Söbriety • Mötley Crüe •

69. Ice Cream

Nikki's POV

"Why was momma upset?" I flinch when Wylie pops out from behind the door as soon as I walk in.

"What?" I take a deep breath in an effort to slow the racing of my heart caused by my three and a half year old daughter.

"Momma was crying. Why?" She crosses her arms against her chest with the biggest attitude I've ever seen.

She is her mother's daughter.

In all honesty, I'm not sure why Ryan was crying and the same question is plaguing my brain. My first thought is that she doesn't want me to marry Donna, but why would she care when she has her live-in girlfriend that she's so obviously in love with? I want her to be jealous, but I know that it doesn't make sense for her to be. She never looked back after I left, which only made me further question if she ever loved me in the first place.

"Oh. She was just sad to leave you, baby." I think of a quick lie, but she's smarter than your average child and sees right through it.

"Layla says liars go to hell!"

What the fuck?

"Well, Layla is going to hell for a lot more than that." I roll my eyes and her jaw drops slightly, her small face contorting in anger.

"Mean! Mean daddy!" She smacks at my thigh and I grab her wrist as I get on my knees to level with her.

"Wylie Sixx, we don't hit each other in this house." Her head bows at my use of her full name and tears start to pool in her eyes. "I haven't seen you in two weeks and the first thing you wanna do is yell at me and hit me? Are those nice things to do to someone who's missed you so much?"

"No..." She groans, still avoiding eye contact with me.

"What do you say then?" I raise my eyebrows as I tap at the bottom of her chin to get her to look at me, her green eyes radiant under her tears.

"Sorry, daddy..." She sniffs as I wrap my arms around her and pull her into me.

"I forgive you. Now, if you promise you'll be good, I'll let you decide what we're doing tonight."

"Really?" Her head snaps toward me as her eyes start to miraculously dry.

Her 'R's are more like 'W's and I think that's my favorite part of her voice. It's nearly the only thing, besides her size, that reminds me she's a child and not a moody teenager.

"I wanna see uncle Tom." She bounces on the balls of her feet in excitement, a genuine smile flushing over her face. "I wanna go get ice cream with uncle Tom." She raises her pointer finger up as she corrects herself.

She may look just like me, but all of her mannerisms and facial expressions are purely Ryan.

"Alright, well let's go call him." She races toward the phone while it takes me a good fifteen seconds to get off of my knees. Getting old is a fucking bitch.

I tell her the numbers to dial as her small fingers pick at the buttons, and I give her a thumbs up for doing it correctly. In the past year she's learned all of her numbers, all of her colors, and nearly all of her letters. She gets stuck between 'b' and 'd', and 'p' and 'q', but Donna tells me that's completely normal. She's so excited to learn new things that last month I caught her singing the abc song as she fell asleep.

"Uncle Tommy! Ice cream! You in, bro?!" I let out a laugh at her choice of words, she absorbs everything Tommy says and does when she's around him, which isn't always a good thing. "Uhh...I dunno. Here's daddy." She hands me the phone as her fingers dance along her chin in anticipation.