Eight Months Earlier…

I sighed and resisted the urge to roll my eyes, because Lord knows Pam would see it through the phone.

"Are you even listening to me Northman?" I swear that woman has a link to the CIA spy satellites on her Crackberry.

"Yes Pam I'm listening," I replied drumming my fingers on the table. The waitress came over and gave me a flirty smile before refilling my water glass. It didn't matter that in a few minutes I would have company, all the waitresses and even some of the waiters flirted with me when Lela and I ate here. Speaking of Lela, she was late, as usual.

"Northman!"

"Jesus Christ! What Pamela?" I'm pretty sure the woman has permanently damaged my left eardrum.

"I said that the goons at CBS are tapping Selah to be the half-time show this year, which means the vultures in the sports media are going to be paying more attention to you which means more work for me, dipshit," she replied snarkily, "So try not to do anything too stupid until the season starts."

I smirked and gave the group of women at the table next to mine a wink. "Relax Pam; I know how to handle the extra media attention and Lela hasn't put a foot wrong ever. I'll keep my head low until the season starts. I promise." I said the last bit in a babyish voice just to piss her off.

My PR rep verbally flipped me off before hanging up in a huff causing me to burst out laughing, I loved fucking with Pam.

"You know that's the reason she takes fifteen percent with you and only ten with me right?"

I quickly spun around and saw my baby girl smirking at me. In a flash I had her wrapped up in a giant bear hug.

"Eek! Dad let go!" she squealed and squirmed which only made me hold on tighter. God I missed my little Lela. Three months is too fucking long for a dad to go without see his baby.

I finally let her go and took a good look her. She's absolutely stunning my Lela. Outwardly she doesn't really resemble her mother or me much with her pale freckled skin and long auburn hair but she has my bright blue eyes and her mother's full mouth. It's hard to believe she's twenty, seems like only yesterday she was sitting on my shoulders during the homecoming parade.

"Dad, you're staring which means people are staring at us," she said tugging my sleeve a bit. I glance around a notice that everyone in the restaurant is staring at us. I see a fine blush spreading on Selah's cheeks (something else she shares with her mom) and chuckle.

"You're and international rock star sweetie, you should be use to the attention by now, and you can hardly blame them for being overawed in the presences of such beauty…and you look really nice as well."

She laughed and stuck her tongue out at me as we both sat and the waitress came over. I noticed the dirty look she was giving my daughter and my face hardened, nothing pissed me off more than someone disrespecting my baby girl. Lela noticed my expression and subtly squeezed my knee, rolling her eyes at the same time. Somewhere in my gut I felt a little pang, when we were good Sookie used to have the exact same reaction.

Sometimes I wonder where Sookie and I went wrong. I mean sure having a kid at thirteen isn't exactly conducive to a healthy interpersonal relationship, but we really lucked out with our families. My mom and dad freaked at first but soon were wrapped around Lela's finger in no time. In fact I'm pretty sure the only person in Lela's life who wasn't completely in her thrall is Sookie's gran, and that's because she raised Jason.

Sookie is such a kickass mom too, always saying the right thing at the right time, always knowing when to give our daughter space and when to smother her with motherly love. In fact that's always been a secret turn on of mine, how great a mom Sookie is. She's completely confident when dealing with anything involving Lela and makes her shine like the sun.

Ok, that was super cheesy, but it's true. There's nothing sexier than a confident Sookie, but for whatever reason whenever we would get to a really good place she start picking at me for the weirdest shit. When we were in high school I spent too much time with the team and cheerleaders or got too moody when a game didn't go my way. When I was college she couldn't justify spending all that money to come and visit me, I wasn't taking my studies seriously. The final straw came the night before I got drafted when she all but accused me of cheating on her throughout our whole fucked up relationship. That's when I lost it, I may flirt outrageously but I would never cheat.

Needless to say our relationship has been a little strained ever since, even though it happened almost ten years ago.

To our credit though neither Sookie nor I ever dragged Selah into our fights, nope we were fucked up enough without dragging our innocent daughter into our skirmishes. Sometimes I wonder how we were able to hide most of our ups and downs from Selah, she's one smart cookie.

"Dad?"

"Hmm?" I turned to look at my daughter. She was giving me a strange look then rolled her eyes in a very Pam-like fashion.

"Do you want an appetizer daddy?" she asked sweetly, batting her eyelashes. It was clear this wasn't the first time she'd asked me.

I turned my mega-watt smile on to the waitress who practically melted on the spot. "I'll have some crunchy vinegar pickles and the calamari please."

My daughter rolled her eyes and ordered the same thing. The waitress practically floated away and I was left with Lela giving me a long knowing look. After about two minutes of silence I caved.

"What?"

She shrugged, took a sip of water, and smirked, but remained silent.

"Seriously Selah what's with the Yoda look?" Pam was starting to rub off on her a little too much for my liking.

"Go ahead and ask dad, I know you want to."

"Ask about what?" I asked feigning nonchalance. It's a sad day when a daughter is able to read her dad like an open book.

Again my daughter rolled her eyes and said, "Ask about mom, dad. I know you were thinking about her when you zoned out so let's just get this out of the way while it's just the two of us."

I pretended to be affront for all of twenty seconds. "Selah baby I haven't seen you all summer and you only have a few days worth of Fall Break! I want to hear about you, how your new album's going, how classes are going and all that jazz. If I wanted to know about mom I'm more than capable of picking up the phone and calling her myself."

She snorted and arched her eyebrow, "I call bullshit dad, you and mom haven't 'picked up the phone and called' each other since she started dating Bill five years ago. And you and I share a publicist so you know exactly how my music is going plus you Facebook stalk me and all of my friends so you know exactly what I'm doing at school."

I pouted a bit, ignoring the waitress as she brought out our appetizers. Damn, I'd forgotten how stinking smart my kid actually is. After about five minutes of silent sulking I decided to cave.

"Fine! You win, how is your mother and that douche-canoe of a boyfriend?"

Lela laughed and said, "Isn't that a bit of the pot calling the kettle black dad? I mean mom does have a type after all."

"What do you mean?" I exclaimed outraged that my own flesh and blood could compare me to Bill fucking Compton. Aside from the fact that the three of us grew up together in Bon Temps and both he and I had had sex with Sookie I had nothing in common with that dweeb.

My demon spawn of a child merely shrugged and continued to smirk. "I just mean that mom has a type…"

"I'm a foot taller than him!" I exclaimed, getting kind of pissed off. "I'm pretty sure the dude's a vampire for all the time he spends avoiding the sun and he puts so much product in his damn hair it's practically black! And he has the stupidest fucking accent ever! Can't even say your mom's name right…Sookeh."

Again Selah shrugged, "I never thought it was a physical thing, but you two do tend to share the ability to extremely douchey when the mood strikes."

I opened my mouth to argue but then the waitress came back with entrees I didn't even remember ordering. As soon as the food was set down Lela changed the subject to a bit of school gossip she thought I hadn't learned about from Facebook stalking her and her friends (which I didn't!). Her mother and her boyfriend weren't brought up again.

The next day at practice Selah hung around with the wives and girlfriends, making small talk and playing with the younger kids. She was a lot like her mom in that regard, a real natural with children.

Whoa, Lela as a mom…nope, nope not gonna think of that. I've got too many things that piss me off already.

I really liked it when she would watch me work. It was my favorite part of when she lived in Atlanta with me. She'd hang out in the stands, plucking away at her guitar, while I got to show her how cool I am. Somehow she never seemed to buy into the fact that I'm a big fucking deal, I blame Pam.

Anyways I was having a pretty good day until we hit the showers, then everything went to shit.

"So how're you feeling man?" Alcide Herveaux was my best friend on the team; we thoroughly bonded after I kicked his ass for hitting on my daughter. If there was ever a down side to having my daughter around it was that it made me realize how perverted some of my teammates and coaches are. Seriously just because Selah is young, beautiful, and a musician doesn't mean she'll put out for any of those bastards. As far as I'm concerned she's not dating until she gets married…yup that's the plan.

I turned to look at dark haired wide receiver. "What do you mean man? I'm not coming off of any injuries and I was with Selah yesterday so I'm not hung over."

He grimaced and shook his head. Toweling off he tossed me his phone where a Goggle Alert news post was showing on the screen.

Mother of Rock Star Engaged.

Sookie Stackhouse, mother to Grammy Award winning artist Selah Stackhouse-Northman and owner of the restaurant chain Merlotte's, is engaged to be married to local attorney William T Compton. The couple has been together for five years. No word on what Ms. Stackhouse-Northman's father, NFL superstar Eric Northman, thinks of his daughter's future step-father. In a statement released last night the twenty year old said "I'm really happy for my mom, she works hard to give me a stable home and she deserves someone who loves her completely." The bride is thirty-two and the groom is thirty-eight. In a statement Mr. Compton told the Associated Press that he and his fiancée are planning a May wedding.

I stared at the screen for a long time, trying to process everything going on inside me. I wasn't sure if I was mad Sookie, mad at Selah, heartbroken, or indifferent. All I knew was that fucking douche-canoe didn't deserve my Sookie. How the fuck could Selah not tell me! I mean for Christ sake I'm her dad!

I finally looked up at Alcide (I hadn't been aware of sitting down) and all but chucked the phone at him.

"I'm sorry man I thought Lela would've told you."

I ignored him as I pulled on my jeans, nearly ripping them in half. I tossed on a shirt shoulder past all the reporters, feeling my blood boil as they asked about my ex and her douche-canoe fiancé.

I went up to the family area and saw Selah playing with Terry Bellefleur's baby son. He was a sweet kid but seeing that only made me angrier, how could my own flesh and blood keep something this huge from me?

"Come on Selah."

From the look in her eyes I knew that she knew we were not going to be having a nice talk on the ride home. When we finally made it to my car I didn't say anything. I just revved the engine and peeled out of the parking lot.

Only when we were on the highway and pushing eighty-five miles per hour did I speak.

"What the fuck Selah!?"

She flinched, knowing I only use her proper first name when I'm well and truly pissed off. I ignored her hurt expression and continued my tirade.

"I mean for fuck's sake! You didn't even tell me! How do you think I felt about finding out about mom and that-that motherfucking-"

"Douche-canoe?"

I repressed the urge to smirk but felt the anger towards my daughter lessening by the second; I could never stay mad at my little Lela for long. I sighed and ran a hand through my hair.

"Yeah, the motherfucking douche-canoe, seriously Lela why didn't you tell me at dinner last night?"

Out of the corner of my eyes I saw her shrug. "It's just…you two are…touchy about each other. I know you and Bill don't get along and mom told me she would call you before it hit the papers and when it became obvious yesterday you didn't know…I didn't want to be the one to tell you that's all."

"You're mom was going to call me?" Sookie hadn't called for anything non-Selah related since we'd broken up. Not even when she started dating Douche-Canoe did she have the courtesy to call me herself, Selah had been the one to tell me.

"Yeah but obviously she chickened out at the last minute, or Bill pitched a fit again."

"What do you mean?"

Selah ran her hand through her hair (wonder where she got that from?) and sighed, "Bill prefers that you and mom don't have any direct communication. He claims it's because whenever she talks to you she gets upset, he's not wrong about that by the way, but really he gets all huffy for hours and picks so many god-damn fights it's not even worth it."

I digested this information silently. Sookie wanted to talk to me? Her fiancée was apparently threatened by me…interesting. If I was being perfectly honest with myself I never really considered Sookie and I Over. In the back of my mind I always thought we'd find a way back to one another despite the fact that it's been nearly a decade since we were together in a romantic way. I always thought that once she got over her own issues she'd come back to me and she, Selah, and I could be a happy nuclear family. Hell maybe we'd even give her a sibling or two (…or four I still remember how hot Sookie looked while pregnant even if she was only thirteen).

The idea that some douche bag was trying to take my Sookie away from me, especially since I was superior in every way, bothered the fuck out of me.

By the time we'd reached my apartment my mind was made up. I was Eric Fucking Northman for fuck's sake.

And I was going to get Sookie back, whether she was ready or not.

AN: Hey so thanks everyone who review! It really makes my day when I see that. So yeah next chapter will be Sookie's POV then after that I'm not too sure. Back to Eric? Selah? Maybe even Pam or Bill? Let me know what you think!