Chapter Twenty-Two

Izzy bounced a wailing Archie, trying to calm the fussing baby. He’d refused milk and didn’t need a diaper change. She couldn’t put him down or he’d just crawl back to Nolan. She hated interrupting the meeting, and even a crying baby wouldn’t have her interrupting them again. Archie finally settled down, though tiny whimpers still escaped. He gnawed on the pacifier rather than sucked, and Izzy probably needed to find something cold for his poor gums. Those teeth had better pop through soon.

She wanted to watch the meeting to see how it went. Nolan appeared to have it under control when she’d left, making his earlier worries for nothing. Her gut had absorbed those worries. She’d take all the anxious moments from him if it meant he wouldn’t have to deal with them.

Footsteps, more like stomps, echoed in the hall, and Izzy looked up as Nolan entered. She halted her movements at the look in his eyes. They were cold, harsh even, and lasered in on their son. Archie whimpered, no doubt feeling the unease Izzy currently felt, and she tucked his head farther into her chest, protective Mama Bear mode engaged.

“Why was the wrong video labeled with my name?” Nolan’s hand movements were as harsh as his eyes, and Izzy cringed, holding Archie tighter to her chest.

“You wanted the one with the program description.” Crap, she shouldn’t have left the other video on her computer, or at least renamed it. She cringed at the thought of what images might have been displayed. Her pregnant self was not a good impression at a board meeting.

“I know that. Now. I needed to know that before the meeting.”

Archie whimpered and she held him closer. She’d never seen Nolan this upset, this angry, and she didn’t know what to do to make it better.

“You had an image of me in there.”

Izzy shifted Archie, wanting to put him out of view but couldn’t move. Not the reaction she had hoped to the one picture of father and son together. “Yes. I thought you’d like it.”

He shook his head, jaw stiff. “Maybe, but now the entire board knows there’s more between us than coworkers.”

Like co-parents? She didn’t dare sign that, but wasn’t this always part of the point? They couldn’t really hide Nolan’s paternity indefinitely. “We’ll work something out. Let’s grab your handbook, maybe if we read it together—”

He waved, a harsh single swipe of his hand, cutting her off. “It doesn’t matter. They know. The meeting is a bust. I’ll always be a screw-up.”

Nolan paced in a small circle, and Izzy took a step closer to the stroller, not liking the rigidness to his movements, the way his muscles practically strained against his beige dress shirt. “Mistake. Everything is a mistake. Everything will always be a mistake. It’s the same thing, over and over again. Everything I do spirals downward. I started a mistake. I’ll end a mistake. And he’ll share my same fate.” His dark gaze landed on Archie.

Izzy’s heart broke in half and then reinforced with steel.

She calmly placed Archie in his stroller, pulled out his teething giraffe, and gave him a kiss on his forehead. She turned the stroller out of view before facing the man with whom she’d somehow managed to create a child. “He’s not a mistake. He never was a mistake. Unplanned? Yes. Wrong time? Perhaps. But not now and not ever a mistake.”

She ground her teeth, amazed her hands weren’t shaking like Jell-O. “But you, you are a mistake. A mistake to bring into his life. A mistake to bring back into mine. I thank you for giving me Archie, but I will not let you hurt him. Understand? You are not the man he will call Dad.”

She hadn’t known she could string together that many words and didn’t give a fuck if her signs were wrong or not. Nolan’s shoulders dropped, so she bet on her argument being made loud and clear.

“That’s my point. I am a mistake. I brought these mistakes to the next generation and I can’t be anything more. I can’t be his father.”

Izzy winced at the words. Even though they mirrored her own, they still stung, and some of the steel pulled back as her heart bled for her son. Archie would never know her father, and now this brief week with Nolan would be all he had of his own. “At least we agree.” She glanced around, a reminder that they worked together. But she no longer had a choice; she had to raise their child on her own. She tilted her chin, determined to keep the tears so far inside he’d never have a clue. “You can communicate via email at work. I’ll talk with Deanna about another arrangement. If either one of us still has a job.” Doubtful after what she’d learned about the reason for the no-dating policy. She held onto a slither of hope; if neither of them brought their personal strife into their jobs maybe, just maybe, they could keep them.

Izzy unlocked the stroller brakes and lowered the visor, trying to keep Archie in the dark. Nolan hadn’t moved from the entrance and blocked their path. Izzy wished strollers came with a spikes option to ward off asshole sperm donors.

“I’ll talk to Deanna and work something out,” he signed.

Izzy shrugged, if anything could be worked out. “Fine. Whatever. Move.”

Only Nolan didn’t budge, and Izzy debated if the stroller had enough impact to hurt Nolan and not Archie. “I didn’t mean to mess up your life, too.”

Izzy took a deep breath and prayed for patience. “You don’t get it, do you? You didn’t mess up my life until now.” He shifted to the side and she pushed past him. Once the stroller crossed the threshold to the hall she turned back. “Thank you for showing your true colors. Now I know you were good for only one thing. That one night eighteen months ago. So thanks for the sperm, that’s all we need from you.”

With those final parting words, she stalked down the hall, wheeling Archie to the stairs. She prayed Nolan wouldn’t follow as she slowly moved the stroller down. He’d done it for her the past week, but now it was all on her.

Single mother. That was her status. And she was going to rock the hell out of that title.

Her heart tore, and it would take some time to recover. Tonight, when Archie was safely asleep and she was alone in her room at her sister’s house, then she’d grieve.

Tomorrow morning she’d put this all behind her.

…

Nolan rubbed the sore spot in the center of his chest, the same spot each and every jab of Izzy’s directly hit. He did what he had to do. Had to protect Izzy and Archie from any further harm he’d undoubtedly cause them.

So why did it feel wrong?

Every fiber in his being wanted to run after Izzy. But once he got to her he hadn’t a clue what he’d do. Beg her to stay with a mistake? Hurt her more in the future? Because he knew his worth now, namely that he barely had any.

Best she learned that before things went too far.

Nolan shuffled back to the conference room, the tables set back to normal. The board members stood around in groups, chatting in lively animation. A different day and Nolan would have joined in on one of the conversations. Today he had only one goal in mind. Deanna. Instead of chatting, she collected the lingering papers strewn about. What an epic failure his presentation had been. This meeting would top the rocket incident by the end of the day—and lucky him, he had an audience.

Suck it up, Holtzman. He took a fortifying breath, forced his shoulders back, and strolled up to the front of the room with more confidence than he’d ever felt. The others glanced his way but resumed their individual conversations. “Sorry about what happened earlier,” he signed once Deanna caught his eyes.

He searched her face for anger or the like, found nothing but her usual neutral stance. “I have to share that we’re impressed with the video, the actual video.” Her lips curved, a light teasing, but Nolan felt it like a sledgehammer. “Can that play on our website?”

“Yes. We might need to increase bandwidth as we get more videos on the site, but at the start it shouldn’t pose a problem.”

“This is all wonderful and exactly why we hired you in the first place. We need this update and rejuvenation to our website. Well done.”

Her praise tasted like sawdust. He didn’t deserve this, he didn’t deserve anything. “Anyone can do this, you don’t need a screw-up.”

Deanna stepped in his direction, turning their conversation into a semi-private one. “What do you mean screw-up?”

He let out a breath. Fuck. Why had he mentioned that? Because this one little glimmer of success meant nothing, not anymore. “Do I need to remind you my sign name?”

“I think a rocket is better than a mole.” Deanna’s sign name, a D to the cheek, coincided with a dark mole she had there. “We wouldn’t have hired a screw-up. We hired a young member of our community with good ideas for the future.”

He nodded, at a loss of what to say or feel. A positive stirring attempted to break through, erase the past, but thanks to his conversation with Izzy, he’d found a different way to mess up his life.

“I have good ideas, maybe, but I wasn’t able to stop a social media blunder in New York.” He forced his hands still—stop signing! He needed to keep his job, but he deserved nothing.

Deanna gave him a tight smile. “Why don’t you go to my office and I’ll join you after I take care of these papers.”

Her face boded for not arguing. He shut up, knowing his comments were ruining things left and right, starting with Izzy, and at this point he’d managed to piss himself off. The board members glanced his way, an extra reminder he chose the wrong place and the wrong time to bring up any of this. He wondered if he’d succeeded in messing up even when things had gone well.

Once a screw-up…

He grabbed Izzy’s computer, only instead of returning it he brought it with him to Deanna’s office, loading the slideshow as he waited. Izzy’d made this for him. Because she believed in him. He didn’t deserve it, certainly not now, but for one shining moment someone besides his mother had believed he was worthy.

It wasn’t on their shoulders to manage his self-worth. He’d been hard on himself even before the rocket incident, a little kid who always had ambitions slightly out of grasp, and he knew damn well he beat himself up for not meeting unattainable goals.

His goals weren’t unattainable anymore. Doing well in his job, being a father to Archie, both may be scary but he could do it. The control had been placed in his hands, secured there by his own insecurity. All he had to do was seize the opportunities and try his best.

A gear clicked, a lock turned. Life happened sometimes. A rocket had more power than expected, a wrong video played, a condom failed. It wasn’t the events, it was the actions and reactions. He wasn’t a screw-up because of things beyond his control. He’d become a screw-up because he let it define him.

On the screen, images of Archie and Izzy played before him. Whatever happened, this kid was not a mistake.

He paused the video with Izzy, exhausted and beautiful, lying on a colorful comforter with a bundled-up, very young Archie on her chest. He should have been there. Maybe that’s why she’d given him these images. As tired as she seemed, there was a peacefulness about her, a love she had for their kid.

No, Archie wasn’t the mistake here.

The rest of the room held color and light, and he figured this was Izzy’s room. She had one room at her sister’s house and she filled it with life. It looked like a home, whereas his place looked like a place to sleep.

He had to fix this. The image combined with the no-dating policy damned them, but there had to be a work-around. They’d both been hired after Archie’s birth. Nolan wouldn’t let a policy affect them as parents, even if someone could argue they’d been dating—or something resembling dating—this past week.

He was still staring at the image when movement caught his attention, and Deanna settled in behind her desk. Nolan quickly closed down the laptop, ready to meet his fate.

“Small communities are a bitch sometimes,” Deanna began, face not as somber as he expected. “We all know one another, and know one another’s stories, whether we truly know the person or not. I remember that rocket story from your youth, and I’ll admit I laughed and perhaps wished I had done the same when I was a kid.” She sent him a smile, but too much tumbled in his stomach to respond.

“My point is this: I knew your history before you even applied for the job. I know there was a social media issue at your job in New York. The director there was the cause of that, and you better not be lumping that in with all this, because that issue was years in the making and continues to unravel. I knew all of this and I didn’t think once about being worried. Granted, if you brought in a rocket, maybe we’d have needed a talk.”

He forced a smile at that. “I’ll have you know I don’t own any rockets.”

“Good. I hired you because I saw a young man who knew his stuff and had the skills and heart to be what this agency needs. And I haven’t regretted my decision. Until now.”

He gulped but forced his gaze to stay steady on Deanna.

“I need a staff who will do their job, regardless of interruptions, as you’ve done. But I also need staff who can roll with the punches, and who know that mistakes happen and that we can fix them.”

Nolan nodded, at a loss of what to say.

“Now, I also need to know what’s going on with you and Izzy. The picture looked more like a father and son than a new friend helping out.”

Nolan’s thumbs twitched by his side fast enough that he’d win a video game fighting battle in two seconds flat. He had to force his thumbs still and accept the consequences of his fate. “Archie’s my son. Izzy and I met back when she barely knew ASL and…” He flailed his hands, not really wanting to get into all the details of his one-night stand.

Deanna nodded, thankfully reading between the lines. “I see. Did you know, when you started here? When she started?”

Nolan shook his head. “I didn’t know until she told me. She couldn’t find me before then.”

“Ohh. A lot makes more sense now, I have to admit.”

“I know this is a conflict, but we both really need our jobs. Our connection predates our employment here, and we can work together regardless of any interpersonal issues we may have, as we’ll have to work together to raise Archie.” He prayed he hadn’t messed things up and lost that opportunity. “I know the no-dating policy affects us. I’d like to see it revised, or at least an exception given due to our unusual situation.” He swallowed; this next part sucked for him, but he’d make it work. “If that’s not possible, Izzy needs this job more than I do. If we both can’t work here I will gladly resign so she can stay.”

Deanna studied him, her face giving none of her thoughts away. “I have to discuss this with the board. They added this policy after two employees dating made a mess not that far off from your experiences in New York. My question to you is this: are you the person I need, the one who knows mistakes happen and is ready to help fix them? I need to know my social media director will bring his A game, and if a rocket goes off, or his social media gets hacked, or he’s having an issue with his son’s mother, he’ll work that into his presentation, rather than let it destroy it.”

She stood and tapped the desk. “Let me know what you decide, and I’ll contact the board in the interim. Deaf time means they are all still saying their goodbyes, and I’m about to take advantage of that.” She headed for the door, then turned, and her gaze shifted from employer to protector. “You have other decisions to make, too, namely how you’re going to handle what’s going on between you and Izzy, and I don’t mean the baby.”

And then she was gone, leaving him alone in her office, with Izzy’s laptop, and pictures from the many months he’d missed.