Beautiful Mistake [a Roman Reigns story]

10 Problems

Lily POV

I went through my list of things in my head that I could not forget. As far as I could tell, I had thought of everything and that calmed me down a lot. Because I was already nervous enough.

I packed the last little things and my laptop into my backpack and then turned to my little Maya who was sitting behind me at the table and coloring. She had been so excited that she had hardly slept all night. I hoped she would sleep on the plane. The last thing I wanted was to have a toddler throwing a tantrum during the flight. But luckily, at least it wasn't her first flight.

"Okay, my darling. Mommy has everything. Are you ready? Shall we go see Daddy?" I asked as I knelt down next to her and smoothed some of her hair.

"Yay! See Dada!" she cheered and clapped her hands.

"All right, then. Take Dolly and we'll be on our way," I replied with a smile.

I knew she missed Roman. Every time he called us in the evening, she took the phone from my hand and babbled to her daddy like a waterfall. I also had to admit that I missed him. Although I was still quite insecure about the whole thing.

And after what Roman had told me, the reactions of his family and his ex-wife didn't help me one bit to take away my nervousness. Compared to the reaction of his ex, the reaction of his mother was probably a minor thing.

Apparently she was so freaking mad that she first threatened to challenge the divorce agreement and take the children away from him. I had no idea if that was even possible, but it scared me. It took Roman many hours to calm her down and talk her out of it, at least for now.

More problems... more problems that I was the cause of.

In contrast, I had not expected the way the children had reacted. The boys, at almost 4 years old, were still too young to fully understand what it meant. And Joelle apparently thought he was making a bad joke. After everything Roman said, she didn't believe a word he said.

That was one of the reasons why we wanted to visit him. Maya should meet her siblings. I hoped that would go well, because I had a bad feeling about it. That's why I had told Roman right away that if things got out of hand, I would leave with Maya. I did not want my little one to be exposed to screaming and anger. She was too young for that and she wouldn't understand. I knew how much that would scare her. It was my job as her mommy to protect her.

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As soon as we arrived at Roman's house, Maya started to bounce up and down in her booster seat all excited. She was like a little rubber ball.

"Are you ready, Maya?" I asked after getting out of the rental car and walking over to her.

"Yes, yes, yes!" she said, fidgeting so much that I had trouble unbuckling her.

But finally I succeeded. I lifted her into my arms and headed for the door. My heart was beating a thousand beats a minute. I swear I could feel it in my throat. After taking one deep breath, I rang the doorbell and waited.

It wasn't long before the door opened. Roman stuck out his grinning face.

"Hi! There you finally are!" he said happily, but I knew that he was also very nervous.

"Dada, Dada, Dada!" said Maya and immediately stretched out her arms to Roman.

He was only too happy to wrap her in his strong arms and hug her tightly.

But before either of us could say anything, we heard an angry voice.

"Dada? Did she just call you Dada? Dad, what's going on? Why is that kid calling you that?" asked Joelle loudly, sounding angrier with each word.

"Jojo, we talked about this." he began.

"I thought you were joking! I don't want a sister. I hate you!" she yelled, then stormed off.

The next thing that was heard was the loud slam of a door falling into the lock.