment I saw her, I knew she was mine.

My baby girl.

To my shock, my parents were very supportive. Sure, my dad was disappointed that I wouldn’t be fulfilling his dreams of getting drafted into the NFL, but ultimately, he was proud of me for wanting to take care of my daughter, despite knowing how hard it would be. Their belief in me meant the world when I conveyed that Nancy and I practiced safe sex. Either way, it didn’t matter.

While Nancy was pregnant, I prioritized her care and maintaining good grades to ensure graduation. My dreams of football shifted into white picket fences and nights spent with Nancy and my baby. But as soon as Maya was born, Nancy changed. I don’t know if it was her parents’ influence or if she always planned on moving on as if she never gave birth, but as soon as Nancy graduated high school, she gave up her parental rights and moved away.

Nancy still called on Christmas and our birthdays, but other than being a stranger on the phone, Maya has never really spent any time with her mother.

“Daddy! Let’s go!” Maya shouted from her room just as there was a knock on the door. “Uncle June is here!”

Swinging my legs over the edge of the bed, I get up and head to the bathroom, where I splash water on my face and style back my blond hair. Just as I jump into a pair of clean jeans and throw on a royal-blue hoodie, my brother, June, knocks lightly on my bedroom door and enters.

“Hey there, baby bro.” June grins, placing a light blue gift bag on my dresser. “You can open this later—after we leave.”

“Thank you.” I chuckle at June’s endearment of ‘ baby bro,’ and shake my head. “Maya told me not to call her baby girl anymore.”

June’s face scrunches in confusion. “Why the hell not? You’ve been calling her that since she was born.”

“She’s six years old now.” My grin grows wider. “She told me she isn’t a baby anymore.”

June’s eyes widen with shock. “Oh god. At this rate, it’s just a matter of time before she’s graduating high school and heading off to college.”

“Damn. Don’t even joke about that,” I say. “I want to savor my time with the little one.” If I had it my way, I would slow down time, just a little. It almost feels as if she was born just a year ago.

Together, we head out into the living room, where I see Maya and Alec, June’s fiancé, hovering over my cell phone. Maya is flipping through the photo album, sharing photos from the play she was in last week. She played the lead role of Goldilocks . June and Alec were right there in the audience, of course, but Maya is extremely proud of her performance and loves showing off the photos I took of her.

June clears his throat. “Hey now, how come Alec gets to see these photos and I don’t?”

Maya bounces on her toes before sprinting over to June and grabbing his hand. She eagerly drags him into the living room and tugs the phone from Alec’s grasp. “Here, let me start over,” she says, as she launches into her story.

My brother leans against his fiancé with a small smile that mirrors my own. Despite Alec’s slimmer and shorter frame, Alec wraps a possessive arm around June before kissing his cheek. A pang of jealousy hits me square in the chest. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for them. Alec has been like a big brother to me over the past several years. He’s been in our lives since Maya was a baby. The man is gorgeous and looks like a supermodel. If anyone deserves someone so beautiful inside and out, it’s June.

But sometimes, in these tender moments like this, I wish someone would care for me the way Alec seems to care for June.

Maya says something that causes June to bark out a laugh, and suddenly, I can’t fight my grin again. Maya always has this way of cheering up the whole room.

Alec looks up at me, eyes sparkling. “There he is. Happy birthday, Leo.” He lets go of June and rushes over to me, before wrapping me up into a hug. “Where’s your roommate?”

My gaze snaps over to my brother and I bite my lip. “He had to move out unexpectedly last week.”

June’s head snaps up, and he arches a brow my way.

I tense, knowing that this would be my brother’s reaction. “We should probably head on out, right?” I try to change the subject. “Don’t we have to get to the bounce house at a specific time?”

Maya squeals, dropping the phone on the soft carpet in her excitement. “The bounce house? Oh my gosh, yes, let’s go. Let’s go.”

Alec’s gaze bounces between my brother and me. I’m sure he can tell that June wants to talk to me in private. Sure enough, Alec reaches for Maya’s hand. “That’s right, it was supposed to be a surprise, but now that the secret’s out, why don’t we put this pretty princess gown away and pick out an outfit that’s better suited for jumping around?”

I wince, realizing I just spilled the beans. “Sorry,” I mouth the words. “I forgot it was supposed to be a surprise. I even have a change of clothes ready for Maya in her backpack.” Alec waves my words away. Meanwhile, June is shooting me a concerned look that has me squirming in my spot.

As soon as we hear Maya and Alec laughing in her bedroom, June speaks up. “Are you going to ask Mom and Dad for help until you find a new roommate?”

I sigh and walk over to my abandoned phone before placing it on the coffee table. “You know I won’t do that.”

“Damn it, Leo. You need to not be so stubborn about this. You’re twenty-three, for shit’s sake. You’re allowed to ask for help sometimes.”

I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter my age. I’m a single father. I can’t go running to my parents anytime I need money. They gave me this house when Grandpa passed. That’s good enough. Anyway, this house isn’t even supposed to be mine. It should be yours. So, I really should be counting my blessings. I can take care of the rest on my own.”

As soon as the words are out, they ring false, even to my own ears. My shoulders tighten with stress. June’s right. I’m in over my head.

Fuck.

If I don’t find a second job soon, I’m going to be forced to ask my parents for help, whether I like it or not.

June’s whole face softens. “What do you mean, ‘ the house should be mine ?’ Grandpa left it to our parents, and they gave it to you after Maya was born. If anyone needs a house more than me, it’s you and that little girl.”

“But you’re my older brother. It should have been passed down to you first.”

“Oh, so when I say you’re twenty-three, it doesn’t matter that you are still considered young. But if we’re talking about a piece of real estate, my age matters, and yours doesn’t? You can’t have it both ways, Leo.”

“It isn’t the same thing.” I scrub a frustrated hand through my hair. “I’m a father.”

“Everyone is allowed to ask for help. And we aren’t living in the eighteen hundreds, or whatever. Our parents were allowed to give you a damn house if they want to. Their place is paid off, Mom and Dad thought I would be living in the city, and you needed a safe place to raise your daughter without the burden of paying rent.” He squeezes my shoulder. “Plus, Alec and I are happy at our place.”

“Regardless, I don’t want to ask Mom and Dad for anything else. Maya’s in school, I love my job, and I just need to find a part-time job that will pull in an extra thousand dollars a month to cover expenses and live comfortably.”

“Have you started applying?”

I nod. “Yeah, but the only thing I can find is seasonal, and those are already taken.”

“They’re looking for an extra elf in Santa’s Village,” Alec says, as he walks back into the living room.

Maya lets out a loud shriek before she barrels past Alec. “Daddy! Is it true? Are you going to be an elf this year? Just like Uncle June was last year?”

My eyes widen with shock, but before I can reply, she reaches for my cell phone and rushes back into her room, clearly on a mission.

I blink. “Oh god, what the hell did you just do?” I whisper to Alec.

He shrugs, a nonchalant tilt to his shoulders. “Sorry?” He puts his hands up in a ‘ what can you do ’ motion.

Yeah. He’s so not sorry.

Maya skips back into the room with my phone pressed to her ear. “It’s true, Uncle Jingle! Daddy wants to audition for Santa’s workshop. He wants to be an elf just like you and work with Santa.”

My mouth falls open. Oh god, is she on the phone with Shae? An image of my friend, who might as well be Christmas-personified, pops into my head. Shae has been working as the lead mall elf since high school. And not because he needs the job, but because he loves it. He’s the last person my daughter should be talking to if I don’t want to be a mall elf.

Alec chuckles next to me. “Looks like you’ll have a job by the end of the week.”

Maya hangs up the phone and squeals. “Daddy, get your pretty clothes ready. You have an interview tomorrow! Shae is a big, fancy musical elf, traveling around with the orchestra. Santa needs a new elf as soon as possible.”

Alec claps me on the back. “I’ll get you Benny’s number. He’s the one making the costumes this year.”

June barks out a laugh. “You know you’re going to have to come up with an elf name, right?”

Maya jumps up and down, her pigtails bouncing.

I roll my eyes but can’t help the smile that spreads across my face. I never imagined I’d be an elf, but as soon as some of that stress leaves my body and my muscles relax, the idea kind of appeals to me.

“Okay then, baby girl. What should my elf name be?”

She doesn’t even notice that I just called her ‘ baby girl ,’ since she’s too wrapped up in her excitement. With no hesitation on her part, she squeals again.

“SparkleDust!”