AllFreeNovel
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“Yes, Lucas, it’s right. Or would you rather he not know and figure it out on his own? Or what if he thinks you’re just the weird old guy that hangs out with him?” She laughs like it’s the best damn joke she’s ever heard, and Jadon clears the stairs and finds us.
“Bedroom, please. Go sit on your bed.”
He jumps and pretends to be a superhero flying through the hallway and into his room.
It’s happening. It’s real, and I can’t move. He’s in there waiting and his life is about to change. What if he doesn’t like me enough as his dad?
“Oh, come on.” Allie takes my hand and pulls me along. It’s comforting and her hands are soft in mine. A tingling sensation creeps up my arm from where our fingers lace together. If it bothers her when I squeeze hers back, she doesn’t say anything.
He’s sitting on his bed patiently waiting with a dinosaur in his hands and Allie doesn’t pull away from me as we get closer.
“Hey Jadon,” she guides us down so we kneel in front of him. This awkward moment is made up of my shaking hand in hers, sweat over my brow, and my stomach twisting in knots. We’re at his level, but I feel lower than him, as though he could easily hate me now. But when her thumb moves across my knuckles, I focus on that and take a deep breath.
“Remember your friend Angelo from that playgroup?”
He nods as a small child does.
“Remember how he didn’t have a mommy, but he had a daddy? Roland?”
Who the fuck is Roland?
“Yes…” His chin dips low and his wide eyes move between Allie and me.
“Well, remember when you wanted to trade, so you knew what it was like to have a daddy?”
God, really?
“Uhuhhhh.”
“Well, Roland and I didn’t trade places, but that’s because you have a daddy. He just needed to be away for a while.”
He squints at me, like he’s piecing it together. Maybe he won’t hate this after all.
She puts another hand on my back while squeezing my hand still with her other. “Lucas is actually your daddy, baby. He had to be gone for a while, but he’s here now to be with you.”
There it is.
Without the resentment and rage I expected, Jadon’s toothy smile is the most beautiful thing I’ve seen yet. He knows, and he’s happy about it.
He leaps off his bed and straight to me, wrapping his limbs around me like a monkey. Allie lets go of my hand so I can hold him. Jadon doesn’t make a sound, but squeezes me around the neck.
From the corner of my eye, she’s holding her phone up, taking pictures.
When she finishes, Allie sits on his bed and faces us while wiping tears from her eyes, and I notice her fidgeting with her hands. It’s my turn to take her hands while I hold him. She relaxes, and something just feels so right about this moment here.
“Daddy.”
Shit, that feels good to hear.
“Yeah, buddy.”
Tom comes in a moment later, and my moment with Jadon is over when he runs to go help Tom with dinner.
Allie looks down at the floor and lowers her voice. “I’m sorry.”
My brows pull together. It’s my turn to be confused. “You’re sorry?”
“I should have told you. I had your profiles right there. I could have reached out, and I didn’t. I was just... I was so angry, Lucas, and I had it in my head that you would be one of those assholes, you know? Or maybe you wouldn’t believe me.”
