Here's the second chapter I promised for you all. Hope you enjoy x
Danny stood outside Grace's school, waiting for the bell to go and his daughter to come running out. He'd left Rachel's house about half an hour ago. Understandably, she had been quite shocked when he told her he had taken in his ex-girlfriend's daughter, but she understood why Danny had agreed to take her in. Her only worry was how it would affect Grace.
"What if Grace becomes jealous of Jodie?" Rachel asked worriedly, as the two of them sat on the sofa.
"What do you mean by that?" Danny replied, frowning. "What, do you think that I'm going to pay more attention to Jodie and forget about my own daughter? I would never forget about Grace and she knows that. I think Grace will enjoy having Jodie around the house; she'll enjoy having a girl friend to go to the beach with and shopping with and whatever else you girlies like to do."
Rachel smiled slightly. "I know, but still, I'm just concerned about she will adjust to having a complete stranger move in with you."
"That's why I came to tell you now," Danny said, biting his lip. "I'm going to meet up with Bethany later to meet Jodie, and I want to bring Grace along, so Jodie can get to know her and know that she'll have at least one friend here; someone that she knows she can go to if she's having a hard time at school or something."
Rachel frowned at her ex-husband. "Really? Don't you think it would a better idea to explain to her what you've decided, and then take her to meet Jodie at a later date?"
Danny shook his head. "No. Bethany doesn't have any longer than a month left, so I want to get Jodie acquainted with Grace quickly, so she doesn't feel completely alone when we move her in."
Rachel nodded. "Alright then. I suppose it would be a good idea for Grace to get to know her before she moves in. You can pick her up after school today. Bring her back by eight o'clock, though, please."
Danny smiled and nodded. "I will. Thanks for this."
She returned the smile. "You're welcome, Daniel. And I'm proud of what you're doing for Bethany."
"Thanks." Danny turned and headed towards the front door. "I'll bring Grace back later. Bye, Rach." He opened the door, walked down to the car and left, heading towards Grace's school.
Danny was brought back to the present by the loud ringing of the school bell, and walked across the street as the double doors opened and the children flooded down the stairs. He searched the throng for his daughter and spotted her at the top of the steps, searching for her mother.
"Gracie, over here!" he called to her, waving his hand.
Grace's face lit up when she her dad waving to her. She ran down the steps towards him and threw her arms around him. "Where's Mom?" she asked as she withdrew from the hug.
"She's at home, Monkey. There's been a change in plans today," Danny replied, crouching down to look at his daughter.
Grace cocked her head and looked carefully at Danny. "Danno, why are you sad?"
Danny pretended and gave her a puzzled look. "Why do you think I'm sad?"
"You've got a sad look on your face. You're trying to hide it, but it's in your eyes as well," Grace explained with a perception beyond her eleven years.
Danny smiled slightly at her intuition; no doubt a Williams trait. "You're right, baby; I am kinda sad." He paused for a moment, trying to think how to explain this to her. "I need to tell you something, Grace. Come on; I'll tell you in the car."
The two of them crossed the street towards the Camaro and got in. Once she had her belt buckled, Grace turned to look at Danny. "Is this about why you're sad, Danno?"
"Yeah, it is, Monkey," Danny said, nodding his head. "An old friend of mine came to see me today. I haven't seen her in years, but she wanted me to do something for her." Danny paused and glanced at his daughter quickly, wondering how she would take this. "She wants me to look after her daughter."
"Why?" Grace asked a confused expression on her face. "Why does she need you to look after her daughter?"
"She's very sick, Grace, and she wants to make sure that her daughter will be taken care of."
"But what about her own daddy? Why can't he look after her?"
Danny sighed. "Grace, you know how some people have mommies or daddies that aren't very nice?" Grace nodded. "Well, Jodie's daddy is like that; he's not a nice person, and my friend doesn't want Jodie to have to grow up with that."
"Okay. But is there no-one else in her family?"
Danny shook his head. "No, there isn't. She has no grandparents or aunts or uncles like you do."
"Okay," Grace said again. Her face lit up as she thought of something. "So are you going to be Jodie's new daddy, then?"
Danny chuckled, but he started thinking about it. Was he effectively becoming Jodie's dad, or was he just taking in a young girl? "I don't know, Grace," he replied honestly. "All I know right now is that I'm trying to give someone a good home." Grace nodded, but still didn't look 100% happy about it. "What's with the unhappy face, huh? Don't you want me to take her in?"
Grace shook her head. "No, it's not that. It's just… Will she like me?" Grace asked in a quiet voice. "What if I say something to upset her? What if she runs away because she hates me so much?"
Danny was amazed – and at the same time creeped out – by how much Grace was like him. She was worrying about the same things as him: would Jodie run away because of them? Would they be able to take care of her?
He chuckled and stroked her head. "What are you talking about? How could Jodie not like you? She'll love you. It's impossible to not like someone as sweet as you. So stop worrying about what could happen."
Grace smiled at him. "Okay, Danno. When are we going to meet Jodie?"
"We're going to go see her now. That's why I'm picking you up today." He turned the key in the ignition and looked at Grace again. "I know this is all very sudden and just out-of-the-blue, but I want Jodie to have at least one friend here – someone she can talk to if she's struggling to fit in or something – and I know that you'll be a great friend to Jodie."
The little girl's smile got bigger and she nodded. "Of course I will Danno! Now come on; I want to meet her!"
Danny chuckled and drove out of the car park and headed for Bethany's hotel.
A little under an hour later, Danny and Grace were standing outside Bethany's hotel room at the Pacific Beach Hotel. Danny knocked on the door and looked down at Grace.
"Remember what I said in the car, alright? Jodie might be a little withdrawn, but don't hold that against her, okay? She is going through a really hard time, after all."
Grace looked up at him and nodded. "I will, Danno," she promised just as the door opened.
Bethany smiled when she saw Danny standing there. She came out and hugged Danny again. "Thanks for coming round," she said as she pulled back and looked down at Grace. "And you must be Grace, right?"
Grace smiled at her and nodded. "Yeah. How do you know my daddy?"
"We were really good friends in high school," Bethany explained carefully. Grace seemed to accept that and Bethany stepped back to let Danny and Grace enter.
Through the open doors, Danny saw Jodie sitting alone on the balcony. "Why don't you go and talk to Jodie first?" he whispered to Grace and smiled as she nodded and ran off towards the doors, before looking at Bethany.
"How is she taking it?"
Bethany sighed. "As well as can be expected, I suppose," she replied. Her sad eyes met Danny's concerned ones. "I'm really worried about her, Danny. Normally, she's happy and outgoing and always bubbly. But now she's really quiet and reserved. I don't know what to do."
"There's not much you can do, I'm afraid," Danny sighed. "All you can do is to remind her how much you love her and spend as much time with her as possible."
Bethany nodded. "Yeah, you're right. There's just so much I want to do with her, and I don't have enough time to…" Bethany trailed off as she closed her eyes tight, pressing her mouth into a thin, hard line and raising her hand to rub her temple.
Danny frowned, recognising the obvious signs of pain. "You alright there, Bethany?"
Slowly, she nodded her head. "Yeah, it's just… My pain medication has a few side effects. Fatigue and headaches."
Danny nodded in understanding. "Why don't you go and rest for a bit, while I go talk to Jodie?"
"Okay." Bethany turned and walked into the bedroom, shutting the door behind her.
Danny watched her go, before turning as well and walking out onto the balcony. Jodie was sitting on one of the chairs. He took in her appearance, noting how much like her mother she was. She had the same curly black hair as Bethany, although hers was longer. Jodie had a half fringe, sweeping down to the left side, which fell into her eyes, and it was all Danny could do not to reach forwards and brush it back. Her eyes were the same hazel shade as Bethany's. The only difference Danny could see between mother and daughter was that Jodie's eyes were rounder than Bethany's almond-shaped ones. Her long slender legs were pulled up to her chest. Jodie had her arms wrapped them, and she was fiddling with a large blue ring on her middle right finger. Grace was chatting away to her, trying to draw her out of her shell, but Jodie was ignoring her, just watching the ocean as a soft breeze blew her hair up around her face.
Grace looked up at Danny as he came out. "She won't talk to me, Danno," she whispered to him. "I don't know what to do."
"Remember what I told you when we got here, Grace?" he whispered back and the little girl nodded. "It just takes time and patience, okay?" He straightened up again and looked at the teenager. "Hey Jodie, my name's Danny. Has your mom told you about me?" Jodie continued staring towards the ocean. "You know you're coming to live with me soon, don't you? I thought we could get to know each other before then. So, come on; tell me about yourself." There was still no sound from the girl, though, and Danny sighed. "Jodie, I understand what you're going through. Really, I do."
Jodie snorted softly next to him. Finally, a response, Danny thought to himself as Jodie looked at him. "Really? You understand what it's like to lose the person you love the most, and then be forced to move across the country?"
"Yes, I understand what it's like," Danny calmly replied. "Hawaii wasn't my first choice of residence, you know. I lived in New Jersey all my life – grew up there, and got married there. And then I got divorced, and my ex-wife and her new husband moved here and brought Grace with them. I didn't want to lose her, so I followed them. I moved 5000 miles to see my daughter every other weekend. I know what it's like to move somewhere you don't know anyone and you have to rebuild your life from scratch."
"Okay, I get it," Jodie snapped, glaring at Danny. "You moved across the country to be with your daughter, and you don't know no-one here. I get it. But you still got your daughter, and I got no-one. So you don't know what it's like."
"I do know, actually," Danny repeated. "Yes, I still have my daughter, but I've still lost people who are really close to me." He paused, trying to force himself to tell the story. "When I was a kid, I had a best friend; Billy. We'd been best friends since the first grade. We always did everything together – we were on the baseball team together; we were in each other's classes; we spent every weekend round each other's house; and we would always go down to arcade every Friday night and spend all our pocket money there.
Jodie's angry look faded into one of curiousness. "What happened to Billy?" she asked quietly.
Danny sighed. "He drowned. We would always go up to this place called Wildwood every single year, every summer, and we loved it. We would always challenge each other with games and the like, and one year, I challenged him to race me to one of the buoys and back again, and naturally, he accepted. So, off we go, and halfway out, I get stuck in a really bad riptide. Billy sees me, struggling to stay above the water, and he swam back to help me and he got pulled in as well. I got free of the current, but Billy… Billy wasn't so lucky." Danny looked away from Jodie and discreetly wiped at his eyes. "I had such a fear of the water for years afterwards; I didn't like going near the water, and it wasn't until I moved here that I went back in the ocean."
Grace was surprised by her Danno's story; she had never heard him say anything about a Billy before, and he'd never shown any kind of fear in front of her before. She felt an urge to comfort him, as she could see that Danny was upset, but she knew that her dad thought Jodie was the one who really deserved the sympathy right now.
"I miss my Uncle Matty," she said, trying to reconnect with Jodie. "A year after we moved here, Uncle Matty came to visit us, and I was really excited that he was going to visit. But something happened, and he left without saying goodbye. Danno and Mom told me that Uncle Matty had done something bad, so he had to face his punishment and we wouldn't see him for a long time. I was really upset, but Danno was more upset, and I thought that we could help each other get over it."
Danny watched his daughter with a proud look on his face as she spoke, sounding incredibly mature. He looked at Jodie again. "I loved your mother at one point, and I have fond memories of her too. I'm really going to miss when she's gone. You're not alone in this."
Jodie looked at Danny for a moment more before looking away again. "I'm going to miss her so much," she whispered.
Danny nodded understandingly. "I know you will, sweetheart. But, like we said, you're not alone in it." He stood up and Grace did as well. "We're going to go now, but I'm going to come back tomorrow and we can get to know each other a little bit better then, okay?"
Jodie nodded before standing up abruptly and hugging Danny and then Grace. She stepped and bit her lip, feeling awkward. "Thank you… for letting me live with you."
Danny smiled at her. "You're welcome, Jodie. I'll see you tomorrow, 'kay?"
The teenager cracked a little smile and nodded. "Yeah. Tomorrow."
Danny continued smiling and nodded. "Bye Jodie. Come on, Monkey; let's go home."
The two of them left the hotel room and walked back down the corridor. When they got to the elevator, Danny looked down at Grace and asked, "What do you think of Jodie, then?"
Grace hesitated before answering. "I like her, but she's really sad. I feel really sorry for her."
Danny nodded in agreement. "I do too, Monkey. But we're going to make sure Jodie remembers her mother loved her very much and she still has people in the world who love her. Right?"
Grace smiled and bobbed her head up and down. "Right!"
Send me a review and tell me what you think. Thanks x
