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He shut that thought down because it was stupid to try to lie to himself. He’d known the truth, known the moment she placed her fingers over his lips that she hadn’t been with another man.

“You don’t stop loving someone because they die,” he added.

She looked at him, her face clearing as she considered him.

While Dean wanted to kick his own ass for not talking to her before, he was determined to do all the damage control he could now. The idea that he’d caused her even a second of pain was too brutal to consider.

Victor would kick his ass for making her cry. And Dean fucking deserved it. “And Phil doesn’t disappear just because you and I slept together.”

She pressed her fingers against her mouth, trying to stop another sob.

“God, Viv. You’re allowed to have every single emotion you’re feeling right now. None of it is wrong.”

“It’s too much,” she said quietly. “Too many thoughts and feelings swimming around inside of me. I can’t tell what’s what. What’s right. What’s wrong.”

He leaned his forehead against hers. “Then I’ll tell you. You’re allowed to miss him. You’re not allowed to feel guilty. You’re allowed to be happy. You’re not allowed to feel like you’ve done something wrong. Because you haven’t.”

She squeezed her eyes shut and silence settled between them again.

Eventually, she opened them, looking him straight in the eye. They were dry now, and he could see that the strength he’d always admired in her had returned. “He made me promise him something. Before he died.”

“He did?”

“He made me promise to find love again someday.”

Dean had never met Phil Kelly, but he knew—all the way to the depths of his soul—that he’d been a good man.

“I got so angry with him,” she said, a sad smile flickering.

Dean listened without interrupting. He could tell she wasn’t just relating this story to him. She was reliving that day in her mind, seeking comfort from it.

“I told him he wasn’t the boss of me.” She huffed out a quiet laugh. “We said that to each other a lot. Always as a joke. ‘You’re not the boss of me,’” she reiterated, in a playfully bratty tone.

“What did he say to that?” he asked.

“He didn’t laugh like he usually did. Phil laughed a lot, so the fact that he didn’t crack a smile told me how sincere he was. He said, ‘I’m serious, Vivi’—he called me Vivi.”

“I like it.”

“He said, ‘Don’t spend forty years missing me.’”

Dean’s chest tightened.

“He said our daughter deserved to see me happy.”

“You knew you were having a little girl?”

She nodded. “We were afraid he wouldn’t make it to her birth, though God knows, he tried. We had all the tests done because he was desperate to know. He’d been thrilled the day we found out I was having a girl.”

“Did he help you pick out her name?”

Vivian made a sour face, and Dean laughed despite the heaviness of their conversation. “He kept pushing for Roxanne. It was his beloved grandmother’s name, and he thought Roxie was an adorable nickname for a little girl. I did not agree. Plus, the idea of people belting out the chorus of ‘Roxanne,’” she sang the name loudly instead of saying it, “every time she introduced herself felt like me punishing her for all time.”

“A valid point. Obviously, you didn’t go for his name.”

Vivian shrugged. “I sort of did. She was born a month after he died, and I missed him so fucking much. When I saw her sweet, scrunched-up little face right after delivery, I knew I wanted to honor him…and his grandma. Phillipa Roxanne Kelly. I’d intended to use the nickname Roxie, but Victor hated it. He started calling her Pip when he thought I wasn’t around to hear him. Then Belle picked it up, and I realized Vic had found the truly adorable nickname. That’s the one that stuck, and honestly, I’m sure if Phil had heard it, he would have loved it too.”

“It fits her,” Dean said, thinking of Vivian’s young, spirited, energetic daughter. Victor had stepped in following Phil’s death, determined to be a steady, positive male influence in his niece’s life. So he brought her along to lots of things. Charity fundraisers, family picnics with the team, stuff like that. He claimed he did it to give single mom Vivian a break from time to time, but Dean knew Victor brought Pip because he genuinely loved being with the little girl.