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Hailey’s hand flings out in a know-it-all gesture. “What happens if they slip and start to drown?”
My hands find my hips while my nostrils expand on a much-deserved exhale. Now she’s being absurd. We could do the what-ifs all day.
“Then I’ll become a fucking lifeguard. Jesus!” I holler at her ridiculousness.
If this wasn’t with her and we weren’t talking about our child, I’d think she was playing some sort of twisted game of foreplay.
She’s not, but my dick doesn’t seem to get the memo.
I can’t be the only one noticing she’s pushed this too far. The girl is excessive at times—okay, a lot of the time.
A war wages inside her mind, I know, because if there’s one thing Hailey is known for, it’s not her lack of expressions.
I wait because I have no other choice. Then when it feels as if an entire day has passed and then half another, a coy little smirk tugs on the one side of her mouth.
“Do you want to meet your son?”
A son.
I…have…a…son?
fourteen
Finn
Ihaveason.
His name is Aiden, he has my eyes, and he’s perfect.
He’s content, playing on the floor of Hailey’s old bedroom, oblivious to either of us being there. It’s crazy how easily my world shifted the very moment I saw him.
The more I watch, the more glimpses of the pair of us begin to shine through. Aiden is the perfect combination of us both. With his messy dark hair, pert little nose, and not one, buttwoadorable dimples that pop out on either side of his cheeks when he laughs.
My heart pounds, wired but strong.
Aiden’s only a toddler, a few months past two is what Hailey had mentioned, but I’ve never seen something so delicate in my life. He’s perfect.
“He is absolutely obsessed with cars,” Hailey muses softly beside me in the doorway. I haven’t gone any further, content where I am, and graciously she’s followed my lead. This is new territory for us both.
I don’t want to disrupt him, not yet.
Unfazed, Aiden continues to sit and play with the bright-colored toy vehicles. Smashing them under his too-chubby hands before he slams them into one another.
I gulp. Maybe I’m not the one who’s ready?
I’d meant it when I said I was all in, but that doesn’t mean we need to disturb him right away. All of our lives will be different after today, so why not allow him this one last moment of peace?
I lick at my suddenly dry lips. Hailey had said he likes cars…
Those heartstrings I didn’t think could be tugged at any tighter are yanked taut at the mention, and I was already grinning like an idiot before. More similarities…
Aiden is mine through and through. My smile grows bigger.
By some miracle—a modern-day anomaly—the thing underneath my ribs hasn’t completely burst with elation.
Somehow, I manage to pull my gaze away long enough from my son—myson? Like a lyric stuck to my mind, I can’t stop repeating the sentence. My son. My son. My son. Aiden.
“You did good, Hails.”
