Who's Your Daddy?

by Gallagher, Lauren

  A moment later, Donovan appeared in the kitchen. He looked exhausted. His dark eyes had heavy circles under them, and his shoulders sagged like the duffle bag he carried was full of lead instead of clothes. None of that was unusual; he was always dead tired when he came home from a three-day rotation at the firehouse.

  Exhausted or not, he looked good. He always did. Even when they were tired, his blue eyes always sparkled with mischief, and his dark hair was as meticulously styled as anything could be meticulously styled with a few half-assed sweeps of his fingers. Judging by the way his T-shirt clung to his arms and shoulders, the recent changes he’d made to his already intense workout were paying off. Paying off in spades.

  The bag hit the floor with a thud, and he managed a smile.

  “Hey, you.” He put a hand on my waist.

  “Hey.”

  Donovan raised his chin to kiss me. The next kiss went on a little longer. Just wait until we go to bed tonight, his lips said. Our eyes met, and the devilish wink echoed that sentiment. I forced a smile, somehow doubting he’d be in the mood once I’d finished telling him what was on my mind.

  He picked up the mail that had accumulated during his rotation.

  I tapped my fingers on the counter. “Anything exciting happen on your shift?”

  “Not this time,” he said, flipping through a stack of junk mail. “Pretty quiet for once.”

  Good. That means I don’t have to keep this under my hat tonight. “Boring, then?”

  “Hell no.” He grinned. “We finally got that Xbox we all pitched in for.”

  I laughed. “Great, now you’ll never have a reason to come home.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” Another wink, and we both chuckled. “Hey, we have to do something in our down—”

  He cut himself off when his son shuffled into the kitchen, radiating the typical “blah, whatever” enthusiasm of a sixteen-year-old. He’d arranged his dark hair – identical in color to his father’s – into some semblance of neat and combed, and he’d tucked his red fast-food uniform shirt in on one side. By the time he got to work, he’d have it fixed and presentable, but he’d hold on to the most rebellious appearance he could until he absolutely had to square it away. Like father, like son.

  “Hey, Dad,” Ryan said, “can I take the car on Friday night?”

  “Where to?” Donovan asked.

  “Me and Kristy are going out with some friends.”

  “Define ‘going out’.”

  Ryan released a huff of breath and rolled his eyes. “I don’t know, probably just hanging out at Gameworks or something.”

  “Who’s going?”

  Ryan set his jaw, probably weighing the pros and cons of giving a smartass retort instead of answering his father’s question. An upward flick of Donovan’s eyebrow dared him to. With an exaggerated sigh of exasperation, Ryan’s shoulders dropped.

  “The usual group,” he said. “Vince, Aidan, and Jon, and their girls.”

  Donovan’s lips tightened. He wasn’t fond of his son’s circle of friends, and Jon and Aidan were especially high on his shit list. That was to say nothing of Ryan’s girlfriend, who Donovan loathed.

  But he nodded anyway. “Yeah, you can take the car. You’ll be back by midnight, right?”

  The kid rolled his eyes again. “Midnight?”

  “Yes. Twelve o’clock. Midnight.”

  “On a Friday night?”

  “Well, since Friday night ends at midnight, yes.”

  “Mom lets me stay out until two on the weekends.”

  Donovan eyed his son. “And when you’re living under my roof, you’ll be home at midnight.”

  “Dad, come on—”

  “Eleven?”

  “Fine,” Ryan growled. “Midnight.” He grabbed his jacket off a chair. “I’m going to work.”

  “Have a good night,” Donovan said flatly.

  “Whatever.” The kitchen door banged shut behind Ryan.

  Donovan blew out a breath and looked skyward. “Two more years. Thank God, two more years.”

  I chuckled to mask my nerves. “You know some kids stay in their parents’ house even after—”

  “No.” He shot me a pointed look. “Checkout time is eighteen.”

  I laughed. We both knew Donovan would never kick the kid out, but some days, it was sure tempting.

  Ready to potentially do this all over again, Don? The knot in my stomach tightened.

  Donovan glanced at the door Ryan had just slammed, then shook his head. “Kid’s gonna be the death of me.”

  I laughed dryly. “You’ll make it.”

  “Yeah.” He smirked. “We’ll see about that.” Then he tugged at the front of his sweatshirt. “Anyway, I’m going to run up and take a shower. I still smell like the firehouse.”

  “You smell fine to me.”

  He grinned. “Well, I’d rather get clean so we can get dirty later.”

  I tried to laugh, and maybe even conjure up a tingle of excitement about “later”, but the weight of this afternoon’s conversation with Carmen pressed too hard on my shoulders.

  Donovan cocked his head. “Something wrong?”

  “Actually…” I hesitated. “We need to talk.”

  Chapter Three

  Donovan

  Staring at Isaac, I gulped. “Um, okay. What about?”

  Before Isaac could speak, though, Ryan came back into the kitchen. “Hey, Dad, I forgot to tell you, I’m going out with Kristy tomorrow night too. Can I borrow twenty bucks?”

  “You’re going out?” I said. “Or may you go out?”

  Another eye roll. “Can I go out with her tomorrow night?” he asked in the apathetic monotone of a teenager.

  “Where?”

  “Out.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You might want to give me a straight answer with a little less attitude, especially if you think you have a shot at that twenty bucks.”

  “To a movie,” Ryan said.

  “What movie and what theater?”

  “Double Negative, at the Cineplex downtown.”

  “And you’ll be back when?”

  Ryan opened his mouth but hesitated, probably biting back his customary smartass retort of when I get back. “The movie’s at six. So, probably ten.”

  “On a school night?”

  “All of my homework will be done before I go.”

  I pursed my lips. Part of me thought about arguing with him, but whatever Isaac wanted to discuss needled the base of my spine. “Okay, you can go. If you’re home any later than ten thirty, we’re going to have a problem.”

  “Okay, fine. What about borrowing twenty?”

  I pulled out my wallet. Then I looked at Isaac. “You have any cash on you?”

  Isaac reached for his own wallet, but then shook his head. “I left my wallet upstairs. I don’t think I have any cash, though.”

  “Remind me in the morning,” I said to Ryan. “I’ll stop and get some cash while I’m out.”

  “Cool. Thanks, Dad.” He started to head out again.

  “I assume your homework’s done?” I called after him.

  He stopped. “Most of it.”

  “Define ‘most of it’.”

  “Just have to finish some geometry worksheets.”

  “And what about your paper that’s due tomorrow for US history?”

  Ryan’s eyebrows jumped. He cleared his throat. “I…um…it’s almost done.”

  I eyed him. “I want to see it before you go to bed.”

  “Dad, come on, it’s—”

  “You want to go out tomorrow?” I shot my son a pointed look.

  Ryan glared back at me. Then he exhaled. “I’ll go get it.”

  “Thank you,” I said quietly.

  My son stomped across the kitchen and down the stairs to his bedroom.

  I groaned and rested my elbows on the counter. Rubbing my temples with my fingers for a moment, I took a couple of slow breaths. I worked a dangerous job, but some days I swore it was
this parenting thing that would do me in.

  Isaac shifted, and that prickling feeling in my spine intensified.

  “Sorry,” I said. “What did you need to talk about?”

  His eyes darted toward the direction Ryan had just gone. “Maybe it should wait until he comes back up with his homework.”

  My stomach flipped. “Why?”

  Isaac looked at me, something unusually and unnervingly intense hiding in his hazel eyes, and cool water flooded my veins. There was nothing less than we shouldn’t discuss this in front of him written on his face, and now I needed to know what was on his mind.

  I chewed my lip.

  A moment later, Ryan returned with a small stack of printed pages paper-clipped together. “It’s not done yet. I’m going to finish it when I get home.”

  Normally, I’d have gotten on his case for procrastinating, but instead, I just flipped through it, skimming over everything to make sure it wasn’t an attempt to skate and bullshit. Then I nodded and handed it back to him. “Okay. Good enough. Remind me tomorrow, and I’ll get you some cash.”

  “Thanks.” He took the paper and disappeared down the stairs again.

  Isaac and I stood in silence. Awkward, tense silence that had never existed between us. Not even the morning after we’d slept with Carmen. Yeah, it had been uncomfortable, but not like this. Maybe it was the difference between “what did we just do?” and “what aren’t you telling me?” Maybe it was that additional undercurrent of fear on my part.

  Ryan emerged from downstairs again, and with his customary mumbled good-bye, took off out the back door. Once it had banged shut behind him, I released my breath.

  Facing Isaac, I said, “So, what’s up?”

  He glanced at the door one more time, as if to make absolutely sure Ryan was gone. Then his eyes shifted toward me. “Carmen came by my office today.”

  My spine straightened. “Really? How’s she doing?”

  “She’s…okay.” He chewed the inside of his cheek and dropped his gaze, watching his fingers drum on the counter.

  “I’m guessing this has to do with, um, last time?”

  He nodded, still not meeting my eyes.

  I resisted the urge to tap my foot just to release some nervous energy. “So, is she okay with what happened?”

  “She is,” he said. “But she’s coming over tomorrow evening, and all three of us need to sit down and talk.”

  I cringed inwardly. Awkward conversation, here we come.

  Then he went on. “Don, she’s pregnant.”

  For a few seconds, shock and denial kept me from connecting everything, and my first instinct was to be concerned to the point of panic about my friend. The last few months had been hell for her, and this was the last thing she needed.

  As I held Isaac’s gaze, though, the rest of the pieces fell into place, and I grabbed the kitchen island for balance just before my knees gave out.

  “Are you—” My mouth had gone dry. I moistened my lips and shook my head. “You’re serious. She’s pregnant.”

  Isaac nodded.

  Blowing out a breath, I raked an unsteady hand through my hair. “Oh, my God…”

  “Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. “And here I was thinking she’d just be concerned about things being awkward between us.”

  “No kidding.” A million thoughts crowded their way to the front of my mind. Fears. Worries. An unsettlingly familiar “oh, shit” feeling that had unraveled in my gut just like this almost seventeen years ago. The feeling that reduced me to that scared, stunned teenager who’d just learned he was about to be a parent the first time.

  “Fuck…” I whispered.

  “Need some time?” Isaac asked.

  God bless the man and his unwavering understanding of my need to process things on my own before we could discuss them.

  “Yeah, I do. I…” I moistened my lips again and gestured over my shoulder with my thumb at the stairs. “I’m going to go up and grab a shower. Then I guess…we can…”

  “Talk over a couple glasses of wine?” Isaac asked.

  “Yes.” I took a step toward the stairs but stopped. “You don’t mind? If we—”

  “Don.” He shot me a pointed look. “I’ve had half the day to let this sink in. There’s no reason you can’t take a little time too.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” I came around the kitchen island and kissed him gently. “We’ll figure this out. With her. One way or another.”

  “I know,” he whispered. I couldn’t tell which of us sounded less certain, and as we held each other’s gazes, the palpable worry in his eyes probably resembled the fear and concern in my own. He undoubtedly hoped for an “everything will work out” answer from me, just as much as I hoped for one from him.

  Not tonight, I’m afraid.

  “Go on upstairs,” he said softly, nodding in the direction I’d been headed a moment ago. “It’s not like anyone has to have the magic fix-it-all plan right this second.”

  I forced a smile. “Thank God for that.” Then I kissed him once more, and headed upstairs.

  In the shower, I closed my eyes and stood under the water. I needed to process this. I needed to try to process it. I needed to make some sort of futile, flailing attempt to maybe process it.

  As if my head could take much more today. On top of the bomb Isaac had just dropped, my shift wasn’t as boring as I’d let on. Yeah, we’d spent a fair amount of time with the Xbox today, but there’d been a hell of a wreck on the freeway this morning. Someone driving too fast, someone not paying attention, and the next thing everyone knew, four cars were in pieces across three lanes.

  I shuddered. At least the parents of the teenage driver had gone straight to the hospital instead of coming to the scene. No one should have to see their child in what was left of a car. She’d be all right, but the accident wasn’t pretty. Scenes like that always gave me chills when kids were involved. Even with all my training, I’d have panicked if I ever saw that much blood, broken glass and twisted metal around my own kid.

  My kid. My one kid.

  And now, another? Biologically, maybe or maybe not. But any child of Isaac’s was a child of mine, and…

  I scrubbed my hands over my face. I’d been a parent for sixteen years, and the idea of starting again from the very beginning was…daunting.

  What about Isaac and me? If he was the father, would he resent me for being less obligated to stay involved? If I was the father, would he feel left out? I knew he wanted children of his own, even if he hadn’t mentioned it in the last year or so, and if I ended up fathering a second after I’d been less than enthusiastic about the two of us adopting, I couldn’t fault him for being bitter.

  This would affect our relationship. How and to what degree? Impossible to say.

  And Carmen. My God, Carmen did not need this. My chest ached with worry for her. Her divorce had been bad enough. That piece of shit she was trying to divorce kept finding ways to draw out the proceedings as long as possible, damn near bankrupting her in the process, and she’d only just started getting her life back in some semblance of order.

  Then there were her parents. During the year-long divorce battle, they didn’t go a week without making sure Carmen knew just how much upheaval she was causing in the family.

  I shook my head, then leaned back and let the water hit my face for a moment before I stepped back and ran a hand through my soaked hair.

  Her parents always were more concerned with themselves and keeping up appearances. It was just as well they’d never met my father. If they were ever in the same room, the three of them would probably combine and create some sort of mega parent. The Voltron of shitty parents.

  The thought persuaded a quiet, half-hearted laugh from my lips, but it didn’t last long. I could only imagine how Carmen was dealing with this. How her parents would take it. How my dad would take it. I shuddered.

  Hell, I didn’t even know if Carmen wanted to keep the baby, and if she did, would she
want us involved? Both of us? What about our friendship with her, assuming the threesome hadn’t already screwed that up?

  I sighed and rested my forehead against the cool tile, letting the hot water beat on my back. The whole way home tonight, I’d been looking forward to a quiet dinner with Isaac, then getting into bed so we could reconnect, relax, relieve some of the tension my job—the physical demands as well as the emotional impact—sent home with me after every shift.

  Now…this.

  So much for relieving tension any time soon.

  I finished my shower, and after I’d dried off, wrapped the towel around my waist and went back into the bedroom.

  Isaac waited for me, lounging on the bed. He looked deceptively relaxed—hands behind his head on the pillow, one bare foot resting on the other—but I knew him better than that. The crevices between his eyebrows spoke volumes, and what little tension the shower had melted crept back into my muscles.

  If only for the view, I wished he hadn’t bothered with a shirt. The man had the kind of flawless, perfectly defined abs I would have killed for. Everything about him was lean and powerful; small wonder I usually couldn’t keep my hands or mouth off him.

  Usually.

  “Hey,” I said, for lack of anything better to say.

  “Hey.” He swallowed. “Doing okay?”

  I sat on the bed beside him, resting my hands on my knees. “Yeah, just trying to get my head around things. You?”

  “Same.”

  “She give any hints about what she wants to do?” I asked.

  “We didn’t get that far.” He moved his leg so his knee was against my back, probably just looking for some contact. “I think she was still in shock herself.”

  I rested my hand on his lower leg. “How long has she known?”

  “Since earlier today. I think she just wanted us to know ASAP, but she’s not sure where to go from here.”

  “And she’s coming over tomorrow?”

  Isaac nodded.

  “Good,” I whispered. “That should give it time to sink in for everyone before we discuss it together.”