Page 39 of My Girl to Use

“Daddy!” he repeats excitedly.

“Yeah,” I smile. “Let’s go get Daddy.”

As we make our way down to the track, memories hit me in flashes, blending with the present like they’ve always belonged here. The night everything changed. The confrontation at his parents’ house. Jax went in first. He didn’t take my hand. He put me behind him, and Sienna came in behind us both and shut the door like she was sealing something in.

I don’t remember most of what was said. I remember Eleanor’s face when she understood that Sienna was on our side of the room and not hers. I remember that Jax never raised his voice once, and that it was somehow worse. And I remember Walter—his father—standing up out of his chair in the middle of it, and everyone stopping, because in thirty years I don’t think anyone in that family had ever seen him interrupt her.

Walter had been the one none of us expected. Shock, anger, and then something softer, something almost regretful. He had admitted that he saw himself in Jax, a younger version forced into a life he never truly wanted. And for the first time, he chose differently.

He chose his son. The company had gone to Sienna, just like Jax said it would. And she thrived, balancing home and work life expertly. Exactly who she was meant to be, despite everything their mother had once insisted.

And Eleanor. I exhale softly at the thought. She didn’t change overnight. She didn’t apologize, either. Not in words. What she did was stop. She keeps her distance sometimes. Still controlled. Still sharp in ways that don’t fully disappear, but she tries. And with Levi…she’s different. Softer. Warmer. Likesomewhere along the way, she let herself feel something she hadn’t allowed before.

It took me a year to be able to hand him to her. She never once asked me to do it faster. Maybe that’s the apology.

Family. Something I never thought I’d have. Something I fought for and almost lost. But I didn’t. Because of him. Jax’s attorneys had handled everything faster than I expected.

They found my mother. She signed what they put in front of her. I don’t know what it cost him, and he’s never told me.

And when the news came months later that she had died, I waited to feel something. Grief. Anger. The thing you’re supposed to feel. It never came. She wrote he’s yours now on a piece of paper and left him in a box, and eighteen months later, a court made it true. That’s the whole of what she ever gave either of us.

Levi is mine. Ours. Officially. Forever.

???

Jax

The race ends in a blur of sound and movement. People talking. Congratulating. Cameras flashing, but my focus is already somewhere else. On her. My wife.

I spot her before she reaches me, Levi in her arms, both of them looking like they belong right here. Right at the center of everything that matters.

“Daddy!” Levi shouts the second he sees me, reaching out.

I laugh, scooping him up easily, holding him close for a second before pressing a quick kiss to his head. “Hey, little man. You see that?”

He nods eagerly. “Fast!”

“Yeah,” I grin. “Really fast.”

Then my eyes shift to her. And everything else fades. Awareness and love are all I feel.

“Hey, baby girl,” I say, softer now.

“Hey,” she replies, her smile just as soft, but there’s something else there too. Something I can’t quite place.

I step closer, my free hand settling at her waist, pulling her in just slightly. “You okay?”

She nods. “I’m perfect.”

I study her for a second, then lean in, brushing my lips lightly against hers. “Missed you out there.”

“I know,” she murmurs, her hand sliding up to my chest.

Levi squirms slightly between us, and I laugh, shifting him before handing him off to my dad, who steps up beside us.

“Got him,” he says easily, already distracting Levi with something that makes him giggle.

“Thanks,” I reply, my attention already back on Zora.