Chapter One
Ryder
Coffee. Need coffee.
Caffeine is the magic elixir that will allow me to function like the responsible single father I supposedly am.
Supposedly, because photos of me during a sweet moment with Kaylee leaked, and now the tabloids think I’m this patient, down-to-earth, hands-on type father.
You know, the type of single dad that makes ovaries sigh all around the world.
The honest, goddamn truth is this parenting thing is the hardest job I’ve ever had. It’s more grueling than nine-month-long music tours where I got no sleep and traveled around the world without a break. Jet lag and exhaustion were not in my vocabulary because I couldn’t afford them to be.
Exhaustion is now my life.
I swear, nighttime potty training means I get less sleep than when Kaylee was teething. There’re only so many times a night I can get up and change sheets before I give in and try to put Pull-Ups on the kid. Of course, then she reminds me that she’s almost five and doesn’t need diapers.
She picked up toilet training so easily, but we struggle with nights. If she didn’t sleep like the dead, maybe she’d wake up to go to the bathroom.
As if sensing my increasing level of tiredness from sleep deprivation, the girl behind the kitchen counter at the kids’ play center finally comes over with my order. Large coffee for me and a giant cookie for my daughter. I swear it’s the size of her head.
I’m going to regret the amount of sugar later.
Future me can deal with the crash. Present me wants peace.
I tug my cap lower on my head and keep my gaze down as I say, “Thank you,” to the server. It’s rude and not how my momma raised me, but even two years after Eleven broke up and I disappeared out of the spotlight, I’m still recognized and mobbed on the street. Even when I’m with Kaylee, and especially by the waitress’s demographic.
Being part of the biggest boy band in the world for seven years means it’s hard to slink away into oblivion no matter how hard I try.
Unless another big act comes along, this will be my life for the foreseeable future.
Come on, teenage boys, join a boy band! For my sanity, please.
More importantly, for my daughter’s safety.
Kaylee stares up at me with the big green eyes she got from her mother while a deep brown ringlet falls in her face because the stubborn hair won’t stay where I put it. Daddy and pigtails don’t mix.
Her mouth is full of cookie, and as she chews, she gives me the biggest smile. It’s so big that crumbs spray out between her teeth.
“I can’t take you anywhere.” I reach over and wipe the table.
“Why not?” More cookie falls from her mouth.
“Because you’re messy.”
“But I’m cute.”
I laugh. “That you are.”
“Momma always says that.”
My heart twinges. “Yeah. She does.”
“When she coming home?”
No matter how many times I explain, she never understands. She’s too young. “Umm …”
“Can I have a pony for my birthday?”
And this is why I love the attention span of four-year-olds. “No. Not until you’re old enough to ride.”
Technically, there’s a riding camp that would take her at four years old, but no way in hell I’m telling her that.
I’ve never had an ever-growing need to protect someone with my life until Kaylee came along. Fatherhood changed everything.
Everything I used to take for granted, I don’t anymore. Like five minutes of complete silence.
At the table behind us, a young boy starts singing an Eleven song.
Because I like you. Ooh, ooh, ooh. I like you.
I change my mind. I wish I had five minutes where I wasn’t reminded of that song. It was our biggest hit, the most annoying to get in your head, and it got so much radio time that I think even the die-hard fans got sick of it.
“Nuh-uh,” a deep voice says. “What have I told you about singing Eleven songs?”
“I like them!” the boy protests.
“Their lyrics are lazy and cliché. They suck.”
I can’t help it, I snort. Loudly.
Oops.
I clear my throat and then cough, trying to cover that I’m eavesdropping on a private conversation.
Subtly, I glance over my shoulder.
The boy looks a little bit older than Kaylee, and the guy he’s with is younger than I’m expecting. Midtwenties at most. I guess he started having kids young. Not that I can judge anyone.
I was twenty-two when Kaylee happened, and she was definitely not part of my life plan.
My gaze finds my daughter’s, and the familiar heaviness of guilt fills my chest. She might not have been planned, but in no way was she a mistake. I wouldn’t trade her for anything.
In fact, I gave up my whole life for her, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
And again, and again, and again.
The kid behind us starts humming the song now, and I have to get up and leave before I burst into laughter when the guy with him groans.
“Come on, Kaylee. You can go play, and I’ll watch.”
My fearless daughter races up the padded stairs to the jungle gym of tunnels running throughout the place while I sip on my coffee and try not to lose her. The tunnels have windows, and I track her by following the Elsa dress she had to wear because wearing anything else was not acceptable.
Not that I can’t afford to replace the dress she’s determined to destroy, but that’s not the point. I don’t want her growing up thinking everything is replaceable and money is never an issue.
I don’t want her to become like those spoiled kids at her school. I didn’t want her to go to pre-K at all, but socializing with kids her own age is supposedly “psychologically beneficial” or whatever. Apparently, if I don’t want her to grow up to be a sociopath, I have to let her get bitten by other children.
When I asked her teacher about the bite marks that first week, she lowered her voice and said, “We have a biter,” like it’s normal to let kids bite other kids and there was nothing they could do about it.
This, coming from the most expensive school in the LA area where all the stars send their children.
The worst part is they won’t even tell me which child it was who bit her. I bet it was one of the Kardashians’ kids.
The guy who thinks Eleven sucks moves in my periphery and stands a few feet away from me as his boy runs up into the tunnels.
It’s tempting—so tempting—to make eye contact with the guy just to get a reaction out of him, but if I’m recognized by anyone else, it’ll take a few autographs and selfies to get me and Kaylee out of here.
I am at a better angle to check him out properly, though.
Eleven definitely has haters out there. It’s not hard to when, as this guy puts it, the lyrics are lazy and cliché. We never claimed they weren’t. But the other thing those songs are? Multiplatinum-selling hits.
They might be shallow, but they’re damn catchy, and the biggest demographic out there is people wanting to dance and scream the words at the top of their lungs.
It doesn’t make Eleven or any of us who were in the band any less of an artist than this guy.