“You see me in your dreams?” The words are out before I can stop them, and I jerk my gaze away. Axel doesn’t know everything about me, and the last thing I want him to do is to think I have a crush on him.
I swallow something acidic in my throat.
Luca starts to fuss, and I give a silent prayer that there’s a socially acceptable reason for me not to look at Axel. I hadn’t wanted to bring Luca, but Axel needs to meet him. Axel has been avoiding him long enough.
“I didn’t know Gaby passed away. That’s terrible. I—” Axel opens and closes his mouth multiple times.
Were they closer than I thought?
But of course they were closer than I thought. They slept together.
I bounce Luca in my arms, all twenty-five pounds of him. Luca continues to bawl. Lucky guy can do the socially unacceptable thing.
I want to cry too. I’ve been crying more than when Mom died. More than when Gaby moved home to take care of me and started asking if I’d done my homework—parental questions she’d never needed to bother with before.
But then even in high school I wasn’t sleep deprived. I wasn’t woken up at all times of the night. I hired round-the-clock nannies the day after Gaby died. But when your nephew sobs in the dark, confused and terrified, you don’t stay in bed.
Axel flicks his gaze to me. “She didn’t tell me I had a son.”
I swallow hard. “She didn’t?”
He shakes his head.
“Oh.” My heartbeat quickens.
Is he not the father? No. Luca looks like Axel.
But if he didn’t know…
Well, you can’t be a deadbeat dad if you don’t know you have a kid, can you?
“I mean… I’m probably the father,” he says lamely.
Right.
“Oh. Yes. That makes sense.” I nod multiple times.
Well, now I know for sure. I already knew. But if he knows he’s likely the father—well, that means they were together enough times for birth control to fail.
Gaby and Axel were together. How long had they been sleeping together? Every time that he came to LA for games? Months? Years? I thought he was coming to visit me, and really…
I don’t want to know. I definitely don’t want to picture it. My brain, helpfully, tries to picture it anyway.
“Hey…” Axel’s voice is beside me, closer than I expected. He smiles at Luca and shakes his tiny hand. “I’m your father. Your daddy.”
Luca stares at him.
Axel stares at him.
Luca ceases crying.
I suddenly feel out of place.
“Let me take him.” Axel wrangles Luca from my arms.
Luca looks at me, as if to make sure this is okay.
“It’s fine.” I try to smile.
