Hey babes! Back again with a new one for ya! I wanted to have this up earlier in the month, but time got away from me. I have some time this morning, though, so I'm posting it for you.
Enjoy!
*March*
Pushing open the door to their daughter's bedroom, Grant and Skye peer inside, finding the young girl still asleep buried under the heavy covers on her bed. They push the door open the rest of the way, Max slipping in past them and moving to the edge of the bed.
Stepping inside the room, Grant balances the plate of pancakes in one hand, holding his phone in the other with the camera pulled up and ready to go.
He looks over at Skye and she nods, signaling him to turn on the camera as she inches toward the bed. He starts the recording, a small smile on his face as Skye sits down on the edge of the bed and peels the blanket back away from Jessica's face.
"Jessica," she speaks quietly, gently shaking their daughter to rouse her from her sleeping state. "Jess, wake up, angel."
It takes a moment, but eventually, Jessica turns over slowly and smiles sleepily up at them through a curtain of hair. "Hi."
"Hi, angel," Skye says with a smile, leaning down to press a kiss to the girl's forehead. "Happy birthday."
"Thanks." Her eyes go wide when she sees the pancakes. "Are those for me?"
Grant shakes his head. "Nope. These are mine."
She laughs. "Dad."
Grant returns the laugh. "I'm just kidding. They're for you, of course. And I convinced your mom to let you eat them in your bed just this once," he says with a wink. "So go crazy."
Jessica grins and then begins digging into her pancakes. Grant laughs quietly before stopping the recording and sliding the phone into his back pocket. He stands right beside Skye, smiling when she instinctively leans back against him.
"Please don't make a mess," Skye says, watching as Jessica eats. "The last thing I want to do today is clean syrup out of your sheets."
"Do I have to go to school today?" Jessica asks around a mouthful of pancakes.
Skye nods with a small smile. "Yes, angel, you have to go to school. Just because it's your birthday, it doesn't mean you get to skip school."
Jessica sighs. "Fine. You remembered the cupcakes for my class, right?"
"Absolutely. They're on the kitchen counter waiting to go."
"Awesome. I told everybody I was gonna bring in cupcakes for my birthday and they're all really excited to eat them."
"That's because cupcakes are a staple of any elementary school class birthday party," Grant pipes in, smiling down at his daughter. "I had plenty of in-class parties in elementary school for my birthday. Unlike your mom who has a lame summer birthday," he teases, casting a quick smile at Skye.
"Hey, summer birthdays are not lame," she defends herself. "You can tease me all you want about when my birthday is, but you were always the first to suggest something crazy for my party that would keep us up all night since we didn't have school the next day."
He shrugs. "I took advantage of the whole no-school thing."
She snorts. "Yeah, I know." She looks back at Jessica and smiles at her. "Get dressed when you're done eating and your dad and I will take you to school, okay?"
Jessica nods around a mouthful of pancakes.
Skye just smiles, shaking her head a little as she leans forward to kiss her daughter's forehead. "Happy birthday, angel."
.
.
.
"Hello? Is there a birthday girl somewhere in here?"
Looking up from her friends, a wide smile grows on Jessica's face when she sees the all-too-familiar man standing in the doorway to the apartment, a small smile on his face. "Miles!" She jumps up from her spot and darts over to him, immediately wrapping her arms around him in a hug. "What are you doing here?" she asks, leaning back to look up at him.
He smiles down at her. "Well, I've been there for every other one of your birthdays, right?"
She nods. "Yeah."
"And just because your mom and I aren't together anymore, that doesn't mean I still can't come to your party. I still care about you, Jess."
"Did you bring me a present?"
"Jessica Katherine."
Jessica whirls around quickly to see her mom approaching, a stern look on her face. She shrugs. "What? It's my birthday party."
Skye sighs. "I know it is. Now go and play with your friends, okay?"
Jessica sighs. "Fine." She turns and gives Miles another hug before running off to go back to her friends, immediately diving into the conversation as if she'd never even left it.
Skye laughs quietly and then looks at Miles, breathing in deeply. "Hey."
"Hi."
"How are you?" she asks him.
He shrugs. "I'm okay. You?"
"Good. The store's doing well."
"That's good. And uh, obviously Jess is doing well."
Skye nods. "Yeah. I can't believe she's ten already."
"Do you remember her sixth birthday?" he asks her. "She begged and begged for you to get her that one toy that you absolutely refused to get her because you knew it would annoy you to no end."
"Oh, I remember. I remember that you bought it for her anyways and I turned out to be right because I had to keep myself from murdering you for getting it for her."
Miles laughs. "Yeah, but you have to admit that she was probably the happiest you'd ever seen her up to that point."
Skye lets a reminiscent smile crawl across her face. "Yeah, she was pretty excited about that."
"Hey, Skye, have you seen the ca-Miles."
Miles and Skye turn their heads to see Grant entering the room. He stops short when he sees Miles, looking him up and down before his eyes drift over to Skye.
"You invited Miles?" he asks quietly, no apparent malice in his voice, just curiosity.
She nods, turning a little toward him and matching the level of his voice. "Yeah. I know he and I aren't together, and it might be weird for you, but this is Jessica's day. And she's known Miles for a long time, she really cares about him and I knew she'd want to have him here even if she didn't say anything about inviting him. I'm not saying that you have to become best friends with him, but can you please not get all weird and caveman-y around him today?"
Grant sighs. "I'll do my best."
She smiles softly, leaning up to give him a quick kiss. "That's all I ask." She lets her hand linger on his cheek for a moment before turning back to Miles. "I have to go check on a few things, but feel free to make yourself comfortable." She smiles at him and then turns to go to another part of the apartment, leaving the two men alone in the front hallway together.
"So," Grant eventually speaks up, "how have you been?"
"You mean since I called off my wedding because I knew my fiance was in love with another man?" Miles questions.
Grant pulls his lips in tight, shifting on his feet. "Uh, yeah, I'm sorry about that."
Miles shakes his head. "Don't be. I know it wasn't your intention. Skye told me as much when I brought it up. I don't blame you. Well, not anymore, I guess I should say. I was pretty upset at first because I felt like you stole her away from me. But then I realized that she never really got over you after the two of you were together. She just had to push everything down to focus on raising Jessica."
Grant cracks a small smile. "She's pretty incredible for doing it on her own for so long."
Miles smiles back at him. "Yeah. I think that's one of the reasons I fell for her."
"I can't really blame you there. But uh, I'm glad to see that you and Skye can still be friends despite what happened."
"So am I. She's a great woman and we were friends for a little while before we got together. I would have hated to lose our friendship."
Grant nods. "I completely understand. The one thing I regretted the most about me and Skye breaking up was that I lost her as a friend too."
"Dad! Come here!"
He sighs and shakes his head, a small laugh escaping. "Duty calls."
"Of course. I'll just uh, I'll put this with the others, I guess," Miles says, holding up the present he brought with him.
"Yeah, sure. I'll see you around." He gives Miles a tight smile before moving through the apartment in search of his daughter.
.
.
.
Smiling to himself as he closes the door to his daughter's bedroom, he lets out a small sigh. Sometimes he can't believe that he's really here, that he's back with the woman he's always loved and that they have a daughter together. He just wishes that they'd been able to patch things up earlier, that he'd have known about his daughter sooner. He missed almost a decade of her life because he'd been a dumb kid who thought he knew everything and let the woman he loved walk away without a fight.
But now he's much older and wiser, and he's never going to make the same mistake twice. He's got both of his girls in his life and he couldn't be any happier than he is.
Pushing open the door to his and Skye's shared room, he quickly changes into his pajamas, a simple pair of sweatpants and an old t-shirt, and climbs into bed. He sits up against the headboard, swiping through the photos on his phone that he took that day during his daughter's party. He knows he may have gone a little excessive, but he wants to remember everything. Part of him knows he's making up for lost time.
"What are you doing over there?"
He glances up from the screen, smiling at the sight of Skye standing near the dresser, changing into her own pajamas. "Just looking at the pictures I took today."
"Ooh, I wanna see." She finishes changing, tossing her clothes from the day into the hamper, and then climbs onto the bed, sidling up next to him resting her chin on his shoulder.
He swipes back to the beginning on the photos and then moves through the rest of them, allowing Skye to see the images he captured of their daughter.
"I think that's my favorite so far," she says to him after a moment, grabbing his hand to keep him from swiping to the next picture.
He smiles at the image on the screen, showing Jessica right after she'd blown out the candles on her cake, a wide grin on her face as she looks slightly above the camera, having locked eyes immediately with him standing directly across from her, not at all noticing the camera he'd had pointed in her direction. It's one of his favorites too.
He turns his head to press a kiss to the top of Skye's head when she lets out a heavy yawn, her eyes scrunching up involuntarily.
"You should get some sleep," he tells her. "You did an amazing job playing hostess today to a bunch of ten-year-olds. But you have to go to the shop early tomorrow so you need your sleep. Don't worry about me and Jess, we'll be fine for a few hours in the morning while you're working."
She lets out another heavy yawn, sliding down in the bed so she's lying against the pillow. "I love you," she mumbles as she lets sleep overtake her.
He smiles. "I love you too. Now sleep."
He waits until he knows she's asleep, turning his attention back to his phone and opening up the current photo on the screen through Instagram. He quickly bypasses the filters and then types in a caption before sharing the photo on his feed.
A smile remains on his face as he sets the phone and slides down in the bed, turning his body and curling up next to the woman of his dreams.
.
.
Even though her actual birthday was a few days ago, I want to wish my beautiful daughter an amazing tenth birthday. I've loved being able to get to know you over the last year or so, you're more amazing than I ever thought a child of mine could be. Happy birthday, sweetheart.
So? What did you think? Let me know in a review down below. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Also, I'm working on a new Skyeward fic, and I need some twitter/Tumblr handles for it. If you wouldn't mind having yours featured in the story, just let me know. I need as many as I can get. :)
Until next time,
Jellybean96 out!
