Page 82 of My Big Fat Daddy Issues

The unmade bed takes up most of the space. Her things are tossed in a box. There are a few books, a phone charger, a wadded-up shirt. The quilt is in a lump under the bed like it's nothing.

"Hey." I catch her wrist. "I got you, baby. You need zero courage. I'm right next to you."

She nods and pulls the quilt from under the bed and folds it with a tenderness that makes my chest ache.

It all fits in one bag. Not much to show for whatever she gave this kid, and the anger I've been filing away builds until it pounds at my temples.

Back in the living room with Wren under the crook of my arm, Dylan's on the couch, phone in hand, one ankle on his knee. He looks up as Wren slings the bag over her shoulder.

"So that's it?" Manufactured boredom. "You're really doing this."

"I'm really doing this."

"Over one mistake." He shakes his head and my jaw cracks.

Color climbs Wren's neck and I watch her teeth work her bottom lip, biting back what she wants to say because she doesn't want to give him the satisfaction. I wait ready to give her whatever she fucking needs right now.

"It wasn't a mistake, Dylan." Steel fills her spine with me next to her. "A mistake is, like, forgetting to text me back. You fucked someone else and then told me it was my fault."

Dylan shakes his head and stands. I step forward.

His eyes slide to me, then back to Wren. "Running to your big, scary stepdaddy? I told you you had Daddy issues."

Wren flinches.

Every rational thought in my head goes quiet. Fuck this. I lean down and tongue fuck her mouth in a kiss that leaves no fucking doubt exactly why I'm here.

"What the fu—" Dylan starts, dropping his phone but I break from her lips and butt his sternum with the base of my palm.

"Sit back down."

Dylan turns to me with the amplified bravery of someone who has never been hit. "Or what? You're, like five years older than her mom old man. And, speaking of your mom, I'm gonna give her another call and let her know this shit—"

He reaches for her arm.

Control no longer registers on my frontal lobe. One second his hand is moving toward her and the next his spine is flat against the wall with my forearm across his throat and his feet are scrambling for purchase on the floor below them.

His eyes go saucer-wide.

I lean in. "You don't touch her. You don't call her. You don't text her. You don't say her name to any-fucking-one. You don't drive past her on the street. If you think about her, I'll fucking know and your thinking days will be over." I exhale in his face. "She was never yours. You just had proximity and she was kind and naïve enough to let you fucking in. That's my fault, but it won't happen again, I fucking assure you."

His throat bobs. I can feel his pulse hammering through my forearm.

"Nod that you understand."

He does.

I hold him long enough for the memory to set permanently in his gray matter then release. He sags against the wall, hands on his knees.

I straighten my shirt. Wren is by the door, bag over her shoulder. Eyes wide, lips parted, chest rising fast. She's so fucking beautiful I want to spread her out right here and make this sack of cuck shit watch what fucking a girl like a man really means.

I think she'd be down for it as well by the way she's shifting her thighs together, a ghost of a smile on her lips. She doesn't think I notice. She blinks, trying to look innocent as her eyes catch mine.

I notice everything about this woman. It's a sickness I have no interest in curing.

"Ready?" I ask.

She nods. "Yes, Daddy." She tosses a smirk toward Dylan and walks out without looking back.