He took a moment to think, and then the door opened just a tiny slit. Jake poked his nose through and sniffed. “You really made chili dogs!” He opened the door farther and snatched the plate from me in the blink of an eye.
If only everything could be solved with chili dogs.
Jake retreated inside his room again, but he didn’t close the door behind him, so I followed. For a minute or two, I simply leaned on his desk and watched him wolf down his dinner. He sat on his bed to do so, and I found myself hoping he wouldn’t give me a reason to change the sheets today.
You have bigger things than housekeeping to worry about right now.
“I’m still mad at you,” Jake said, as if to provide confirmation to the voice in my head.
“I know, sweetie.” But at least he was talking to me now. That was a step in the right direction. “Do you want to tell me why you’re mad?” I knew of course, but I thought it might help him to put his feelings into words.
“I’m mad because you lied to me!” he told me while munching angrily on a piece of sausage. “And now everyone at school thinks I’m stupid because I didn’t know!”
Sometimes I hated those kids my son went to school with. Them and their gossipy parents. “Nobody knew. Nobody but me and Matt. The kids at your school didn’t know, they only guessed.” I sighed. “They were lucky to be right, that’s all.”
Jake put his plate aside. “But why didn’t I know?” he demanded.
“We were going to tell you.” I sat on the bed with Jake, keeping a few inches of space between us, because I knew my kid, and I knew that if he wanted a hug, he was going to be the one to initiate it. Didn’t matter how much I wanted to hug him. “I was just… worried how you were going to take it. I told you so many things that weren’t true.”
“Why did you do that?”
“Just…” I shook my head at myself. How was I going to say this? Ever since Matt left earlier, I’d spent all day thinking about how to have this conversation with Jake, and yet here I was, struggling with the words. “I wanted you to have someone to look up to, even if I had to make them up.” Would he understand that? He looked at me with eyes slightly narrowed in thought. “You know how people always say these means thing about me? I thought it would help you to know that your other dad wasn’t like me. I wanted that for you. I wanted you to have a really cool dad.”
“Because people are mean to you?”
I nodded. “I thought you deserved another parent who was a hero.”
He tilted his head, looking at me. “But I have you and Uncle Griff. I don’t need another parent.” And then, as I’d hoped he would at some point, he crawled into my lap and put his arms around my neck. “I hate the mean people.”
Aww. “Me too, sweetie.” I hugged him to myself like he was the most precious thing in the world—which he was. “I’m so sorry.”
He was quiet for a moment, then he leaned back and asked, “Can I have ice cream?”
“Ice cream?” I raised an eye brow at him.
“Because you’re sorry and I’m sad.”
Oh, he was definitely going to be a handful when he grew up. “You haven’t finished your chili dogs.”
“But today’s special.’
He got me there. “Okay. You can have ice cream if you’ll come down with me.”
His eyes lit up. “Okay!”
“But first we have to finish talking.”
“About what?”
“About your other dad.”
He jumped off my lap. “I don’t need another dad. C’mon, let’s get the ice cream!” And before I could even argue, he was out the door. “Uncle Griff!” I heard him calling on his way downstairs. “Daddy said I could have ice cream! You want ice cream too?”
I sighed to myself. It seemed this was long from over.
As promised, Matt gave me a call that evening. His timing was good too—I’d just put Jake to sleep. Not an easy feat, considering the boy had had way too much sugar.
“Hey there,” Matt greeted me as I answered the phone, and the sound of his voice washed some of the troubles of the day away.
“Hey, you. You back in Boston?”
“Yeah. Actually, I should probably tell you that I ran into my ex-wife up here.”
What? His ex-wife… I remembered her. And just hearing her name filled me with cold dread. “How did you run into her?”
“It’s nothing you need to worry about, okay? She came over to get some of her things from the house, and since I wasn’t here, she decided to use the place for a few days while she finished some business in town. I guess she’s in much the same position I am. Trying to move back to her home town.”
“She’s staying with you?” That was all I took away from what he’d just said.
“Eli, please. Don’t worry about it. I’m only telling you because I’m tired of secrecy, and there’s nothing to hide here.”
“I’m not worrying,” I lied as I started pacing the living room.
“You know I never loved her, right?”
Didn’t stop you from marrying her. I bit my lip, mostly because I couldn’t think of anything to say that didn’t sound passive-aggressive. “How would I know?” I found myself asking in the end, because really. He’d left me to marry this woman. And that had hurt. I still had the cracks on my heart to prove just how much.
“Well, let me tell you again. I married her because I thought that was what I had to do for my family. My parents would never have let me move out and start working as a bachelor. My mother was paranoid that I—”
“That you could meet an omega?” I cut him off. “That you could fall in love with an omega and then break that omega’s heart when you married someone else? Oh wait, I bet she wasn’t worried about that last part.”
“Eli… You know how sorry I am about all that happened in the past. But it’s in the past. I thought we agreed that we both screwed up.”
“I know.” I exhaled and let myself fall on the couch. “I’ve just had a rough day. And I don’t like the idea of you being with her while I’m missing you.”
“She won’t be here for long. I promise. I miss you too.”
“That’s good to know.” Slowly, my heart rate returned to normal. Maybe his ex-wife being there really wasn’t a big deal. I had to trust him, right?
“So you had a rough day after I left?”
“Well, you know the situation you left me in.”
“Yeah, do you still think it was a good idea to make me leave?”
“Oh, I stand by that.” I brushed some hair back from my face, thinking about the conversation I’d had with our son. And what he’d said about not needing another dad. I knew he would probably change his mind with some gentle nudging, but for now, that was what he thought.
“Jake still mad at us?”
“I got him to talk to me, but he really is going to need some time to process all this. Right now he’s not ecstatic at the idea of having another parent. But you have to understand what a big and sudden change this is for him.”
“I know,” he said, but he couldn’t hide all of his exasperation from his voice. “Well, if he needs time, he can have it. I’ll be stuck here for a few weeks at least.”
“I’ll get him to give you a chance when you come back,” I promised. How exactly I was going to do that, I didn’t know yet, but I would try.
I wanted us to be a family.
24
Matthew
Danielle came strolling into the living room almost as soon as I was done talking to Eli. It had been a long call, and I wondered whether she’d been waiting for me to finish.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But I couldn’t help but overhear some parts of your conversation. Is it really okay for me to be here?”
Oh, had she heard me assure Eli that I’d never loved her? Inwardly, I cringed. She must have known that our marriage had never been one based on love, and I’d never told her that I loved her, but I hadn’t told her that I didn’t either. “
Of course it’s okay for you to be here,” I said to soften the blow. “I’m sorry for what I said about… us.”
“Oh, don’t be.” She waved me off and sat on the couch with me, a respectable distance between us. “No offense, but you never made me feel you were head over heels for me. One reason we got divorced, remember?” She held up her hand to me to show where her ring had been and now wasn’t.
“I know. But I didn’t want to be unnecessarily cruel.”
“Please. I fancied you for a while. You’re pleasing to look at.” She winked at me. “But I never loved you either.”
“That’s surprisingly good to hear.” Maybe I should get her to call Eli and tell him that too. “You know, I’d suggest that we stay friends, but I don’t think my boyfriend would appreciate that.”
She laughed. “I see you’ve already moved on. That’s good.”
“To be honest… I was dating him before we…” I let the sentence hang, and I wasn’t sure why I was mentioning any of this to her at all, but I’d had a long day, and it was good to have someone to talk to. There might never have been romantic love between me and Danielle, but I liked her as a person. I trusted her. The number one reason I’d stayed married to her for as long as I had. Aside from my family’s expectations and my own screwed up sense of morals, anyway.
“Did you see him while you were married to me?” Danielle asked, one eyebrow slightly arched in that elegant way she had about herself.
I shook my head. “Never while we were married. I can promise you that much. But… up until shortly before our marriage, yes. I was with him.”
“I see.” She tilted her head a little. “He’s not the type your parents would have approved of, I assume?”
I gave her a smile because she got that right. “He’s an omega.”
She grimaced, but not out of disdain for omegas, but out of sympathy for me. “That must have been difficult. And you love him the way you never loved me?”
“With all my heart. It feels like he’s a piece of me that I’m missing when he’s not around.” I couldn’t think of a better way to describe that hollow feeling I got when we separated. “And what’s more, we have a child together.”
“A child?” Both of Danielle’s eyebrows shot up now, and there was nothing elegant about her expression. I actually felt a little sorry for her, because we’d both wanted children, but it had somehow never happened for us.
“I’m sorry,” I said, giving her a look of sympathy. “I’m sure you’ll have that with your next boyfriend too.” My lips curled up. “I’m sure you’ll be an amazing mother.” I might have divorced her, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want all the best for her.
She smiled back at me. “I’m sure you’ll make an amazing father too.”
“Yeah, I don’t know about that.” I stroked some hair back from my face. “It’s not easy to suddenly be the father of a seven-year old.”
“Oh, he’s that old already?” She thought for a moment. “Why, he must have been conceived just before our wedding.”
“Pretty much. Hey, would you like some coffee? I could use one.” I got up to go into the kitchen just one room over. She followed me.
“I wouldn’t mind some coffee. So tell me about this son of yours. You didn’t know about him while we were married?”
“I had no idea, honestly.” I got two mugs out of the cupboards and poured coffee into them. Thankfully, I’d still had some left over from earlier. “His name is Jake. He’s an alpha as well.”
“Have you told your family about him yet? I’m sure they would appreciate having another alpha to continue the family line.”
If only it were that simple… I turned to her, handing her one of the mugs. “He might be an alpha, but he’s also an illegitimate child. You know how my mother feels about that.”
She accepted the mug from me, and then she shrugged. “So? Legitimize him. You’re saying that you love his omega father, so marry him. Make the two of them Lowells.”
“It’s not that—”
“Not that easy?” She smiled at me. “Darling, you’ve always had difficulty seeing the simplest solutions. I’ve heard the news of your father’s passing, and while I’m sorry for your loss, it does mean you’re going to be the new head of the Lowell family, no?” She laid a hand on my arm. “I know you always wanted that position. It’s why you married me. Shh.” She held a finger in front of my mouth. “I know it is. And you must know what you could do as head of family.”
I could… “I could marry whomever I wanted.”
She gave me a grin, letting go of my arm. “Exactly. And you know what else you can do?”
I raised an eyebrow at her. It had been a long two days and I wasn’t as quick as I usually was. The fog my father’s death had created in my brain hadn’t completely dissipated yet. “What else do you think I could do?” Aside from finally being my very own boss.
“C’mon now. You could choose your own heir. And I’m sure if you think about it, you already have someone in mind.”
She was right. I could make Jake my heir. With everything else that was going on, the thought hadn’t come to me before, but I was sure that with the proper training, he could do a much better job than my bratty nephew.
Oh, my sister was going to love this. Finally I was going to be one step ahead of her in something.
25
Elias
With the shelter charity show only two weeks away, I was busy crocheting little hats for our shelter cats in my living room with both Fiona and Jake helping me. Fiona by resting her head on my lap and Jake by draping threads of yarn around her in order to ‘inspire’ me. At first he’d claimed that he wanted to learn how to crochet, but he’d quickly become bored of that. He still insisted that he was helping, though.
He did get a chuckle out of me, which was nice, although Fiona looked at me as if silently asking me to reign in my offspring, please.
Well, okay then. This old dog had suffered enough.
“Jake,” I said. “Why don’t you make me some drawings of what you think these hats should look like? Could you do that for me? I really don’t know what to do.”
“I can do that!” He beamed at me, and then he ran to get pens and paper. I heard him smash into something in the hallway, followed by an, “Ooops,” and, “I got it!”
“Did you break anything?” I called.
“Nooo!”
I sighed, choosing to believe him for now. Mainly because the dog was still resting on me, and I didn’t want to get up.
Jake returned to the room after another minute, proudly holding up his pens. “When I grow up, I’m going to be an artist, like uncle Griff!” he proclaimed.
“Yeah?” I gave him a smile. “That would be nice.” Better than what he’d told me the week before. Then, he’d wanted to be a race car driver and I couldn’t help but picture my kid in a burning car. Still, I liked that Jake had so many ideas what he wanted to be, and that he was free to choose. I liked that he didn’t have a set path to follow. I hadn’t managed to go after my dreams, but the same wouldn’t happen to my son.
Jake sat on the carpet by the couch table and began sketching out his designs while I continued crocheting. It was nice, really. The only thing missing from the picture was Matt. He still called me every night, but it wasn’t the same as him being here. How could it be?
I wanted Matt to be with us.
But before that could happen…
“Jake?”
“Yeah?” He didn’t look up from his paper.
“You know, Matt’s going to come see the fashion show too.” I tried to say it casually and not let any of the tension I was feeling seep into my words, but I didn’t quite succeed.
Jake still didn’t look up. “Uh-huh,” he said and continued drawing. I thought he pressed his pen to the paper a little bit harder, though.
“Could you try to be nice to him when he’s there?”
“I don’t like him,” Jake said simply. Still without looki
ng at me.
I put my hook down and carefully moved the dog’s head off my lap so I could stand up from the couch and sit on the carpet with Jake. While doing so, I glanced at his paper. He wasn’t really drawing anything anymore. Just making circles in various colors. I hadn’t broached the topic of his other father with him since Matt had left nearly two weeks ago, wanting to give him time, but it seemed he was still mad.
That didn’t surprise me, not really, but I still needed to do something about it.
“Why don’t you like him?” I asked.
“I just don’t.”
Of course. He wasn’t going to make this easy, was he? “Is it because you don’t want to have another father?”
He paused. Then he said, “No,” and started drawing again. Blue circles now.
I took a deep breath, wondering what to say. This was such a difficult topic. “You two seemed to have fun before,” I tried.
He gave me a shrug. “Only because I didn’t know then.”
“That he was your dad?”
He paused again and put the pen aside. “I didn’t know what he did.”
“What he did?”
Jake finally turned to look at me. “He made you sad. I hate that.”
Right. He’d said something along those lines the day he’d found out. “You think he made me sad?”
“You were always sad when you talked about my other dad.”
Oh. I hadn’t even noticed. I’d always tried to be neutral, if not encouraging, about this topic. I’d never wanted Jake to think his other parent was a bad person—that would have been unfair, both to him and to Matt—but I guess I hadn’t managed to keep my emotions completely locked away.
And now I knew why Jake had stopped asking questions too.
“I thought you were sad because he left to be a hero,” Jake said. “But Matt isn’t a hero. He could have stayed.”
And here my lies came back to bite me in the ass. It was time, I supposed, that Jake learned the full truth of what had happened. Since he’d stopped drawing anyway, I put an arm around his shoulders and drew him against me. “It’s kind of my fault that he left.”
The Omega's Secret Baby (Oceanport Omegas Book 1) Page 13