For a second, I forget how to breathe.
Every tick of the heater makes my body twitch as three sets of eyes are all focused on me, waiting for me to speak.
All I can hear is my own heartbeat pounding in my ears, loud and uneven, like a drum I can’t quiet.
Eli.
My sweet boy tucked away in the adjoining room, fast asleep under the soft layers of hotel blankets, completely unaware that the world is threatening to detonate if I answer wrong.
My mouth opens, but nothing comes out. My voice catches halfway up my throat, tangling with the panic rising there.
What do I even say to that?
Howdo I answer that without looking like I’m floundering?
The air feels suffocating under their combined scrutiny, and their silence only makes it worse.
I can feel myself unraveling under it.
My fingers twist together in my lap, cold and clammy. I can’t look at them anymore, not directly, at least.
I open my mouth, my voice tripping over itself as I scramble for some kind of lifeline. “That’s…that’s crazy. Why would he be one of yours? I mean, come on. It was just a weekend. It was all a blur, you know? I was dating back then, other guys. It could’ve been anyone, really, and…”
My words tumble out, a frantic patchwork of half-truths and deflections that don’t even sound plausible to even my own ears.
I’m drowning in it—the lies, the fragments of truth I’ve carefully buried for years that I hoped would never see the light of day.
The way my throat burns trying to keep them down every time the urge to finally spill them rises.
My cheeks flame hot, the heat crawling all the way to my ears. I can feel the cracks showing no matter how hard I try to remain neutral.
Because they know.
I can see it in their faces.
The faint tightening of Cal’s jaw.
The way Dean leans forward just slightly, his eyes sharp.
Grant’s still by the window, his hand flexing at his side like he’s fighting every instinct to step in and grab me by the shoulders to shake the truth out of me.
It’s all too close.
The math, the timing, thetruth.
Eli’s five, born in August, conceived that winter.
The wintertheywere here.
The winter everything went wrong and right all at once.
And sure, his hazel eyes are mine and his dark curls too.
But that stubborn jaw, that grin when he’s being cheeky, there’s something familiar in it.
Something I can’t deny.
Dean’s spark when he laughs.
