“Couldn’t have.” Beckham huffs out a laugh that sounds a bit crazed. “He was with my drunk ass when it happened, so there’s no way.” His bright eyes lock on my sister. “River, I don’t think you’ll deny it… but your husband has got to be the dirtiest of dirty cops.”
Pointing to her still-healing black eye, she shakes her head. I don’t miss the way her hand protectively rests over her stomach. “Say whatever you want about him. He’s nothing to me. We will be fine without him. Better off. And I do appreciate all of you not batting an eye when I landed on your doorstep.” She heaves out a sigh as her warm gaze shifts to mine. “Wilder, there is one thing that makes me very nervous about all this. I don’t know what to make of Brian knowing you had anything to do with Dad’s death or what would have led him down that path. I didn’t fucking tell him. I swear, Wilder. I never would have.”
THIRTY
ROYAL
I fillmy lungs with several deep, calming breaths. Breaths that don’t do jack shit to soothe my nerves at all. Rubbing my hand over my face, I can’t help but question what’s about to happen. Are we really doing this? Are we ready? Is he?
Wilder and Beckham have gone back to SIN—at least for tonight—to let us have some private time with Chase. They were excited to hear Echo and I will be officially telling our child who I am, but I have the distinct feeling they’re going to have way too much fun when they can finally refer to me asDaddyout loud in front of Chase. I foresee all sorts of jokes about to be had.
Case in point, after I’d put Chase to bed last night, Beckham sidled up to me and asked me if Daddy was available to put him to bed, too. He’d snorted and dashed away, laughing hysterically at my raised eyebrow and faux fury. I smirk, loving the way that man can find humor even through some of the craziness surrounding us. I roll my eyes, more at myself than him. I look forward to his antics.Fucker thinks he’s funny.And he totally is.
Kara knows what we’re up to tonight, too, and wished us well on her way out the door as she left for her weekend away with Todd. River is upstairs in Davis’s room, where she said shewouldn’t mind staying for the evening, or at least until Chase goes to bed.
“Are you okay? You look a little green,” Echo murmurs under her breath as she scoops ice cream onto a little cone. We’d promised Chase earlier we could go out on the front porch with ice cream cones to watch the sun set.
That’s where we’re going to tell him, this small boy with eyes like mine that he’s— I swallow hard. I’m filled with anxiety. Not because I have any misgivings at all about telling Chase who I am to him, but because I’m nervous to know how he’ll handle it.
He’s my son. He’s not even three years old.
Echo’s eyes don’t miss a damn thing. “Royal?” She sets the third kiddie cone on the counter, puts the cover back on the tub of ice cream, then licks some of the sticky sweetness from her finger.
There’s a knot in the middle of my chest that keeps tightening, the closer we get to doing this. “I don’t want to confuse or upset him.” Glancing into Echo’s shining eyes, I swallow past a lump of regret for the time we’ve lost and all the milestones I’ve missed with our child. “I want so”—I lower my voice—“fucking badly to make up for lost time, even if Chase is too little to understand why I wasn’t here and he probably won’t remember when he’s older that I missed his first three years.” I rub a hand over my cheek, eyeing the little guy, who has caught sight of the ice cream cones on the counter and hops up and down in his excitement.
“Mama! Woyal! Time fo’ ice cweam!” Chase claps, a happy grin on his face. “We go ou’side?”
I squat down to Chase’s level and nod. “Are you ready? It’s going to be so yummy.” That knot in my chest tightens, and I press my hand to it. My hope is that he will never remember a time when I wasn’t here for him. It’s possible. I know it is, because I don’t recall jack shit about my early childhood.
“I have things to make up for, too. So, let’s get started.” Echo tilts her head to the side, studying me as I stand. We let Chase race ahead of us down the front hall to the door, which reminds me of that very first day I laid eyes on him. “Come on, Daddy”—she winks—“before he opens the door on his own like he did last time.” Picking up two of the cones, she leaves me to grab the third and a rather tall stack of napkins. As we walk toward the front door, she glances at me over her shoulder. “Yeah, I’m thinking of that day, too.”
We let Chase run around with his cone, happily licking at the dripping ice cream as it melts. When the sugary concoction begins to run down the cone toward his hand, he stops and toddles back over to us, thrusting the cone in my face. “Woyal, fix?”
I glance at Echo out of the corner of my eye.
“He wants you to lick it up for him.” She covers her mouth, trying not to laugh.
Our child has made a mess, but I take it from him, and give it a good lick, then hand it back.
He gives us a sticky-sweet grin and puts his mouth all over that mound of ice cream as he watches the pair of us eat ours. A moment later, he spots a butterfly flitting around the flowers under the front windows and toddles over to inspect it.
“Hey—” Echo pauses, biting her lip as she aims her gaze my way. “Chase? Could you come to Mommy for just a sec?”
“Buttafly.” He wrinkles his nose as he points at it but turns around and returns to us.
My heart rate jacks up a notch as she pulls him between her legs. She takes a deep breath. “Chase, you like Royal, right?”
“Yeah!” He gives me this cheesy smile with a wrinkled nose. “Woyal weads to me. An’ kicks da ball. And yets me wide on his shouldas.”
“We have fun doing those things, don’t we?” I wink at him, and Chase lets loose with this adorable giggle that grabs hold of me. I want to hear it again and again and know I’m responsible for that happiness.
“Uh-huh.” His tongue darts out for another lick of his cone. Then, almost as if he can sense something is up, his brow furrows. He looks first at me, then at his mom.
I peer at Echo as well—this girl who has always had me wrapped around her little finger—and find her lip has made its way back between her teeth. She’s nervous. I’m nervous. But we’re in this together. I place a careful hand on her back to let her know exactly that.
“Chase, baby.” Echo’s arms wind around him, and she kisses the top of his head, burying her face in his tousled hair. Easing him back, she takes his sticky chubby cheeks between her hands. “Royal is your daddy.”
He looks at her, confusion fighting a war with excitement. “Woyal my daddy?” He blinks, and I can practically see the wheels spinning in his toddler brain, trying to make sense of what his mother is saying.
