Unless she’s my daughter…
Chapter Twenty
OAKLEY
* * *
I feel exhausted. I didn’t sleep well the night before last, the conversation with Jace weighing heavily on my mind, and then I was called in to pick up an extra shift last night and it just about killed me. I didn’t want to go into work but knowing I could use the distraction, I decided to do it. Now I’m regretting that I did. I swear every step I take toward my house feels like it takes every ounce of energy I have. I would say I’m running on fumes, but at this point I don’t even think I have fumes left.
I just dropped Ellie off at Gianna’s for the day. She wasn’t happy about it this morning, and cried crocodile tears when I walked out the door. Because I’m off tonight, normally I would stay up and keep her home with me, but knowing that’s not an option today with how exhausted I am, I promised her I’d come get her early. I just need a few hours of sleep, otherwise I might end up collapsing where I stand.
I breathe out a sigh of relief as I turn left and head up the sidewalk to my front porch, but my relief is short-lived when I see Jace sitting on the top step, his elbows resting on his knees.
He looks about as exhausted as I do. His hair is sticking up in every direction and when his blue gaze sweeps to mine, I can see the dark circles under his eyes.
“Jace,” I breathe out, closing the distance between us. “I don’t know why you’re here, but now is really not a good time.”
“You said our lives.” His voice is low, his eyes searching my face, no doubt trying to gauge my reaction.
“Huh?” I question, the lack of sleep making it hard for my brain to keep up.
“The other night, before you left, you said ‘how bad I’ve wanted you to be a part of our lives’.”
“O-k-a-y.” I stretch the single word out, trying to give myself time to come up with a feasible excuse as to why I would say something like that.
It had been a slip of the tongue, my emotions getting the better of me. I had hoped he hadn’t picked up on my little hiccup, but clearly that wasn’t the case.
“What did you mean by our?”
“Nothing. I misspoke.”
“Don’t lie to me, Oakley.” He pushes to a stand, hovering over me from the top step.
Even with the night I’ve had and what he’s asking of me now, I still can’t help but think about how handsome he looks in the bright morning sun, the yellow rays shining down on him, illuminating his gorgeous face.
“I really don’t have time for this right now, Jace. I’m exhausted. I picked up a shift at work last night, and I really need to get some sleep.”
He looks to the right, in the direction I just came from.
“Where were you?” His gaze shoots to my car in the driveway and then back to me.
“What?” I play stupid.
“You said you were at work. But your car is in the driveway.”
“I had to drop something off at the neighbor’s house.” At least that’s the truth. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
“You know.” He climbs down a step, getting closer to me. “You never were a very good liar.” Another step and then another until he’s standing right in front of me, blocking my path into the house.
“What are you talking about?” I balk, continuing to play stupid even though I know exactly what he’s talking about. My heart drums violently in my chest and try as I might to keep them still, there’s a small tremble in my hands that I can’t seem to calm.
“Who is Ellie’s mom?” He dips his face down so he can meet my eyes.
“What? Keira is. I already told you that.”
“You’re lying.” He shakes his head. “Whose daughter is she?”
“Keira’s.” I stick with the lie.
“You know, after everything we’ve been through, I never expected you, of all people, would keep something like this from me.”
“I don’t know what you’re implying, but I seriously can’t do this right now.” I push past him, quickly climbing the front porch stairs before shoving my way through the front door.
I turn, prepared to slam the door behind me when Jace walks inside, eliminating my ability to do so.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing? I told you that you’re not welcome inside!” I snap, nerves and frustration eating at my gut.
“I’m not leaving until you tell me the truth.”
“Get out of my house, Jace.” I point toward the door.
“No.”
“You’re a real piece of work, you know that? I give you a place to live. I try to be your friend. And this is how you repay me? By encroaching on my personal space. By asking questions that are completely ridiculous.”
“Are they ridiculous? Because at first I thought so too. But now, after seeing your reaction, I’m not so sure they are.”
“I’m going to bed.” I turn on my heel and head toward the kitchen. “You can show yourself out.”
Only he doesn’t. Instead, he follows me.
“Oh my god, Jace!” I turn to face him. “Seriously. What the hell do you want from me?”
“I want the truth.”
“You already know the truth!”
“Do I?” He gestures around the room. “A child’s booster seat.” He points to the table. “A sippy cup.” He picks the cup up off the island and swings it in my face. “The car seat in your car. The playset out back.” He continues to tick things off, dropping the cup back down onto the counter.
“Ellie stays with me a lot. It’s easier to keep these things here than to lug them back and forth.”
“Okay then, you won’t mind if I look around then.” With that, he turns and takes off through the house.
“Jace!” I run after him. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I grab his arm and tug him back when he reaches the mouth of the hall.
He spins around, his nostrils flaring.
“I’m going to find out the truth whether you want to tell me or not.” He shakes off my hold and turns, shoving open the bathroom door. He peeks inside and then moves further down the hallway.
I’m seconds away from losing the contents of my stomach. Fear and adrenaline pump through me with so much force I feel off balance on my own two feet.
“Jace, stop!” My voice shoots up when he reaches Ellie’s door. Not at all deterred by my physical attempts to stop him, he shoves open the door and steps inside.
I’m standing behind him so I can’t see his reaction but I can read his posture. The way his spine goes ramrod straight and his shoulders tense.
He stands there for a long moment before slowly turning back toward me.
At this point I’m frantic, tears pooling in my eyes. I just want him to leave. No, I need him to leave.
“You wanna explain why Keira’s daughter has a bedroom in your house?”
“I told you, she stays here a lot.”
“Bullshit,” he bites, agitation clear in his tone. “Stop fucking lying to me, Oakley!”
Something inside me snaps and the next thing I know, words that I don’t mean to say are pouring out of me.
“Fine! She’s my daughter.” My knees shake beneath my weight. “She’s my daughter,” I say a little more controlled.
“Are you fucking happy now?”
“Who is her father?”
“You don’t know him. I met him shortly after I left Parkview.”
“You’re lying again.”
“No, I’m not. I didn’t want you to know she was mine because I didn’t want to admit that I met someone so soon after leaving you.”
I can’t tell if he believes me or not but my money is on that he doesn’t.
“Do you really think I’m that stupid?”
“Please, Jace. Just leave.” I’m pleading with him at this point. I do not have the physical or emotional strength to keep this up for much longer.
“Who is her father?” He leans down so close that our noses almost touc
h.
“She’s not yours.” I choke.
“Then why are you as white as a ghost right now? If she’s not mine, if this has nothing to do with me, then why keep her a secret from me? Why lie? And don’t give me some bullshit about you not wanting me to know you moved on so quickly because we both know that isn’t true.”
“Jace, please.” My chin quivers and I’m seconds away from bursting into tears.
This isn’t how I wanted to do this. None of this is how I wanted it to happen.
“Jace Elliot Matthews,” he says his name slow, purposefully emphasizing his middle name.
“What are…” I don’t get a chance to finish my question before he interrupts.
“Elliot. Ellie. Fuck, how stupid you must think I am. You even named her after me.” He takes a step back, running his hands through his already messy hair.
“That’s just a…”
“So help me god, Oakley. If you say it’s just a coincidence I really might fucking lose it. She’s my daughter, isn’t she? Just admit it. Tell me the fucking truth, Oakley. You owe me that much.”
“Owe you?” Something about his statement strikes a nerve, one that has my anger boiling to the surface. “Owe you?” I repeat louder. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?” I jam my index finger into his chest. “I don’t owe you anything. You are the one who broke us. You are the one who chose drugs over me. You are the one who almost killed me. And even after all that, I still tried to help you. I gave you a place to stay. I tried to be there for you the best I could. And now you have the audacity to come into my home and say that I owe you something.” I let out an angry laugh, the sound pinging off the walls of the narrow hallway. It’s my turn to lean in closer. I press up on my tiptoes and get right in his face. “Get the fuck out of my house, Jace.”
“You know what?” He throws his hands up. “Fine. I’ll leave. But if you think this is over, you’re wrong. If you won’t tell me the truth, I’ll have to find out for myself.” With that, he shoves past me and takes off toward the front of the house.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I follow closely behind him.
“It means that there are other ways to find out the paternity of that child.”
“My child.” I pound my fist against my chest like a protective mama ape.
He spins around just feet from the door, his features softening. He takes a deep breath in and slowly lets it out.
“Oak, I’m sorry, okay. I get that having me storm in here and demand answers isn’t the most tactful way I could have done this. But I’ve been stewing on it for the past thirty-six hours. And I just… I just couldn’t wait any longer. I had to know the truth. I had hoped that you would be the one to give it to me.”
“Why do you even care so much?” My question has his eyes damn near bulging out of his head.
“Are you kidding me?” He shakes his head. “Oakley, if that little girl is my daughter…”
“Then what? You think you have some claim to her?”
“Oak, I’m not trying to step in and disrupt your life. But if she’s my daughter, I want the chance to know her, to be a part of her life.”
My chest physically aches. Isn’t that what I’ve always wanted? For Ellie to know her dad. For her to know the man that I once knew. The good Jace. The protective Jace. The sober Jace. The man who would have literally walked through fire for me.
I know he’s still in there. I see glimpses of him every single time we speak. But there’s so much more to him now. And his addiction is unpredictable and his sobriety is still so new. I don’t know if I can risk it. I don’t know if I can put Ellie in the position to be hurt the same way he hurt me.
“Just tell me the truth. Please.”
“She’s your daughter,” I admit, my words barely breaking the surface. “The night of the accident, well the next day, that’s when I found out. I didn’t know before then. When they told me I was pregnant, and that the baby was fine, I don’t know if I was more relieved or terrified. But in that moment I did know one thing for sure; that I would protect my daughter at all cost and I would never put her in a position to be hurt by you. That’s why I left. To save her.”
“All this time, all these years…”
“I know you’re angry that I kept her from you, but Jace, you have to understand the position you put me in.”
“Four fucking years, Oakley…”
“I know, but what choice did you give me?” Tears blur my vision.
“If I had known…”
“Then what? You would’ve gotten clean sooner?” I question.
“Maybe.”
“Or maybe not. Either way, I couldn’t take the risk.”
“It wasn’t up to you to decide. She’s our daughter.”
“No, she’s my daughter.”
“Only because you cut me out without giving me a chance to be a part of her life.”
“Do you blame me? Can you honestly look me in the eye and say you don’t understand why I did exactly what I did?”
“I was in a really bad place, I’m not denying that. But fuck, Oakley, I had a right to know. Even if you didn’t want me to be a part of her life, I had a right to know she existed.”
“And what if you had? What would you have done differently?”
“I don’t know… Everything.”
“You say that now, but the Jace I left behind, he was in no position to be a father.”
“Again, it wasn’t your call to make.”
“But it was. I am her mother. It’s my job to protect her from anything and anyone that poses a threat, including her own father.”
He thinks on that for a long moment before his shoulders go slack.
“You’re right. You’re absolutely right. I didn’t deserve to know she existed then, but I know she does now, and there isn’t a chance in hell that I’m going to let another day pass where I don’t know my daughter.”
“Jace…”
“I understand that we will need to take things slow. I do. But Oakley, please. I’m begging you. I have to know her. I’ve already lost Tommy. I can’t lose her too, especially after I’ve only just found out about her.”
“I need time to think.” I shake my head, my brain feeling clouded. I don’t want to commit to anything right now. Not until I’ve had a chance to get some sleep and really think it through.
“Oakley, we have a daughter.” He steps forward, all the anger and frustration seeming to disappear from his body in an instant. “I have a daughter. A part of you. A part of me.” He smiles, the reality seeming to take hold. “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve dreamt of this? Of spending my life with you. Of building a family together.”
“Jace.” I try to stop him before he gets too ahead of himself. “We aren’t going to be together.”
For some reason this makes his smile stretch wider.
“It has been four long years, Oak. Four years that I’ve been fighting to get back to you. And now that I’m here. Now that I know we have a daughter, there’s no way I’ll settle for anything less than us being together. All three of us. A real family. Something neither of us ever really had. Don’t you want that? Don’t you want that for Ellie?”
“Of course I do. But Jace, it isn’t that simple.”
“But it can be.” He takes another step, closing the remaining distance between us.
“I don’t trust you,” I admit when his hands slide up to my cheeks.
“Then I’m just going to have to spend every day showing you that you can. I’ll earn my way back into your life, Oakley. And into Ellie’s life. I will do anything, and I do mean anything to have the life we used to always talk about. I want that life so badly and now here it is, at my fingertips. Don’t you want that too?”
“Jace…”
“I know you love me, Oakley. And I love you, so fucking much it hurts. And I love our daughter. Hell, I haven’t even met her and already I feel like my heart is going to explode from how much I love
her.”
The tears that have been building behind my eyes for the last couple of minutes finally spill over, the tiny droplets hitting Jace’s fingers as they fall.
“I love you, Oakley. I love you. Do you hear me?”
“I love you too.” The words barely break the surface before Jace’s lips are on mine.
The world goes blank, like it always did whenever Jace would kiss me. It’s like everything else fades into the background and nothing else exists but this. His lips on mine. The feeling of his hands as they slide down my arms. The heat of him pressed against me. It’s a sensation I wasn’t sure I’d ever feel again. The overwhelming feeling of being consumed from the inside out.
I knew from the first moment I laid eyes on Jace Matthews that he would be the boy to ruin me for everyone else. And I was right. Even at ten years old, the pull I felt for him was undeniable. I may not have understood it back then, but now there’s no denying it.
I once said my world began and ended with Jace. And it’s a scary thought knowing that it still does. Only now our tiny world has gotten a little bigger. Because of Ellie.
Our daughter.
I still don’t know how this is all going to play out, but for the first time in a long time, I want to see it through. And not just for me, but for Ellie. She deserves this. A family. Two parents that love each other and her more than anything in the world. If I can give her that, shouldn’t I risk everything in order to make it happen? Shouldn’t I fight for the happily ever after I’ve spent the last four years dreaming about?
Even if it all falls apart, I’ll never be able to live with myself if I don’t at least try.
So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to try. Because at the end of the day, I want this. I want this more than I’ve ever wanted anything else.
I just hope that this time I’ll be enough. That we will be enough…
Chapter Twenty-One
OAKLEY
* * *
“Tell me them again,” I say, snuggling into Jace’s side.
We’ve been lying in bed for most of the day. I did manage to get a few hours of sleep in between other things and when I woke up, I felt different somehow. Lighter. As if finally admitting the truth did set me free, as cliché as that sounds.
Poison & Wine Page 16