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Simon’s grinning so wide it looks like it hurts, his dimples creating craters in his cheeks.

My heart skips.

My stomach flips.

No.

No.

I am not getting flustered watching my son’s father cheer for our kid.

I force my eyes away from his stupid, glowing face and down to his neck.

And just like that, the flutter dies a clean death in my chest and gets replaced by a sharp, familiar sting of what the hell is wrong with you?

Disdain settles in like muscle memory.

Much better.

Chapter three

Simon

“Don’t forget to cut his water intake off at 7:30,” Blaire says as I’m buckling Theo into his car seat. “Otherwise he’s going to wet the bed. He’s been doing really well this past week at waking up dry, so please—”

“Blaire. I got it.” I chuckle, trying to keep it light, stepping back to let her lean in and say goodbye to him.

She gives me a tight look before her eyes flick down to my neck.

It makes my blood boil every time she looks.

I’ve told Veronica so many times not to leave marks. I don’t like it, don’t want it, and especially not when I’m seeing my son and his mother the next day. But she did it anyway.

Veronica wanted to stake her claim.

I don’t think Blaire’s irritation is jealousy. I’m pretty sure whatever feelings she had for me died long before we ever knew she was pregnant. I was a new soldier, still moving base to base, barely holding down a long-distance relationship. She brought up marriage so she could be stationed with me. Talked about a house, a future, and kids.

I panicked like a goddamn child.

So, instead of telling her what was really going on in my head, I did the most cowardly thing imaginable: I told her we should see other people. Just… walked away. Threw away six years like it meant nothing.

She didn’t even get a conversation.

Then a few weeks later, her dad called me. Told me Blaire was pregnant, and she wanted me to know but wasn’t planning to chase me down if I wasn’t stepping up.

He made it very clear that if I didn’t step up he would chase me down.

She made it clear I was welcome in our child’s life—but not in hers.

She didn’t want me back. Not because she didn’t love me—but hell, maybe she didn’t by then—because she didn’t want to build anything out of obligation.

I agreed. Like the idiot I am, I caved to what Blaire said she wanted without a second thought. I never explained that I’d bought a ring before she ever brought up marriage. Never told her I let the fear win. That watching my parents’ marriage self-destruct left me terrified of promising anything to anyone, no matter how much I wanted it.

So yeah—she’s pissed.

Not because I have hickeys. But because they’re a reminder of where I was last night instead of calling our son. I’m pissed too.

Because it’s one more reminder that I’m exactly the type of man I was scared of becoming.