It was the look of concentration on her face, as though she was busy assembling a mental list of tasks and checking them off one at a time. Charlie handed me a few more photos, all taken at the same place, each showing Wren as she loaded her groceries into her car.
“She works at a law office, as a paralegal,” Charlie continued, placing another photo in front of me, this time showing Wren standing outside a strip mall, the low building made of plain brown brick. Was everything in her life brown? Her letters had always made me think that the girl lived a life of color, vibrant and bold. Looking at these pictures, it seemed that these days, Wren was surrounded by drab monotony, and something about that felt so wrong. “She’s been there for a while, according to her tax returns.” Charlie brought out another piece of paper, this one covered in lines of numbers, but my brain was spinning too fucking fast to make sense of any of it. “She’s got two bank accounts and a credit card, which she pays off at the end of every month. And in the last ten years, she’s not had so much as a parking ticket. She’s clean as a whistle, Hawk. Nothing shady in the least.”
“Except for the fact that she’s apparently had my baby and never told me about it,” I growled, knowing that wasn’t exactly the truth. But the more I learned, the more upset I was getting. How had she managed to keep this from me? Even if I hadn’t responded after those first few letters, why hadn’t she kept trying? Reached out again? We’d toured in the years between; she could have come to a show, sought me out somewhere.
Fuck, I didn’t know what I expected, but looking at her life this way, seeing how she’d just...moved on, it fucking hurt, and I couldn’t understand why.
“Show me the girl,” I rasped, rubbing a circle on my aching chest. I was sweating like I’d just run a mile, and mouth my was dry as a bone. “I want to see her.”
Charlie paused, his gaze assessing as he watched me, but he made no move to reach into the envelope again.
“Hawk,” he said, his words sounding tense. “I’ll show you everything, but I want you to think long and hard before you make any moves, alright?” I frowned, but he continued. “Wren, she’s built a decent life there. Got a nice house, a job. The girl does well in school, likes sports. You need to decide what you are going to do about this, how you want this to work, before you just go in there and blow it all to smithereens.”
“I wouldn’t fucking do that!” I protested, my anger rising. “I wouldn’t hurt them, Charlie. You fucking know that!”
“Not intentionally, maybe, but what about when word gets out. What about the first time that a hoard of photographers shows up outside the school, taking pictures of this kid, a girl who grew up in an average Midwest life. She hasn’t had media training, never had to hide her face from the paps or dodge questions as strangers shout at her. You’ve lived that life, Hawk. You know how vicious and callous the media can be. Do you want that for them? Are you willing to put them through that for the sake of your own feelings?” He paused, and I swallowed, knowing he was right, but fuckin’ hating it anyway. “All I’m saying, man, is you need to decide what you’re willing to commit in this situation, because if you just want to go there and satisfy your curiosity before hauling ass back to L.A. to drown yourself in booze and weed again, then, honestly? Leave them the fuck alone.”
Sitting there, at the dining room table that I rarely used, looking around the house that was empty more often than not, I considered Charlie’s words.
WhatdidI want from Wren? Even before I knew there might be a baby in the mix, I had been intrigued by her. Fascinated, even. She was a constant presence in my mind from the moment I first found her letters.
Now? After seeing her photos and wondering if she was the same woman whose eyes had been haunting my dreams for the last decade and a half?
I was absolutely and totally obsessed.
If there was any way that Wren’s baby was actually mine, that something could tie us together in a way I had never expected but now could not stop thinking about, then I knew I was going to be in. All fucking in.
I was already sunk.
“I need to see her, Charlie. If this girl is my child—and I think there’s a damn fucking good chance she is—then I need to know. I refuse to let her think that I abandoned them. I can’t—” I paused, my hand dropping to the bracelet while I tried to gather my thoughts. Charlie stared at the motion, his lips pressed into a thin line as he watched me, but he said nothing. “I won’t let them continue on alone. Not like we had to.”
My own father had never even bothered to send a birthday card, never mind a child support payment. My mom had busted her ass all my life to take care of me, to make sure that even if we didn’t have a lot, I never doubted she’d loved me.
I thought, not for the first time, about what my mother was going to say when I told her about all this. I hadn’t said anything yet, not because I didn’t want to tell her, but because I hated the thought of triggering her anxiety until I knew all the facts. But the more I saw, the more I realized the whole thing was true.
Wren was the mother of my child. A child I still hadn’t even laid eyes on.
“Let me see her, Charlie. Let me see my kid.”
Charlie stared at me a bit longer, weighing my words, almost as though he was looking for something. I wasn’t sure if he found it, but eventually he gave a small nod and opened the envelope.
Staring down at the photo he placed in front of me, I looked into the face of a teen girl, a girl with dark brown hair, pulled back into a tight ponytail, and a smile that looked just like her mom’s.
But that wasn’t the part that caught my breath in my chest. That wasn’t what made me freeze in my chair, suddenly feeling like I was drowning.
No, what had me struggling to not pass out at my own fucking table was the fact that this young girl had a pair of beautiful blue eyes.
The same blue eyes I saw in the mirror every fucking day of my life.
Chapter fifty-one
Hawk
Present
Knockinglightly,Iwaitedpatiently while my mom worked herself up to answer the door. The sun was warm on my back, the sound of kids playing in a yard up the street the only thing floating on the afternoon breeze. I smiled to myself; the fact that those sounds existed in this neighborhood made me happy, because it hadn’t always been that way.
After a few minutes had passed, I saw her twitch the curtain, her worried eyes finding mine as she visibly relaxed.
