A Father's Love

Chapter 16

After Shelby had her bath and got ready for bed, Luke read to her which Shelby insisted on turning the pages for him. It had been a few days since the kid had been home and the small apartment was back to the normalcy he had grown to love. Shelby held her head against him as she listened to the story. Luke kept an arm around her, leaning up against the headboard of his bed, the pillow propped up behind him. Eventually, like all stories, it ended and Luke closed the book.

Luke set the book on his nightstand. "You ready to go to sleep?" he asked.

The kid fought back a yawn.

He smirked. "I'll take that as a yes."

"I no tired," she tried to deny.

"Oh, I'm sure you're not." Luke chuckled a little. So he decided since her birthday was just around the corner, this might be the perfect time to start thinking about what they wanted to do. He remembered his sister always wanting to have sleepovers with her friends when they were kids and he had been to a lot of his nephew's birthdays when he was Shelby's age, so he had somewhat of an idea of how a kid's birthday party went, but having to do it, himself, Luke wasn't sure where to start. "So... your birthday's a couple weeks from now."

"I' is?" she asked, as if in disbelief.

He nodded. "Yup. You're gonna be, what? Sixty?"

"No, Daddy," she shook her head with a smile.

"Oh," Luke smiled at her. "How old then?"

Shelby held up six fingers with both hands, "Six."

Luke raised his eyebrows at that. "Six, huh? That sounds like a great age, and if you're turning six, we're gonna have to throw a big party to celebrate. How does that sound?"

Her eyes grew wide at the mention of a party. "I ge' to have a par-ty?" she asked in awe.

"Well, sure. Didn't you have a party before?"

Shelby shook her head. "When I turned five, I moved to a different home. Maddi and I wen' to ea' and she go' me a presen', but ta' was i'," she shrugged at the last part.

Luke felt his heart break at the thought of his kid not having a party for her birthday. Before his mother passed, she made sure both of her kids had a party to celebrate the day they were born. Afterwards, since he was getting older, Luke never really cared, but Liz still did, and Rory still had them, so he figured it was important for girls.

"Well, this year's gonna be different," he assured her. "How about we have a party downstairs, in the diner? We can invite Ethan and Alan, if you want."

Shelby grew even more excited. "Can we have a Pokemon par-ty?" she asked.

"Sure we can. It's your party."

The kid cheered, happily. "Can Mom come?"

"Of course, and maybe I can get your aunt and cousin to come so you can finally meet them."

"I want Rory to come, too."

Luke raised his eyebrows again. "Yeah, I'm sure Rory will come. You know her mom will probably want to come."

The excitement left her face, which turned to a frown. "Do she have to come?"

"You know those two are inseparable."

Shelby looked away.

Luke gave her upper arm a gentle rub. Things were quiet afterwards, so he called it a night.

The next morning, once the six am crowd thinned out, Rachel stopped by for coffee before she started her apartment search.

"So Shelby and I were making birthday plans last night," he informed her once Luke gave her, her coffee.