I Want You Back (Want You #1)(96)

Eighteen





JAX




I was about to lose my shit with Mimi.

And didn’t that just make me the worst father in the world?

Fuck, but the kid was being a brat today.

At least I hadn’t called her a brat to her face. That counted as parental restraint, right?

I’d been muddling through this attitude of hers for six hours.

Six. Hours.

I’d let her sleep in this morning after we’d had a late Friday night watching movies in the new theater room. Sleeping in on Saturdays usually tamed Mimi’s morning beast, but it had awaked in full roar mode, which made me wonder if Mimi had reverted to that behavior and Lucy had been letting it slide and not telling me about it.

Mimi refused to come out of her room for breakfast.

I didn’t insist; I figured I’d have to pick my battles with her today.

When she emerged an hour later, still in her pajamas, asking me to make her pancakes, I told her she’d missed breakfast and would have to wait until lunch to eat.

She started crying.

Like a total sucker I said she could have cereal. But she didn’t want cereal. Now she wanted yogurt. When I told her I hadn’t bought yogurt, she looked at me like I’d forgotten her birthday. Then she informed me that “Mommy always buys me yogurt” and that she was going down to her apartment to get some.

I said no and she threw a screaming Mimi fit.

I let her.

Realizing I wouldn’t relent, she announced she was taking a bubble bath in her new tub. She sneered at my offer to help her, reminding me that she wasn’t a baby. But I ended up in her bathroom anyway, throwing towels on the floor to sop up the water and bubbles after she’d overfilled the tub.

After that fiasco, I hoped to see my sweet, contrite girl offering an apology for screwing up, but that Mimi was nowhere to be found.

But I caught Demon Mimi jumping on the bed.

Then I found her standing on the counter looking for ingredients to bake cookies.

The kid about gave me a heart attack because it was a big drop to the floor if she would’ve lost her balance.

That stunt earned her fifteen minutes in time-out, which turned into another fifteen minutes because she would not keep her butt in the chair. That forced me to sit across from her so it felt like I was punishing myself.

I cooked macaroni and cheese for lunch—at her request—which she refused to eat more than three bites of because it “looked funny.”

After lunch I settled her in the theater room, so I could have an hour to myself to go over the paperwork from the meeting with Agnes.

Mimi lasted ten minutes before she was “bored” and asking if she could get her “good” toys from the apartment.

I said no, knowing she’d ask me ten minutes after that to go back down there and get something else.

So she ran off and hid.

I was starting to question whether a six-thousand-square-foot apartment was a good idea, because there were a fuck-ton of places for a resourceful kid to hide.

When I finally found her, I chewed her out.

She’d burst into tears again and sobbed that she wanted her mommy.

At that point, I wanted my mommy too.

I’d had three very stressful days in a row, and I just wanted to chill in my new place. Instead of the lazy, fun Saturday I’d envisioned for us—cooking together, watching a movie, setting up her bedroom—I’d been smacked with the ugly truth that I actually disliked my child today.

Oh, I loved her, and tomorrow things would be back to normal, but for today . . . I’d had it. I didn’t know how Lucy did it, besides the fact she had no other options and had to figure out a way to deal with hell-girl, but I was throwing in the towel and calling for backup.

The phone rang four times before she picked up.

The first thing out of my mouth? “Help.”

My mom arrived half an hour later with my dad, which was a surprise.

Mimi launched herself at Grandma.

After calming Mimi with soft, soothing words, Mom handed her off to Grandpa.

My dad grabbed Mimi’s coat and backpack, sent me an encouraging smile and disappeared into the elevator with my daughter, who hadn’t even bothered to say good-bye to me.

Yep. I had this parenting gig down cold.

Not.

As I stood there feeling stupid, mean and sorry for myself, staring at the elevator door like a lost puppy, my mom wrapped her arms around me in a huge hug.

I closed my eyes and enfolded her more tightly in my arms, catching her familiar scent—Chanel No. 5 perfume, hair spray and coffee. Even in heels the top of her head barely reached above my sternum, but for just a moment, I was a kid again, when Mom’s hugs made everything better.

We remained that way for a while, even when I tried to pull away because I knew Dad was waiting for her. But she squeezed me harder and held on.

When I sighed and released some of the tension in my body, she finally let me go.

She stepped back only far enough to place both her hands on my cheeks, allowing her to gaze into my eyes. “Every parent has a bad day with their child. It’s normal. You’ve done nothing wrong, son. You just need a little break from each other. That’s it.”

“You’re sure?”

“We raised two bullheaded, bright, boisterous boys, who oftentimes stomped on my last nerve before setting it on fire, so yeah, honey. I’m sure.”