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Our conversations usually flow pretty easily now, but I’m stuck in my head tonight, and we eat in silence. There’s a question I’ve wanted to know the answer to since we met, and in all the time we’ve spent together, the subject has never been broached. I didn’t want to be the one to do so since I didn’t know if I’d be overstepping by asking her about it. But now, eating dinner together like we’re a family after having spent the whole day together…the question plays on a loop in my mind until, eventually, I can’t take not knowing the answer any longer.
“Shayla…I hope you don’t mind me asking, but…where is Lainey’s father? I know the two of you live with your mom. Does he live there, too, or somewhere close by?” Though it’s highly unlikely since I’m sure I would have heard about him or seen him by now, there’s always the chance that she’s just intensely private about her relationship with him.
There’s a tightness in my chest as I wait for her answer, and I stare at the tabletop while I hold my breath. The idea that there could be someone else taking her out on real dates when she’s not with me makes me sick to my stomach. If she is with Lainey’s dad, I have to wonder how he feels about her and their daughter spending so much time with me, a man ten years older than her and obsessed with her. I know I would take issue with my angel—if she really was mine—being at another man’s house as often and as late as she is at mine.
She scoffs, and I look up with raised brows at her reaction. “No, he’s…he’s not in the picture.” She runs her hand over Lainey’s hair and leans over to kiss her chubby cheek.
“Oh?” I hope the sound comes across casually enough, disguising how elated I am by her answer and how my heart feels like it’s going to pound right out of my chest. It shouldn’t make me so damn happy to know that Lainey’s dad isn’t in the picture. What kind of guy does that make me? But it does mean there’s more room for me in their lives if they want me to be.
“Tyler—it was a one-time bad decision. My first party right after school started my junior year. We’d been hanging out some over the summer and were having so much fun, and I…I let things go too far. But he wanted nothing to do with me after that, or with Lainey for that matter,” she adds quietly at the end. “Neither did his parents.” She chews the inside of her cheek, then spills the rest of her story in a rush. “He just ghosted me after telling me that our baby couldn’t possibly be his since we only had sex one time, which is ridiculous. Plus, I was a virgin before and haven’t been with anyone else since then, so it’s not like she could be anyone else’s.” Her eyes flare wide at her admission, and she cringes. “Sorry, TMI.”
Thrilled.
Elated.
Ecstatic.
And all the other words that describe how deliriously happy and relieved I am at learning there’s no one else, no other man angling to claim them—as pissed as I am that Lainey’s father is such a dick and a deadbeat.
“This Tyler sounds like a real piece of—” I bite my tongue so I don’t curse in front of little ears. I brush the back of my fingers along my Angelainey’s cheek—because that’s what I call her, my mini angel Lainey—and can’t for the life of me figure out how someone could give her up. She’s not even my daughter, and I know I would do absolutely anything to protect her and take care of her. Her and her mother.
Shayla crosses her arms and leans back in her chair. “That’s not even the worst of it. He told me not to put his name down on her birth certificate and said his dad would take me to court for custody if I tried to pursue child support, which terrified me at the time. I mean, why would I want to share custody with someone who wants nothing to do with her? I was scared of how he would treat her, so I dropped it. But”—she looks me directly in the eye, adding steel to her tone—“I’ve never regretted it. Lainey is my world, and I never knew I could love someone as much as I love her.” She leans over to cover Lainey’s ears with her hands so she won’t hear her say, “He might be a piece of shit, but he gave me the greatest gift.”
I have to relax my fingers around my fork, or else I’m liable to snap it in half, hearing the way he treated her, discarded her after taking her virginity, and getting her pregnant. He should have treated them as the gifts they are. That’s what I would have done had I been in Tyler’s place. He’s a monumental idiot for squandering what could have been a beautiful future with this angel and their sweet daughter.
Disgust laces my tone when I tell her, “I’ll never understand men who don’t step up to take care of their families, even if they’re not in a relationship with their child’s mother. If you were my…” I shake my head and drop my fork on my plate so I can fist my hands under the table. I have to look away again, not wanting to see her reaction to my unfinished sentence.
After a few minutes of silence, while she picks at her food, she asks, “What about Grayson’s father?”
“Similar situation, I think. Lauren never said anything about being in a relationship with anyone, and there was no father listed on Grayson’s birth certificate, either. Lauren’s lawyer told me she named me his guardian in her will right after he was born. When she passed, no one stepped forward to contest it.”
“I’m sorry. Were you two close?”
I rub my chest when I’m hit with a flash of pain, missing my sister. “The closest out of all of our siblings since she was only a year older than me. Our parents weren’t the nicest to her, or any of us really, especially our mom. Lauren was the firstborn, and they were the harshest and strictest with her.” I blow out a harsh breath, trying to dispel some of my anger when I think about what it was like for her growing up. “She wasn’t even a rebellious kid, but that didn’t stop Mom from dropping the hammer on her for every little thing. Lauren went no-contact with most of our family as soon as she graduated high school and moved away. But we always kept in touch, even though she ended up moving farther away than I did, so we didn’t see each other all that often.” Through a lump in my throat, I say, “I wish I’d visited more. I miss her so damn much.”
My friends know a little about what my childhood was like, but this is the first time I’ve shared so many details with someone else. Shayla’s expression is so full of compassion, and I hope she knows I feel the same way about her and her situation.
“I know you do. I miss her for you and for Grayson,” she says, reaching across the table and motioning for my hand, laying hers on top of mine in sympathy.
I jump at the chance to flip my hand palm up under hers so I can hold it. I wish I could yank her across the table onto my lap and ask her to give me another one of her amazing hugs.
“I’m sorry,” she repeats. “Our babies deserve better, but at least they have us, right?”
My heart thumps twice at hearing her say our babies, though I know she doesn’t mean it as in hers and mine together. Even so, it’s stuck in my mind now.
Our babies.
Our babies.
Our babies.
“Yeah. They deserve the world. So do you, angel.”
Chapter 8
Shayla
Lainey and I have been spending practically every spare minute of our free time at James’s house for the past two months. It’s not exactly easy taking care of two babies under the age of one, but it’s many times better than the chaos of being at home. Though I love the idea of having a large family and understand that having more children equals more noise and chaos, I don’t think I want my future home to be a free-for-all when it comes to all the extra people. James’s house provides a peace that I haven’t found anywhere else.
