And then it was pictures of her belly that shrank with every swipe. And the last swipe was to a picture of us, a selfie she’d taken. I remembered the day, remembered her sitting between my legs in the bed of my truck with her back against my chest, the two of us laughing. It was me who’d wanted to take the photo—she was trying to wrestle her phone away from me. I only won because I cheated and tickled her.
For a while, I was too overwhelmed to speak.
“I missed all of this,” I finally said.
“I … I understand if you hate me. But please know, I tried to find you. I even drove down once, but no one had talked to you for months. I asked them to tell you I was looking for you, but I couldn’t … I couldn’t just say why. Not with you on the other side of the world without any access to us.”
“I don’t hate you. I’m … well, I don’t know what I am.”
We fell silent again.
“What can I do?” she asked. “What do you need? Time? Are there, I don’t know … questions I can answer?”
“I have a million questions, but I don’t know if I can ask them tonight.”
“I understand,” she answered quietly. “I … I should go. Give you time.” She stood, but I grabbed her hand before she walked away.
“Have you had her tested for the gene?”
She shook her head.
The twist in my chest eased a little. I wasn’t ready to know. Not yet. Part of me didn’t want to ever know, I realized. The rest of me needed to.
That line I’d drawn to demarcate what I wanted and what was right had been wiped away with a sentence. We have a little girl. All this time I thought the line was impassable, and here I was on the other side of it without knowing I’d been here all along.
And I couldn’t go back.
“Time,” I started, my eyes on her hand in mine, catching on a delicate gold ring on her index finger. “There are some things I need time for, sure. But I don’t need time to know that I want to know her. I want my family to be her family. I … I want her to be mine. I could never pretend like she didn’t exist. I could never lie to the world about this, Pres. Doesn’t matter what I thought I wanted—we’re past that. And it’s bigger than that.”
Emotion overcame me, a deep, elemental emotion I’d never experienced. When I looked up at her, I was swept away by the feeling. We were bound in the most unbreakable of ways, and the awe and wonder of it all sent a streak of possession through me. Presley had always been mine, and that simple fact had led us here.
I would forever have a piece of her in our child.
I’m a father.
I stood, slid my hand into the curve of her neck, pressed my lips to hers with a deep desperation to consume her, to breathe her in until there was no distinction between us. She’d given me another dream, one I didn’t think I’d ever have. One I wouldn’t have by design, except for this. My fear and confusion quieted to a whisper, swept away by the current of my emotion. That emotion guided my lips, my hands in exaltation and wonder, seeking to connect in a way that had less to do with desire as it did with her heart and mine.
It was a homecoming of such magnitude, there were no words. The only way to communicate was with our bodies.
For a long, hot moment that kiss was all there was or ever would be. But then she broke away.
“Bastian,” she said breathlessly, looking down, closing her eyes.
I kissed her forehead.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
I wanted her to stay. But things were complicated enough as it was.
“When can I meet her?”
“Tomorrow, if you want to.”
“I want to.”
She nodded. Glanced down. “And what about … well, what about us?”
“Can we leave that for tomorrow?”
She seemed relieved. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
“Sure,” she answered.
“Do you work tomorrow?”
“Not at Bettie’s, but I’m gonna break out my supplies and start making candles again.”
“You do have access to all that wax.”
She chuckled.
“I love that you want to own your own business.”
“That’s what I want to do,” she said proudly.
“That makes more sense to me than being a waitress.”
“I’m a damn good waitress, thank you very much.”
“You are. You just don’t like being told what to do.”
“Good point.”
We smiled at each other through a pause. Everything felt too big to handle, everything but what was right here in front of me.
“Come over in the morning. I’ll make breakfast and we can talk.”
She backed away. “Okay.”
“Okay.”
When she’d picked up her bag, I walked her to the door, snagging the box of pastries she’d left last night on the way to the door, happy to have something to do with my hands so I didn’t wreck everything by keeping her here all night.
“Thanks,” she said when I passed it to her and opened the door. She took a step outside. Stopped. Turned back to me. “And thank you for all this. I’m sorry.”
“Quit apologizing, Pres. I’m just glad you’re here now.”
She smiled and nodded at her shoes, her eyes flicking up to meet mine once more as she said, “‘Night.”
I watched her until her taillights disappeared. When the door was closed, I leaned against it and closed my eyes, wondering what it meant to be a dad, hoping I’d figure it out.
Hoping I didn’t fuck it up.
8
It's Only Love
PRESLEY
Surely I was dreaming.
I half listened to Sebastian as he talked about Zambia, not because it wasn’t fascinating, but because I couldn’t fathom that I was sitting here in his kitchen watching him fry eggs with my secret out in the open and flapping around in the wind.
Another reality was the ever-present ache in my chest I’d come to strictly associate with Sebastian.
What he hadn’t wanted to talk about last night would have to be addressed today. And I knew a few important things to be true.
First was that I was irrevocably in love with him.
The second was that he was leaving.
And the third—and most important—was that this was the wrong time for us to start anything serious.
A large part of me couldn’t believe he didn’t boot me out of the county last night. As many times as I’d imagined how this would go, I hadn’t really expected it to work out. Maybe I’d been doing this alone for too long to let myself imagine what it would be like to have a partner. The logical outcome was that I would continue to do this alone.
Instead, he’d accepted us. He’d forgiven me. He’d decided he wanted to meet her, to know her.
I didn’t know what exactly that entailed. But I did know that he couldn’t be interested in starting something with me. Not right now, in the middle of a divorce with a plane ticket to Zambia in his pocket.
Even if he did kiss the fuck out of me last night. If I’d doubted he wanted to be with me, he’d have erased the thought right then and there.