Chapter Ten
MAC
Louis called me daddy, and I’ve her to thank for that.
I hand her a lowball as I pass, less than two fingers of amber liquid in hers and considerably more in my own. Ordinarily, at this point in the evening, I’d hand a woman curled on my sofa a crass joke along with her a glass.Can she handle two fingers? While showing her the size of my shovel-like hands.But tonight, that would be inappropriate, and I just about manage to snatch back the words.
Don’t do it. Not after the chasm she’s filled for us both.
‘You were about to say something,’ she says, pulling the band from her ponytail. Her dark hair falls around her shoulders in soft waves. Only, dark doesn’t accurately describe the strays lying across her shirt. Reds, ambers, chestnut browns—is there a colour to describe it? Anyway, I don’t think it’s a conscious motion, and she doesn’t seem aware of how sexy she looks as she raises her hands, rubbing her fingers against her scalp and pushing those full tits out.
I tip my head backward as though contemplating the ceiling.For the love of God. We’re only one day in, and I can’nae censor my thoughts?
‘Do y-you want to be left alone?’Aye, maybe with a bottle of lotion. I won’t even need porn, just the thoughts of your arse.‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.’
She makes to stand when I find myself muttering, ‘Sit your arse down.’
In hindsight, that was more of a growl. A growl that has her doing exactly that, a small rush of air and a squeak hitting the air. My first instinct is to apologise. My second tells me I’m going soft. In the head, maybe. ’Cause I’m no’ so soft anyplace else just now.
‘Louis is the product of a very short-term relationship,’ I say to the ceiling, skirting the line between truth and lies. It wasn’t a one-night stand, and I don’t feel it’s necessarily the right thing to say we’d holed up in a hotel for a weekend fuck-fest. ‘I didn’t know she was pregnant. I didn’t know I had a son.’
For almost four years, I’ve carried on as normal, pining for Fin while fucking indiscriminately. Though yes, lately, I’ve fucked a lot of blondes, but maybe that’s a reaction to the realisation that I’d lost my chance with her for a second time. Meanwhile, as I was living the life of riley—nights out, holidays, and women—Louis actually existed somewhere. How can it be that I didn’t know?
‘She died recently. A car crash. I suppose I should be grateful she named me on his birth certificate, ’cause it could’ve gone so much worse for him. I may fuckin’ suck at the parenting thing, but at least he hadn’t gone into the system.’ The thought still scares me.
‘You don’t suck,’ she says softly, hugging the glass to her chest. ‘Sucking is the opposite of stepping up to the responsibilities thrust on you.’
‘That’s kind of you to say so.’ I lift my head and peer over at her. ‘But you’ve only been here five minutes, and the boy’s taken to you instantly.’And why wouldn’t he, I think, allowing my gaze to roam freely for a minute. She’s so fucking... luscious. That’s the word for her. Inviting, that’s another. Totally fuckable. And off limits. I lower my gaze to my glass, ignoring the rise of her chest and the flush in her cheeks.Off fucking limits, my mind repeats. Jesus wept, this is going to be tough.
‘You said his mother had a roommate?’
‘Aye.’
‘I’m guessing she lived with a woman.’
I chuckle at that. I can’t for one minute imagine her as a lesbian. Not after that weekend. And then I feel uneasy about thinking in those terms. She’s dead, and I’m remembering how she sucked my cock? And if she preferred girls, so what? But then my mind slips to the things her roommate had to say, and the things she didn’t say that hurt anyway.
‘I didn’t mean to imply—’ Ella begins haltingly. ‘What I meant to say was Louis has probably been used to a household of women. That he hasn’t had much exposure to men.’
‘No, but his mother had.’ I screw my eyes tight and drop my head. I hadn’t meant to say that, and the way I’ve phrased it? Unfair to her and perhaps unflattering to me. Because it would be easy to make her sound like an evil whore who didn’t try to find me.
‘Well, my assumption stands.’
‘That’s wrong of me.’ The words sound as though dragged through broken glass. ‘She was a good mum, not a whore.’ Just a stripper, it seems. According to her roomie, she’d given up on modelling in favour of working evenings at a high-end gentleman’s club. She gave up on her dream to look after our child—after seeking me out, by all accounts. Seeking me out yet not approaching me. ‘I’m just angry, and it makes no sense.’ My eyes lift to hers because I don’t know how to say what I feel—how to make sense of this twisting feeling that I failed us all.
‘That has to be normal,’ she says with empathetic fervency. ‘You just had your world turned upside down, and your anger isn’t misplaced. You probably feel cheated that you’ve missed out on so much.’
I nod because she’s right. She didn’t tell me, and I lost out on so many memories—Louis’s first smile, his first steps, and the first word he ever said. ‘But it feels odd. As if I experience these feelings with a sense that I must be faking them, because how can I become a dad in the space of five minutes? How am I expected to love something I’ve had no connection to?’ The guilt I feel as I realise I’vesaidrather thanthoughtthese words is immense. It weighs on my shoulders and on my head.
‘Love doesn’t always happen in an instant. I’ve known mothers of newborns say they felt like they were going through the motions for the sake of appearances, or because they felt they had no choice. Yet they all fell in love with their own child at some point.’
‘It’s not that I don’t love him.’ I take a swallow of my whisky, relishing the delicate burn.
‘You don’t have to convince me. You’ve taken him in,’ she says, raising her hand and gesturing to the room. ‘You made him a home. What more could you have done?’
More? I could’ve been available for the mother of my child. Not in love with someone’s spectre. I’m not a man given to strong emotions, but when her roommate told me she’d sought me out shortly after Louis’s birth, I was angry and confused. I hadn’t met her or even saw her, yet she’d returned home, held our child in her arms, and told her friend I was still in love with someone else.How could she have known?
She’d said I was a good man who deserved to be happy and not tied down, that in finding out about Louis, I’d be honourable but perhaps miserable. She said she deserved happiness, too, and that falling in love with me was a real possibility. So she protected herself by locking me out and then letting men like me objectify her body.For a price.
‘I’m sorry. Whisky was a mistake. I should’ve known it’d make me maudlin.’ I put my glass down and stand abruptly, feeling like I could run a fucking mile—a mile away from me and the way guilt tightens my skin. Run from the sincerity in her whisky gaze, sure she’ll see the real me. I push both hands through my hair, my gaze looking anywhere but at her. As my eyes slide to the industrial-size clock on the kitchen wall, I realise it’s only eight o’clock.‘I haven’t had much time to exercise lately, what with having Louis and all, so I think I’ll go for a run.’
Without giving her time to answer or read my expression, I leave the room.
