I ran a hand down my face and waited for Elijah and Amy to say something. I’d finally told them about Frankie and I wasn’t sure it had gone down too well.
“You’ve known you had a son for eight years and never once told any of us,” Elijah ground out from between gritted teeth.
“Pretty much.”
“Don’t you dare be so fucking flippant about it,” he snapped. “This is a child we’re talking about. How the hell could you leave her on her own with a kid? I thought you were a better man than that?”
Eli’s eyes were blazing with anger and were so concentrated on me, he didn’t even register that Amy had taken his hand in hers. I’d only ever seen him this mad during his years without Amy, particularly when she first left, but never expected this level of anger to be aimed at me.
For some ridiculous reason, I’d decided to tell them both about Frankie and Maisie and the fact that Frankie was in my swimming group. I’d thought he’d be supportive and understand why I’d not been in my son’s life, but he clearly wasn’t. I got it, I really did, especially as he and Amy had suffered the loss of a child years ago, when Amy had a miscarriage. Children were a sensitive subject for him for a long time, but now that they had Bella, I thought he might be a little less judgemental; obviously not.
“It was Maisie who wanted to do it on her own,” I protested.
“Really, like I believe that,” he scoffed. “And if she did, why the fuck?”
I leaned forward, resting my forearms on my knees and weighed up what I was going to say. It was true, it had been Maisie’s wish that she did it alone and I had nothing to do with the baby, but I hadn’t exactly argued or given her an alternative. I’d been a prick.
“Okay, truth?”
Elijah’s eyes went wide. “It’d be a fucking start.”
“We’d had sex a couple of times and then it ended. She knew it wasn’t what I wanted.”
“But you really liked her,” Amy added. “You told me you did.”
My gaze went to my sister-in-law who was now slowly rubbing Elijah’s back, trying to calm him down.
“I did, but I didn’t want a baby and she did. Maisie said she’d rather do it alone than have me giving a half-arsed, uncommitted attempt at being a dad.”
“So you just said okay and let her go and have your child without a care from you?” Elijah asked, throwing his arms out in front of him. “You didn’t give a shit about him for almost nine years. You’re a fucking twat, Sam, and I can’t believe you’re my brother.”
“I couldn’t do it,” I hissed. “I couldn’t fucking do it, not ag-.”
I stopped myself from saying any more. I had never told him about Alison Carmichael and the baby that was never mine. I’d never told anyone. Was that because I still cared about her or felt loyalty to her? Was it? Fuck! I hated her and what she’d done to me. There were two reasons I hadn’t told a soul about how she’d ripped my heart out and broken me – her husband and her daughter. They didn’t deserve to have their lives turned upside down, and if I was being truthful, I felt fucking ashamed of what had happened, what I’d allowed to happen.
I knew that these days what she did may well have been seen as grooming, but I wanted it just as much as she did when it started, for fuck’s sake. I’d wanted her as soon as I realised that my dick wasn’t just for peeing out of and if truth be told, I’d done everything I could to make her notice me as more than a protégé. Maybe it was a teenage crush and if she’d not made a move on me I’d have grown out of it, but she did and I let my teenage dick rule my sensibility. Did I think she’d do it to some other teenage boy with raging hormones? Who the fuck knew, but even the thought that she might do it again wasn’t enough for me to let the world know that I’d been a stupid idiot and let myself be manipulated. Over the years while the pain and embarrassment hadn’t gone away, it had lessened and I’d learned to deal. It didn’t mean it hadn’t taught me a lesson, it fucking had, hence why I’d been quite clear to Maisie that a baby was of no interest to me.
Once bitten, twice shy.
A burned man dreads the fire.
Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
Whichever phrase you chose to use, it applied to me. I’d vowed I’d never fall in love again, or let another woman make an idiot of me, and the situation with Maisie had felt a little too familiar.
“Oh well,” Elijah said with a heavy hint of sarcasm. “If you couldn’t do it, I totally understand why you’d let her bring up your son alone. It explains it all.”
“Eli,” Amy whispered softly. “Calm down, you’ll wake Bella.”
“Oh yeah,” he replied. “Because that’s what you do when you’ve got kids, you take care to make sure they’re happy, safe, and sleeping soundly, unless of course you’re Samuel fucking Cooper, who just ‘can’t do it’.”
He pushed up from his seat and stormed out of the room. As Amy and I sat in silence, I heard him stomp up the stairs, probably going to check on Bella if I knew him.
“He’ll calm down,” Amy sighed. “I don’t think it’s just about you not helping to raise Frankie, I think he’s hurt too.”
“Hurt? What the fuck about?”
“You didn’t tell him, Sam. He’s your brother and you didn’t tell him. All this time you had a son and you didn’t tell the one person you’re closest to.”
