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Thank god.
Babies tended to be intuitive, and Jeremy liked almost everyone. But the creepy guy hitting on me at the supermarket? Nope. He’d howled like a banshee. My boss at the restaurant who leered at me almost every day? Jeremy had thrown up on him one time when Aunt Meg had brought him in to have lunch while I’d been working. So, I trusted my baby’s intuition more than my own.
“Do you think he’d let me hold him?” Zeke asked softly.
“Probably. He only screams if he doesn’t like someone. Otherwise, he’s mostly curious and happy. He’ll pull your hair, though.” I finally turned to look at him.
“That’s okay.” He held out his arms.
Handing our baby to him was much, much harder than I’d imagined.
I knew he wouldn’t hurt him. That wasn’t it at all.
I just wasn’t ready to let go. To share him. To share something so intimate with Zeke. Not again. I’d trusted him once and that had been a mistake. Trusting him with my baby was almost more than I could stand. But I had no choice.
“I’ll be careful,” he said, apparently noting my hesitation.
“I know. I just… I don’t trust you,” I blurted. “Not with me and certainly not with him.”
Zeke let his arms drop, and there was no mistaking the hurt in his eyes. “I’m doing my best to make it up to you,” he said. “What do you want, Presley? Money? Another apology? What’s it going to take?”
I laughed, but it was humorless.
“Money so Jeremy has everything he needs? Absolutely. But apologies are just words. I need you to prove to me you’re going to be in his life and actually care about him. If you just send a check every month, that’s fine too, but I need to know. I have to be prepared so I can protect him. So he’s not waiting at the door for the dad who never shows up. I don’t want my son to be at his baseball game, constantly staring out toward the stands, to see if Dad will make it this time. That can’t be his life. I refuse.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said gruffly, his eyes filled with sincerity. “Yes, I’ll be on tour again soon. Ish. We don’t have a date yet. But I’ve already said we have to build breaks in. We’re not going balls to the wall anymore. You can fly out and visit. Or I’ll fly here. I won’t just write a check every month. And there will be extended breaks between tours. We’ve already talked about it.”
I stared up at him, willing myself to stay skeptical, to keep him at arm’s length. I had to. Jeremy would be fine, I’d make sure of that, but if I let Zeke get too close, he could destroy me. There was a pull there, a magnetism I didn’t understand, and it hadn’t faded in the year we’d been apart. If anything, it was stronger. Standing here with our baby in my arms, in my bedroom, was the most intimate thing I’d ever experienced.
“Please, can I hold him?”
I averted my gaze when I nodded, lightly pressing my lips to the top of Jeremy’s soft head as I handed him to Zeke.
“Hey, big guy.” Zeke gently took him from me, expertly cradling him against his shoulder.
“Not your first time holding a baby,” I noted.
He smiled. “My sister has two kids. And remember, I have ten thousand cousins, many of whom have kids. There are something like forty-eight of the second cousins or whatever your first cousin’s kids are called.”
“Second cousin once removed?” I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t have any cousins so I’m not sure.”
“God, Presley, he’s perfect.” Zeke was staring at the baby in his arms with awe, the look on his face melting my frozen soul just a tiny bit.
“He is.” Tears stung my eyes and I fumbled for my phone. I might not like Zeke’s presence, but I needed Jeremy to have a record of the first time he met his father. The first time his father held him.
God, I was such a fucking sap.
Zeke didn’t smile as I snapped pictures, keeping his eyes on his son.
Jeremy started to squirm, looking for me.
“Is he done with me?” Zeke asked, a patient smile on his face.
“No. He’s just hungry. You want to carry him downstairs? You can hold him while I make his bottle.”
“Can I watch?”
“You want to watch me make a bottle?”
