“I want to see him,” Josh cuts in, his eyes glossy.
Tuck shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Josh.”
“I want to see him,” he repeats, panic threading into his voice now.
Tuck scrubs a hand over his face, his chest rising sharply as his gaze drifts—unfocused—past us. To the wall. To the pictures. “I don’t think—” he starts.
And then he stops. Goes completely still. My stomach drops as his eyes lock on the baby picture. The one I found tucked away in the dresser drawer. A haunted look crosses his face, so raw it steals the air from the room. One hand lifts, bracing against the wall like he needs it to stay upright.
“What…” His voice barely exists.
“I thought…” My own words falter under his strange reaction. “Your baby picture. I thought you’d like it. I thought I’d?—”
He backs away. Like it burns. Like it’s something dangerous. My breath catches as his gaze flicks to the other pictures.
Josh with Marbles.
Tuck and Marbles.
Josh and Tuck working on the backyard rink.
Lucas and Tuck at the pool table.
Us, working together in the kitchen.
Pictures to show him we want to fill his walls and his home with love.
His gaze snaps back to the baby picture. A broken sound catches in his throat. The front door bursts open behind us. Kate and Nicklas rush in, breathless, laughter still clinging to them, until Kate sees Tuck—sees what he’s looking at.
Her face drains of color instantly. “No,” she whispers, her voice strained. She turns toward me, and something in her expression fractures.
“I thought…” I start again, my voice shaking now. “I found your baby picture. I thought I’d show?—”
“Maria,” Kate cuts in, her voice thick with something like grief. “Stop.”
Tuck backs away further, shaking his head. “That’s not me.”
The world tilts. “What?” My pulse roars in my ears. “Then, who is it? What’s going on?”
No one answers.
Kate’s eyes are glassy. Tuck looks like he might shatter. I turn to Nicklas, desperate, searching for something—anything. And I see it happen. The shift.
“That’s your son,” he says, the realization hitting him all at once. “It’s Ben, isn’t it?”
The name lands like a crack through the room.
Ben.
His son.
My breath stutters.
Tuck has a son.
A whole other life.
A family he never told me about.
