Page 23 of Before You Go
“I always have time for a beer.” He stands with Rowen, and the three of us leave his office, heading down the hall and through the living room and kitchen, where Willow is standing at the stove, cooking something while talking on the phone.
We then step into the playroom, which is not just a normal playroom, but a paradise for both kids and adults, with a park-size playset, swings, slides, a treehouse, a full bar, couches, and a huge TV. Clay grabs each of us a beer from the fridge, passing me one before walking over to a round ball pit to place Rowen inside it.
Hearing my nephew giggle and jabber, whatever has wrapped around my insides gets tighter.
“What’s up? And don’t say nothing because you look like you’re about to puke or pass the fuck out.”
I meet my brother’s gaze. He’s not blood, but we’ve been brothers since he, Miles, Tucker, and I ended up in the same foster family as kids. Our bond runs deep. I’d lay down my life for any of them, and I know they’d do the same for me.
“A while back, I hooked up with a woman.” Bile crawls up the back of my throat. Saying I hooked up with Francisca sounds wrong coming out of my mouth. She’s not the kind of woman you hook up with. I knew that the moment I met her.
“She’s not the first woman you’ve hooked up with, so what’s going on?”
“She showed up in my office today to tell me that she’s pregnant.” I take a pull from my beer, watching his brows drag together.
“I thought you made it so that kind of thing wouldn’t be a possibility.”
“I did,” I say through clenched teeth.
“Then what’s the problem? You know the kid isn’t yours.”
“She seemed sure that I’m the father.”
“And you believe her?”
“I don’t know.” I think about the conviction in her voice and the look on her face when I told her that I got a vasectomy because I don’t want kids. “I believe that she thinks I’m the father, but that shouldn’t be possible. Should it?”
“Nothing is ever one hundred percent.”
“Yeah.” I look down at Rowen when he tosses a ball out of the pit toward me. Picking it up, I toss it back and smile when he tries to catch it but falls backward into the balls, giggling.
“You’d be a good dad.”
“I’ve never wanted that life or that title.”
“Sometimes, it’s the things we don’t want that end up being the best things that ever happened to us.”
“You know my history.” My hand tightens around the bottle in my hand.
“I do. I also know that we’re not the people we came from, nor our pasts.”
“Except, I didn’t just come from a monster. That shit lives inside me.”
“I’d trust you with my life, and not just mine but my wife and son’s. And I know if you asked Tucker and Miles, they’d say the same thing. You might have a monster inside you, Dayton, but you’d never unleash that shit on anyone weaker than you, and not just because you know from experience how that feels, but because that is not who you are.”
“Sorry, guys,” Willow says, breaking into the conversation, and we both turn to watch her walk to Rowen, who is looking at his mom like he hasn’t seen her in a year and couldn’t be happier that she is back.
“I’m going to steal this little guy and get him fed.” She looks at me after lifting Rowen out of the ball pit. “Do you want to stay for dinner?”
“I’m good, but thanks, Willow.”
“Are you sure? I made plenty.”
“Yeah.”
“All right.” She looks up at Clay when he wraps his arm around her waist.
“I might be a few, baby. Just eat without me.”
