Hey, loves! It’s Friday, and of course, that means we’re back for yet another outtake. Sometimes, I honestly think I want to take a break from these just because. Not any particular reason—sometimes it just feels good to take a proper break. But then I open up the request form and find one of these, smile like crazy, and get to work.
This one is for Tori—she signed her request so I would know it was for her.
Besides that, please remember, I am not currently opening up the form for new requests until I work my way through a good portion of them. That may take a couple of months or even more. Who knows. For now, just enjoy.
*
A Lucian Outtake
For Love
Lucian POV
“Daddy?”
“Hmm, yes?”
Lucian glanced down to find his six-year-old, Lucia, grinning up at him in that sweet way of hers. A way that reminded him so much of her mother. More than she, or even Jordyn, would ever know. Sure, Lucia looked a lot like him, too, and she was his namesake until the very end. He made sure of that. She took his eye color, her hair was all him, too—damn, he was sorry for those unruly curls—and even some of her attitude was definitely right from his own mouth.
But her sweet nature?
All that kindness?
Every part of her that was good?
It all came from Jordyn.
And thank God for that.
“Nothin’,” Lucia said, still smiling that toothy, girlish smile of hers. “Just wanted to say I love you.”
His hand tightened around hers as they continued walking down the Manhattan street. Him in his three-piece suit, and her in her pretty pink dress and stark white shoes with the very small heel. She had to have shoes like her ma, after all.
Someday, she was going to stop letting him hold her hand or even picking her up to carry her across a busy street. Someday, she’d stop looking up at him just to tell him that she loved him at the most random of times.
Someday, she would be older.
Different.
He’d miss these days. And God knew he made lots of time to have these days with each of his four children. A day once a week that was spent just on them. Maybe it was an evening—a movie on the weekend, or even lunch at their favorite place. It didn’t matter. As long as he was spending quality time with one of his kids, that’s what counted.
But he’d really love the new days they would have, too.
“I love you, too, Lucia,” he murmured. “Always.”
“Can we stop at The Shop?”
“They don’t even have clothes for little girls there. That’s for big girls like ma.”
“Yeah, but, please?”
Lord.
He did not know how to tell his kid no.
“Yeah, we’ll stop. See if we can find something for you.”
“And if we can’t?”
Lucian grinned down at his girl. “Then, we’ll find something to bring home to Ma.”
“Yas!”
Lucian made sure to keep his promise to his daughter, but then again, he always did. It was the one thing he wanted all his children to be able to count on where he was concerned. It didn’t matter what he promised to them—he would make it happen.
He was their dad.
Dads never failed.
His never did.
After they’d gotten Lucia’s gelato, stopped at The Shop—which they ended up finding something for Lucia and Jordyn—Lucian buckled his youngest daughter into her booster seat while the sky started to darken overhead. By the time he got on the highway and headed home, he bet Lucia would already be asleep. If she was tired, she could barely stand to stay awake in a moving vehicle. It was sweet, really.
All over again, like earlier in the day, his tired little girl looked up at him with her wide eyes that matched his but a face that matched her mother’s and asked, “Daddy?”
“Hmm, yes?”
“What’s that one for?”
“What do you mean?”
Lucia reached out and grabbed his hand in her much smaller one. Before he really understood what she wanted or was doing, she flipped his hand over and then pointed with her tiny index finger at the black heart—smaller than a penny—tattooed on the inside of his palm.
As Lucian had gotten older, he tattooed his body less and less. Instead, he found himself maintaining the tattoos he loved the most, or otherwise, covering ones he wished he had never gotten in the first place.
“This one—the little heart,” Lucia said. “What’s it for? Your wings are like Uncle Dante and Gio’s, right?”
Lucian grinned. “Something like theirs, yes.”
“Did you just like hearts, Daddy?”
Kids, man.
So innocent.
“It’s where I hold my love the safest,” he told his girl, “right in the palm of my hand.”
She peered up at him. “Oh.”
Once, a long time ago, Jordyn asked Lucian why he didn’t have a tattoo for love. So, he got one. And there, in the palm of his hand, he kept it safe.
Lucia bent down and kissed the little heart.
Lucian kissed the top of her head.
“Love you, Daddy.”
“Love you, Lucia.”
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