Cayden's POV

    I laughed at her soft, nervous looking face. Why is it she was so afraid to ask me about Valerie, I have no idea. I specifically remembered saying that I'd tell her anything she wanted to know about her.

    But, I must admit, the expression she's currently wearing is definitely a cute one.

"Well, for starters, you are Cayleigh's real mom," I truthfully told her.

A smile appeared on her face before she tilted her head down and placed a kiss on my bare chest. "How is it you always know the right things to say?"

"It's one of my many talents," I smirked at her.

"Oh, yeah. I forgot I was dating DVU's greatest charmer."

"Is that your way of nicely calling me a man whore?"

She began to laugh. "Of course not. I would never speak that little of you," she said with a sarcastic smile on.

"Ouch, baby." I placed my hand over my heart. "That hurt."

She continued to giggle. "Hey. If I'm not mistaken, you called me something along those lines first not too long ago."

I'm sure she meant it in a joking manner but her words still stung me. There is nothing I regret more in my life than letting my jealousy get the best of me and calling her a slut.

I grabbed her pillow from her side of the bed and covered it over my face. "Please don't bring that up," I guilty whispered into it.

I felt her lips as they began to slowly place a kiss up my sternum and to my neck. As soon as her lips left the tip of my throat, the pillow that covered my face was lifted. Her lips continued it's trail going up the side of my neck, towards my jawline and eventually leading to my earlobe.

Every now and then, she would slightly suck my skin in between her lips and gently bite on it. It took everything in me not to roll over, pin her to the bed, and rip her clothes off.

Literally, everything in me.

    "Babe, stop it," I groaned.

    "Then you stop it," she whispered in my ear. "Stop beating yourself up when you sincerely apologized for that and I forgave you."

    "I can't help it. It was a fucked up thing to say. Not to mention wrong for me to do." I shook my head. "I swear if my parents found out about that, they'd castrate me and most likely transfer all my trust fund into your account."

    She brought her finger up to her cheek and pretended to think. "Hmm," she said out loud. "Good to know."

Quickly, I flipped her over so that it was I now who was on top. "Oh, yeah." I started to tickle her. "Is it really good to know?"

"Stop," she yelled in between laughs. "I was kidding. Stop. Please. Stop!"

I eventually granted her requests and showed her mercy before one of my neighbors sent the cops to my place due to of all her yelling. "Yeah. You better only be kidding," I goaded.

I rolled off of her and back onto my own side of our bed. Instead of laying on her side and cuddling up to me, like she usually did, she put herself fully on top of me. Her head resting right over my heart, the organ in my body that completely belonged to her and our little girl. She then, dug her hands under my arms and brought them back up to the top of my shoulders and held onto them.

    I was kind of loving this position we were in. If I could, I'd sleep like that every night. It feels so intimate. So real.

    Never had our bodies been any closer than they were right now. At this point, I wouldn't be able to tell you were mine ended and hers began. I could even feel her heart beating on my stomach through her chest.

    "What is it you wanna know about Valerie," I finally broke the silence.

    "Is that her name? Valerie," she asked in a sad voice, still with her head resting on my chest.

    "Yeah. Valerie Wilson."

    "How did you know her? Did you guys go to school together or something?"

    "I met her at a lake party the summer before my junior year."

"So I'm guessing, end of story, you guys ended up one-night-standing each other?"

"Yes. Drunkenly."

"Is that why she got pregnant? Because you guys were too drunk to remember to wrap it up?"

"Uhhh...that's a probability," I answered her skeptically. "I don't exactly remember that night all too well."

"By all too well, do you mean that your memory is a little spotty here and there or that it's only existent up to a certain point?"

"More like it's entirely nonexistent."

"What," she yelled out in disbelief. She removed her hands from my body and put them on either side of me, pushing herself up. "Are you serious right now?"

"Unfortunately, I am," I replied remorsefully. "I didn't even know who Valerie was when she told me she was pregnant."

"Cayd," she gasped, looking at me with wide eyes.

"I know. I know. That's why I don't drink excessively anymore."

"Okay. Good." She sighed in relief while falling back into her position on my body. "So, what happened when you found out she was pregnant?"

    "She originally was going to put Cay up for adoption."

I paused to see what her reaction to this knowledge was going to be. Not too many people know that about Cayleigh. That's not something I like to openly share. And honestly, just the thought of not being in her life scares the shit out of me.

    When she didn't move a muscle and just patiently waited for me to go on, I figured she wasn't going to react to that statement at all. And I don't know why, but that made my feelings for her grow even bigger than they already were.

    It was as if she was placing no judgment on Valerie's decision to put Cayleigh up for adoption, which most people would do.

    "The whole reason why she sought out for me was because she wanted me to be apart of the adoption process," I continued. "She wanted me to have a part in deciding who Cayleigh's parents were eventually going to be."

    "But then you ended up turning her down and decided to keep Cayleigh," she mumbled. She was talking more to herself than she was to me.

    I nodded. "I didn't decided that at first. Or maybe it was because I was still in shock. But I do know, when Valerie first told me she was pregnant, my first initial thought was that I wasn't ready to be a dad."

    "I'm pretty sure that's a common first reaction. I mean, you were only 16." She turned her head to face me, laying her chin in the middle of my chest again. "And obviously you decided to keep her. Even though you knew it was going to be tough and that you weren't ready to be responsible for someone else." She brought her hand up to my face and ran her thumb across one of my cheeks. "I think that was pretty courageous of you, baby."

    "Yeah," I smiled at her. "All it took was for Valerie to tell me the gender of the baby and that made it all real for me. You know? Like knowing it was a she, not an it, made something click in me and immediately I fell in love." I shook my head at her. "I know that sounds crazy and doesn't make sense. Like, how can I find out about something one minute and then automatically love it the next, right? But that's just what happened. I can't really explain it."

    "No. That doesn't sound crazy at all. It sounds beautiful actually."

    "As beautiful as you," I flirted. I lifted my head up and planted my lips on hers.

    "More," she replied. "Much more."

    I dropped my head back onto my pillow. "What else do you wanna know," I asked.

    "How'd your parents take the news when you told them they were going to be grandparents," she smirked.

    "Oh. They were pissed the fuck off. Especially since they weren't aware that I was having sex. Let alone having one night stands with girls who lived in a completely different city from me."

    She started to laugh. "Oh, what I would pay to see that conversation between the three of you."

    "My parents never laid a hand on me in my life. But I'm pretty sure they were the closest they ever were to doing it at that moment in time."

    "Oh, I definitely would've got my ass beat. Probably being pregnant and all."

    "Damn." I shook my head at her. "It's amazing how different our worlds are."

    "You're telling me," she scoffed. "Anyways, whats the rest of the story?"

    "Well, the CliffsNotes version is that I went with her to every appointment. My parents ended up throwing me a baby shower, which Valerie decided not to attend. And I respected her decision not to, although, I'm sure she would have had a great time watching my friends and I play all those baby shower games that my mom forced upon us. Then she gave birth, and gifted me with the most beautiful present I could have ever asked for. Besides you, of course." I ended it by giving her another kiss on the lips.

    "And that was the last time you saw her?"

    "Yeah," I nodded. "I stayed with her the whole time she was in the hospital. Day in and day out. And when it was time to go our separate ways, we did just that. I called her a few months later, though, to see how she was doing. But her number was no longer in service."

    "Aww! That's super nice of you, baby," she cooed. "Maybe she was having a hard time adjusting to everything."

    "Or she thought I was gonna try to return the kid."

    She began to shake her head at me. "That's not funny," she replied with a smile on.

"Yeah, it was. But completely impossible," I smiled. "Anything else you want to know?"

    "Just one more question," she said. "Why didn't she want to stay in Cayleigh's life?"

    "Mainly it was because she couldn't afford to keep her. She didn't really tell me much about her family. But what she did say was that they weren't very financially secure."

    "But yours is."

    "Yeah, but she didn't want Cayleigh to see that all the financial contribution to her upbringing was coming from my side and nothing was coming from hers."

"Oh." She made a face that told me there was more she wanted to say but decided against saying it.

"Just say what you have to say before your head explodes," I told her.

I know my girl. When she keeps things bottled up, her imagination takes control of the situation and it starts answering all her unanswered questions.

Like the other day, when she couldn't decide between eating Fruity Pebbles and Fruit Loops. She started arguing with herself about the two cereals being the exact same thing, just in two different forms. I told her she was starting to look like a psychopath and just dumped both cereals into a bowl for her.

    "No," she responded. "It's gonna make me seem like such a bitch."

    "And who's gonna call you out on that? Me? I'm the one who's asking."

"No."

"Just say it."

"No."

"Come on!"

    "Fine." She chewed on her bottom lip while trying to put together what ever it was that she wanted to say. "So, obviously, I don't know what Valerie was going through at the time since I've never been in her situation before. But, I feel like, if I were her, I'd still make the effort to be apart of Cayleigh's life. I know it would have been hard seeing all the nice and lavish things that you guys could buy for her, especially because I wouldn't be able to do that too: But I'd still want to have a relationship with my daughter."

    "I think she was just doing what she thought was best for Cay."

    "Yeah. I know. And I get why she thought putting her up for adoption was what was best. I really do. I just don't understand why she didn't agree to stay in Cayleigh's life when you said you were keeping her. I mean, if she stayed in it, Cayleigh would have the exact same, great life that she has now, except she wouldn't have had to spend x amount of time wondering why everyone else gets to have a mommy and she didn't."

I see now what was really eating her up inside. She was upset that Cayleigh had to spend the past four years without a mother and the past almost two years watching all her classmates have one.

    Cayleigh had to look at them all get hugged by their moms whenever they would get dropped off or picked up. She had listen to stories being read to her about made up characters who had a mom. She even had to see everyone drawing pictures of them while she only had a stick figure dad in hers.

My poor little Princess. I'm even more grateful now for having Brooke in our lives.

    And speaking of her. Does anyone else find Brooke's defensiveness over Cayleigh fucking attractive or is just me? I'm being completely honest here. Never in my life have I ever been more attracted to another human being than I am to Brooke right now.

    Do you think if I asked right now, she'd let me wife her up?

    "I don't know, babe. I don't know why she truly didn't want to be apart of Cayleigh's life. All I know is that had Valerie decided to stay, the three of us wouldn't have the type of relationship we have. And I'm telling you right now, I very much like the relationship we have."

    Brooke smiled at me. "I very much like the relationship we have, too, baby."

    We fell asleep quickly after that. Her still on top of me with her arms wrapped under my shoulders. Just like earlier, I waited until she was asleep before I began to close my eyes. And this time, with everything off of her mind, she went to sleep instantly.

    When I woke up the next morning, she was still in the exact same position from was in last night. I brushed the strands of hair that were hovering over her face to behind her ear and kissed her forehead.

    "Five more minutes," she sleepily told me.

    It was still early, probably a little before 7:00, but someone had to be up since Cayleigh was going to be awaking soon. I place my hand on her back and slowly rolled over, giving her that extra five minutes that I'm sure will turn into five hours if we let it, to sleep.

    I walked into Cayleigh's room and just as I suspected, she was sitting up in her bed. She was in mid stretch with a messy ponytail sitting on top of her head.

    "Morning, Princess," I greeted her.

    "Hi, daddy," she yawned. "Where's mommy?"

    I remember when my presence enough for her. Those were the days!

    "She's still sleeping," I told her. "Wanna go wake the dragon up?"

    "Yes!"

    She ran out of her bed and in the direction of our room. I followed behind her and was just in time to see her jump from the edge of our bed and land directly on Brooke's stomach.

    "Mmph," Brooke groaned out loud.

    I definitely don't miss that morning wake up call.

   "Morning mommy," Cayleigh told her.

    "Hey, baby," Brooke replied squinting her eyes. "Can mommy have five more minutes of sleep?"

"You said that five minutes ago," I laughed.

She raised her hand and placed it directly behind Cayleigh's back then stuck up her middle finger. Isn't she such an angel in the morning?

    "It's okay, mommy. Me and daddy will wait for you in the kitchen," Cayleigh answered then ran out of the room.

    Being the great boyfriend that Brooke knows me to be, I quietly walked to the window and opened the two curtains in the room, letting the sun blast directly onto Brooke's face.

    "Cayden," she whined while covering her face with one hand and searching for something to hide under with the other.

    I laughed at her. "Baby, how is it that I was the one drinking last night, but you're the one who seems to be hungover?"