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I fell into the armchair across from her, my hands cupping my face for a moment. “Jesus fucking Christ.” My hands slid down, and I stared at her, my head shaking slightly. “Why didn’t you tell me this at the café? Or when you gave me the check?”
“Because I wanted us to get back together because you wanted us to get back together…not because of our son.” Her eyes continued to water. “I imagined we’d be together again, and then when the timing was right, I would tell you…and it would be this big, romantic thing.”
Romantic…that was not the word I’d use at all.
She wiped away a couple more tears before she looked at me. “I understand if you don’t want to be involved…since I didn’t tell you.”
My eyes shifted to her face, and I gave her a furious look. “Don’t insult me.”
She had the decency to look away.
“I’m in a state of shock right now. Cut me some slack. My ex-wife just told me I have a secret son who’s almost a year old. Did you expect me to do cartwheels or something?”
“I…I didn’t have any idea how this was going to go.”
I sank into the chair, my fingers rubbing across my temples. I sat there and thought about how much my life had changed in a split second. Catherine and I had been trying for months, and after every negative test, we started to wonder if we weren’t meant to have children. And then this happened… I had a son. His existence didn’t anger me, didn’t make me worry about my relationship with Sicily. I was pissed off with Catherine for lying to me, but no, I wasn’t pissed off that I had a son.
“Does this change anything?”
My cheek was propped against my closed fingers. “What do you mean?”
“With us?”
My eyes narrowed. “Why would it change anything?”
“Because the three of us could be a family. That doesn’t mean anything to you?”
“We can still be a family whether we’re together or not.”
“Dex.” She sharpened her tone, just the way she used to when we were together. “Come on, let’s talk about this. We were happy together, then disaster struck, broke us apart. I completely understand why events have turned out the way they have, but we have a son together. We can get back what we had. We can simply resume the life we had before this. I know I fucked up, but…come on.” She spoke to me like I was the one being ridiculous. “Your girlfriend is cute. I get it. But you’ll never have what we have.”
“Had.”
Her eyes flinched.
“Had, Catherine. Past fucking tense.” I felt so much anger toward her, more than at any other point. “I have no obligation to you. I owe you nothing. I was the one who busted my ass to keep us together, but you left.”
“But then I came back. I was completely struck by grief—”
“Just stop.” I held up my hand to her. “We’ve had this conversation already. It’s over. It’s buried. The reason you’re in my living room right now is because we have a kid together. I want to talk about that. I don’t want to spend another moment talking about us. There is no us.”
“I just think our son deserves to see his parents together.”
“Wow…” I shook my head. “You’re a bitch, you know that?”
Her eyes snapped wide open.
“I think our son deserves to have had his father at all the doctor visits, in the delivery room, the day he was born… You took that away from me. How fucking dare you say that shit to me?”
She looked away, ashamed.
The fucking audacity, man. “I will be the father of the fucking year, and I don’t need to be with you to accomplish that. So, tell me about him? What’s his name?”
She just sat there, looking down at the cushions beside her.
“Catherine.”
She cleared her throat. “Ryan…his name is Ryan.”
That was a name we had picked out together when we were trying, getting ahead of ourselves picking out names when the tests kept coming back negative. Ryan Hamilton. Cute-ass name. “Do you have a picture of him?”
She pulled her phone out of her pocket. “More like a million…”
I moved to the seat beside her so I could see.
She opened a picture and handed me the phone.
He was sitting on the floor on a rug, a couple toys scattered around him, wearing a onesie. He had a little hair on the top of his head, had the brightest, bluest eyes ever, and he looked just like me. It was like looking at Little Deacon and Derek, and I’d always been a little jealous that I didn’t have that.
Now I did. “Oh my god… He’s…he’s my son.”
She nodded.
“What’s he like?”
Her eyes stayed on the screen. “Happy. Sweet. Gifted.”
I grinned. “Damn right, he is.” I’d missed eight months of his life, missed all the things every father dreams about, and that would always make me a little sad, but at least I had him now. That instant connection was there, that instant love, the deep, unconditional love. “When can I see him?”
