Asher's Heart

Chapter 27

I stood there gaping as the ground slipped from beneath my feet. To say that I was shocked would be the understatement of the century. Good thing I pocketed my phone otherwise it would be laying dead on the floor by now.

Daddy? Asher?

I refuse to believe that.

Daddy and Asher were two words that just not fit in the same sentence.

The kid was small. Maybe she called everyone daddy and I was freaking out unnecessarily. Maybe she was just another cousin I hadn't heard about and I was mistaking her for someone else. Just like I did with Poppy. Maybe he was just babysitting. Yeah, like that would ever happen.

Maybe I heard it wrong. Maybe she said something else and I misheard it. Yeah, that's a possible explanation for this bizarre.... what do I even call it?

I would not believe that this kid was Asher's. He was way too young. He was just eighteen for Pete's sake! And he must be sixteen when he... if she...

The gears in my head turned as my brain did the math. It was the same time he left for Los Angeles to follow his dream. And this was what he did? Knocked up some model and fathered a child?

I was at the brink of a panic attack. This couldn't happen. This could not be true.

I wanted more than anything for it to not be true. And I knew that it wasn't just for his sake. It was for mine too.

"Daddy!" the girl's shrill cry brought me out of my train of thoughts. There was no way I could have heard it wrong this time.

Standing at the doorway, still unnoticed by the happy duo, I tried to hold on to that little possibility of her not being his daughter. I hoped and prayed in my head as I finally spoke.

"You have a kid?!"

Asher finally noticed me and his expression was that of a deer caught in the headlights, just for a second before it went to that of annoyance.

"Please tell me that's not your child," I said walking over to where he was sitting on the couch with the baby in his arms.

He started to say something but the little girl put her little hands on his cheeks to grab his attention back. He looked at her adoringly and smiled, completely forgetting my question.

"Asher, I asked something," I said, exasperated.

He looked up and raised his eyebrows.

"What was it you were saying?" he said as the baby played with his left ear.

I narrowed my eyes at him.

"You heard me perfectly," I said.

He matched my glare with his own.

"I refuse to answer that," he said and my heart stopped, realizing what that meant until he continued, "What kind of question is that? Of course she is not my kid."

I breathed a sigh of relief. He had no idea how much that relieved me. It was stupid. Really, really stupid to even think that he had a daughter.

"You seem far too happy to know that?" he smirked.

I scoffed but I said, "For a moment, I actually thought she was your daughter."

I thought I was something pass his face but it was too fast for me to be sure what it was or if it was even there.

He opened his mouth to say something but was cut off by Ashton voice as he came in the room with a bottle of milk in his hand.

"I think the temperature is alright," he said putting the bottle to his cheek.