Lasting |His Block the Trilogy |

|2.26|

The Present,

Anthony found himself out, with the three Taylor's he created. Things were going smoothly since he had kept them fed and entertained, even Payton was enjoying herself.

"You know, I miss you,"Anthony tossed his arm over his daughter's shoulder as they both overlooked the park where Junior and Artist sprinted off to.

Payton chuckled at her father. "Miss me? I've been gone all of three days,"

"I can't miss you now Payso?" He looked down at his daughter with a raise of his brow.

Payton shrugged as she took another spoonful of the ice cream he had just purchased her. "I don't know. It's like we lost the bond now that you have all these younger knuckle heads running around,"

Hearing that caused a wave of seriousness to wash over Anthony. His daughter wasn't really the straightforward type, something she inherited from Beylan. Hearing her just put that out in the open meant she was serious and it had been trumping her mind for a while. "Why would you say that? You're my first born Payso, I wouldn't say I love you more since I love all you guys equally, but our bond is different. You're my struggle baby," He applied a kiss onto her forehead.

Payton furrowed her brows up at him in amusement. "Struggle baby? Sir, please elaborate," She laughed.

"Y'know," He shrugged. "Struggle baby. You were with me when I was on my grind. Before I had it all," He explained to her. "You loved me before I could give you the best of the best. Raising you we really hard, up until you turned six—"

"That's when you started dealing?" Payton looked up at her father.

Anthony swallowed down the lump in his throat. Lately he had been taking Jhenea's advice and started being a lot more open with Payton of his past. It was a hard pill to swallow, knowing his baby girl knew of what he had to do to get where he is now, but this was just apart of her growing up. Slowly and reluctantly, Anthony nodded his head.

"Yeah. It wasn't my first choice, but it kinda felt like my only choice. Me and your mama were trying to work things out, and you know your grandma hated me for her—she still does till this day. But she basically cut your mama off for wanting to be with me, so not only did I have to take care of me, but also you, your mom, and make sure Aven and my mom was good since my dad and your uncle Aaron died," Anthony opened up more to his daughter. As much as he wanted to shut the fuck up and just focus his daughter on the good in his life, he knew that was unfair. She deserved to know where he cane from and how he was brought up.

"I had a lot on my plate at such a young age, but you were my motivation,"He confesses.

Payton sighed. "I wish I could have motivated you take a better route. Maybe you wouldn't have been gone for five years,"

"Payso, that's isn't your fault. I made a mistake with my life that costed me five years of your life as well. What I will say though, you're the best thing that has ever happened to me. You made me realize a lot of things and helped me grow up. You're my baby girl, no matter how old you get, even when I start letting you date at forty," Anthony held a sense of sincerity in his voice that caused Payton to hug him.

Yeah, he made his mistakes here and there when it came to raising her, but he was the best and she wouldn't trade him for anyone else. "Please don't tell me you're serious about me dating until I'm forty," Payton looked up at him.

Anthony let out a loud laugh. "I'm dead serious. Hell you need to date for?"

Payton screwed her face up at her father as if he had said something so stupid. "To build a family of my own," She told him.