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“You sure you don’t want me to take him?” I question.
He shakes his head. “I’ve got this, Dyson.”
My heart tightens as I watch him stare down at Samuel with an expression I know all too well. I see it regularly at the hospital. It’s emptiness. Pain. Disappointment.
What happened to him?
Whom did he lose?
My thoughts jump back to when I asked if he had kids. He said he didn’t, but there’s a longing there.
Did he and his wife have fertility problems, and that’s what broke them apart?
Did he want children, but she didn’t?
Did she miscarry?
Samuel relaxes as Gage rocks him in his arms. My stomach flutters, and I wish I could record them together. Everything in Gage changed in that small moment—his demeanor, his skin bunching up around his sorrow-filled eyes—and his face confessed I was missing something significant about his past.
“Wow,” Willow says, causing me to jump at the sound of her voice. She moves back into the room with a smile on her face. “He takes to you, Gage. Lucky for Lauren, it looks like you’ll make a great father one day.”
Her last words are like an electric bolt smacking into a power line, shutting Gage off from me. His shoulders still, his body going tight, and the lost expression on his face fires through harder.
He holds Samuel out to Willow, and his voice turns cautionary. “It was a pleasure meeting you and your family. I have to go.”
His hands shake as Willow takes Samuel from him, and as soon as their exchange finishes, he jumps up from the chair and rushes to the door. I’m on his trail, reaching him at the stairs, and I grab the back of his shirt to stop him.
“Hey,” I say, unable to get him to turn around. “What’s wrong?”
“Forgot I needed to shower,” he clips before sniffing his armpit. “I had a long shift.”
Liar.
Alarm rings through my mind. There’s something wrong. This isn’t the right time to question him. Even though I don’t know why he’s upset, his slumped shoulders and emotion-choked voice tell me the pain is deep. Trying to draw out the reasoning from him with Willow here is selfish.
“Are we still on for dinner?” It’s not a serious question, but it feels like a thousand bricks hit me when I ask.
He moves down a step, and I expect him to walk away, but instead, he turns around to look at me. “Shit, I forgot I promised my dad we’d do pizza, beer, and the game tonight.”
Liar.
He’s a pro at faking; I have to credit him for that. He’s absorbing the pain deeper, hiding it from me, with each passing second.
“Want to stop by when the game ends?” I ask.
He rubs his eyes. “Sure. Have fun.”
With that, he turns around.
I don’t head back into the loft until he disappears into the house.
“Okay, what just happened?” Willow asks when I walk back in. Her face is filled with guilt as she stands with Samuel on her hip. “Did I cross a line, asking him to hold Samuel? Does he not like kids?”
I shuffle back to my chair and sit down. “He needed to shower.”
“Is he still coming to dinner?”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
