A Simple Realization of a Simple, Undeniable Fact

“Chase!” Amanda gasped.

I wanted to look at her, to see if she was laughing at what her sister had just said. But I couldn’t. I stared at Chase, her question echoing in my head. Find out I was a what?

The thing with Chase is she has that distinct speech of one who’s grown up without hearing clearly. Sometimes, especially when she’s in a mood – either playful or surly – her words aren’t always clear. Amanda suspected Chase emphasized it at times, just to see how the person she was talking to would react.

Now had to be one of those times. Had to be. Otherwise …

“You know that’s why you’re here, right?” Chase looked at me with an unwavering gaze. “You didn’t think the golden child over there just invited you all this way to screw in the shower, did you? I mean, after what Dad told her, the very fact you are here means she’s decided to—”

“Chase,” Amanda repeated, horror in her voice.

I blinked. My gut churned and rolled. “I’m sorry?”

Chase snorted, her lips twisting in a smirk. “No need to apologize to me. I’m not the one you knocked—”

“That’s enough, Chase.”

Cold anger filled Amanda’s sharp snap. I turned to her, my eyes burning. “I don’t understand what’s going on.”

“Oh my God, you didn’t tell him?”

I looked back at Chase. Dull pressure throbbed in my temples and behind my eyes. In the few times I’d been in Chase’s company, I’d never really known what she was thinking. She could be the most wonderful, warm person in the world when she wanted to be, or the most cutting.

Now, she regarded me with an expression I could only describe as contrite disbelief. “Oh God, I didn’t … Oh wow. Oh wow.”

Something cold and invisible punched me in the chest. I drew in a sharp breath, unable to move.

Chase seemed equally frozen, her eyes flicking from me to where Amanda stood, out of my peripheral vision. “Sis? You didn’t … he doesn’t know?”

“Know what?” I asked her. Her. Not Amanda. I couldn’t look at Amanda. If I did, I don’t know what I would do. Or say.

“Sis?” Chase repeated, looking like a tiny rabbit trapped in rapidly approaching headlights.

“Bren,” Amanda’s voice was little more than a husky rasp. “I should have … I mean … I didn’t mean to … I didn’t know how …”

“Know what, Chase?” I repeated, ignoring Amanda. My whole body felt like it was being ripped apart. An invisible, icy fist was slamming into me, over and over. My head roared, my eyes were on fire. “Tell me, because it seems like your sister hasn’t got the guts to do so.”

Chase winced. Amanda made a choked noise. “Oh God, Brendon, I didn’t … I’m sorry. I don’t … I wish …”

And still I couldn’t look at her. Still, all I could do was fix my stare on her sister and wait. Wait. Even as I knew what she was going to say.

Knew.

“You’re a daddy, Brendon,” Chase finally said. “You have an eighteen-month-old son called—”

I turned on my heel and strode for the bathroom. I didn’t stop when Amanda called after me, didn’t look at her when she came bursting into the room.

“Brendon, I should have told you at the airport.” Tears filled her voice. I didn’t look at her as I snatched up my gym bag and backpack and flung them over my shoulder. “I should have told you …”

I swung around to face her. It took every effort in my being not to clench my fist. “When you found out you were pregnant. That’s when you should have told me.”

A sob tore from her. A tear slipped from her eye. I watched its path. Watched it travel over her cheek, down past the corner of her mouth. Watched it disappear beneath her jaw.

And then I sucked in a deep breath and left the bathroom, walked through her living room, and headed for the door.

“Good to see you again, Chase,” I threw over my shoulder as I passed her – still standing where I’d first seen her in a different life. “Take care.”

“Brendon, you should—”

I yanked open the apartment door, stepped through it and slammed it shut behind me before she could finish telling me what I should do.

Calm down? Stay? Sit down and have coffee and cookies while we “talked this out”?

No.

I’ve never run away from anything in my life. I’ve faced down any challenge thrown at me. Rolled with the outcome. Learned from it. Used what I’d learned to live a better life, to move forward. I wasn’t running now, but I couldn’t be there. Not at that moment. I couldn’t process it. I couldn’t …

Fuck, I couldn’t …

I was a father. I’d been a father for eighteen months, and Amanda hadn’t told me.

I’d been in the country with her for over three hours. I’d sat in a car with her for almost ninety minutes and she hadn’t told me. I’d fucked her in the shower, and she hadn’t told me.

I’d been inside her, and she hadn’t told me.

She. Hadn’t. Told. Me.

The hot San Diego sun blasted at me as I exited the apartment building and hurried down the path to the sidewalk. Behind me, I heard Chase calling me. Chase. Not Amanda.

The rational side of my brain – the one that still operated no matter how fucked up the situation was, the chillaxed side of my brain – pointed out Amanda would no doubt be getting dressed. She’d only been wrapped in a towel when I’d left, after all. In a messed-up situation like this a girl like Amanda wouldn’t come running after the guy she’d lied to, deceived, kept a secret from, wearing only a towel. No, she’d deck herself out in hey-I’m-going-to-change-your-life-forever appropriate attire, perfect for kicking a guy’s soul clear out of his—

“Brendon,” Amanda’s cry scraped at my sanity. “Stop!”

I didn’t. Not even to see if she was dressed or not.

“Please stop. I need to explain. I didn’t want you to find out this way.”

One of the things that always blows my mind when I visit the States is how easy it is to get a taxi. They seem to be everywhere. So at that point, when I saw the taxi heading along the street from the opposite direction, I didn’t hesitate. Without slowing my pace, I gripped the straps of my gym bag and backpack tighter and strode out onto the street, arm raised in that universal signal for “get me the fuck out of here now”.

The taxi stopped. I climbed into the back and slammed the door behind me, with barely a glance at Amanda and Chase running toward us. The fact Amanda was still only wearing a towel unsettled me more than I wanted to admit. “Airport, please,” I growled at the poor driver. I’d apologize to him later. It wasn’t his fault I’d just had my heart, my life, torn apart.

If he was curious about the fact I was only half dressed, he didn’t comment. If he wondered about the woman running down the street wrapped in a towel, with another woman with brilliant blue dreadlocks running behind her, he didn’t say anything. Neither did I. Nor did I look out the window at Amanda as the taxi sped away from her. Instead, I stared out the front window and cursed myself for being the biggest fucking idiot wanker on the planet.

Ten minutes later, after numerous corners turned and streets sped along, I told him to stop.

Once again, he didn’t bat an eye. Just directed the taxi into a space on the side of the road and waited. If I wasn’t so messed up, I’d have been impressed.

“Thanks, mate,” I said, handing him a collection of notes before climbing from the back seat. I had no idea what kind of tip I’d given him, but whatever it was, it finally elicited a response. He smirked at me through the driver’s window and then took off, leaving me on the sidewalk. Dumping my bags at my feet, I unzipped my gym bag, pulled out the first shirt I saw inside and yanked it over my head. I had no idea where I was, let alone what emotional state I was in, but being fully dressed was a start to getting back on track.

The heat bore down on me, oppressive and suffocating. I closed my eyes and lifted my face to its blazing intensity. Stood there motionless.

I was a father.

Christ, I was a father.

I didn’t for a second suspect it was a lie. What purpose would Amanda have for lying? I was a guy on the other side of the world with a student loan that included more zeroes than the new letters behind my name, and a looming business loan about to be added to my debt. Who would try to pin a paternity claim on a guy in that situation?

And given how Chase reacted, how Amanda reacted, I knew it was the truth. I was a father, I had a son, and Amanda had kept it from me for eighteen months. Eighteen months without a word. Eighteen months without telling me.

Christ, I was a father.

My knees buckled. I staggered sideways, catching myself before I could bump into any of the unsuspecting people walking past me on the sidewalk. Dull rage knotted in my gut. Straightening, I dragged my hands through my hair, watching the cars move along the road. I had no real idea where I was. It didn’t matter. I just wasn’t where Amanda was.

Christ, she’d kept the fact I was a father, that I had a son, from me for eighteen months. How did a person do that? How was I supposed to deal with that?

I didn’t know. I couldn’t fall back onto my default roll-with-it response. Nothing in my twenty-five years had prepared me for this. I’d set out a game plan, goals. I had a bank manager and a personal training business ready to go as soon as I finished my Master’s. I didn’t own a SUV. I had no clue how to change a nappy.

And while we were at it, Amanda Sinclair had fucking kept the fact I was a father a secret from me.

My knees crumpled again, but this time, I caught myself before I could stumble. Stumbling was weak. I wasn’t weak. I was angry. Furious. I could hardly draw breath. My fists were clenched into painful balls. My head roared.

And yet, even with the incensed rage boiling inside me, I was … I was …

An image of a baby – softly squishy and bald – filled my head. Wrapped in a blue blanket, the same blue of the bath towel I’d last seen Amanda wearing. Eyes closed. Healthy lungs letting me know in no uncertain terms he was not that impressed with the situation. Tiny hands balled in fists, chubby legs kicking with enthusiasm …

What would it be like to hold that baby? My baby? My son?

An invisible band clamped around my chest and I pulled in a sharp breath. What the hell was I doing? What the hell was I feeling?

I couldn’t decipher it. I had no hope. I was on the other side of the world, away from everyone I knew – friends, family – and I’d just discovered I was a father.

And then I’d run.

The vice around my chest squeezed tighter. I’d run. Jesus, I’d run. And I didn’t even know my son’s name.

Fingers balling in my hair, I watched the cars stream by. I needed to talk to someone. Not to get an answer; I didn’t seek out answers to my problems from other people. Other people didn’t know the solution to my problems because those problems were mine, not theirs. I just needed to talk this through now.

Flicking my watch a glance, I bit back a curse. I had no idea what time it was in Sydney. I could ring Heather, but I’d already woken her at a ridiculous time once today. I couldn’t do it again.

Which left me …

Pulling my iPhone from my hip pocket, I scrolled through the numbers in my contact list. There. Hitting dial, I waited, my heart beating fast. It had been a few weeks since I’d spoken to Maci Rowling. A Skype conversation had been our last interaction, during which she’d flashed her engagement ring at me and made gooey eyes at Raphael whenever he wandered through the room. I rolled mine every time she got sappy, even as joy flowed through me for my two friends. When a guy is happily entrenched on the friend bench, he’s allowed to roll his eyes at the soppiness of any engagement announcement.

Who would have thought I’d be standing in the same country as Maci and Raph such a short time later, wishing to hell they’d answer their phone so they could listen to me … listen to me …

What the hell was I going to say? G’day, guys. So I’m in the States because that girl I followed here over two years ago, the one who never followed me back, called out of the blue, we had sex in her shower, and now she tells me I’m the father of her eighteen-month-old baby?

No. I wasn’t going to say that. I wasn’t going to say anything. Not to Maci. She wasn’t who I needed to talk to right now. I needed to talk to Amanda.

I needed an explanation. For why she’d kept our son a secret from me, for why she’d contacted me after so long. For why she’d joined me in the shower. Before I could explode with rage, or wallow in self-pity – emotions that I was neither familiar nor comfortable with – I needed an explanation.

And I needed to meet my son.

I’d work out what happened after that and make sure whatever it was, it was okay. Good. Gravy.

It wasn’t until I went to cancel the call I realized my phone hadn’t even dialed. I’d been standing on the sidewalk, pondering my future as I waited for a connection on a phone that didn’t work in the US.

The realization knocked the breath from me. I couldn’t continue the delusion I was handling this whole thing. So much for being chillaxed. It was time to admit I was blindsided. But I wasn’t a chicken. I wasn’t running.

Hitching my bag up onto my shoulder, I turned and began walking back the way my indifferent taxi driver had come. I had no idea where I was – Old Town San Diego, I think – but I had to get back to Amanda’s. Flagging down a taxi was easy. Telling the driver where to take me, not so much. I had no idea of her address, nor even the suburb her apartment was located.

“Just drive back this way a bit,” I said, hoping he wouldn’t think me some kind of weird nut job. “I don’t know where I’m going, but I’ll know it when I see it and tell you when to stop.”

I got a skeptical snort from the man behind the wheel but, much to my surprise and gratitude, he pulled from the curb. Maybe he’d had in his cab before more than one Australian who’d just been blindsided by the fact he was a dad?

I focused on the view outside the window as he drove. I didn’t let myself think about what I was going to say to Amanda when I arrived back at her apartment. Didn’t rehearse anything. Sometimes you have to surrender completely to gut instinct.

I was starting to think I was never going to find where Amanda lived again when I spotted a familiar gum tree on the corner of two streets. I’d noticed it on our drive in, when Amanda was filling me in on the state of the American education system as she saw it. I’d thought it looked homesick in a bizarre way, like it was missing the feel of cockatoos and kookaburras in its branches.

“Here!” I burst out, lunging forward to grab at the back of the driver’s seat. Judging by the way he muttered shit, I think I scared the poor guy with my sudden excitement. “Here, turn right here.”

A few yards later – and after a few nervous glances from the cabbie – we pulled to a halt outside Amanda’s apartment building. I looked up at it, my gut clenching. Was Amanda living here because her father had shunned her? Had he disowned her because she’d fallen pregnant with my child? Was that why she’d called me? Because she had no support here apart from her sister?

If that was the case, I really wanted to have word with Charles Sinclair. To tell him he needed to stop being a dick about me. To tell him to get over the fact I wasn’t good enough for his daughter.

Pushing open the door of the cab, I noticed Mrs. Garcia was still in the window of her apartment. She watched me climb from the backseat. I smiled up at her. She didn’t smile back. In fact, she narrowed her eyes, turned her head to the side and made a spitting action.

Okay, so I didn’t have a fan there.

Despite that, I smiled up at her again as I walked the path to the entry. The eternal optimist. I was in a weird mental place. I was about to face the girl who had, let’s be blunt, lied to me via omission for the last eighteen months. Maybe even longer. A woman I’d believed with absolute conviction. A woman I loved.

Did I still believe that?

I didn’t know.

Did it have any bearing on what was about to happen when Amanda opened the door to me?

I didn’t know that either, but my gut said no. If there was another life in this world because of me, if another life existed because of me, then what I felt for Amanda, what I thought of Amanda, had no impact.

I climbed the stairs to her floor. Normally, I run up stairs. When you run up stairs full tilt, it’s a great cardio workout. Go hard or go home, remember? These stairs, this ascension … I focused on each individual step, each footfall, each planting of the ball of my foot on the concrete rise. For the first time since storming from Amanda’s home a lifetime ago, it dawned on me I was barefoot. My joggers were still in Amanda’s bathroom, along with my socks.

Rattled. Yeah. I was rattled. But ready. Ready for whatever came next.

When I knocked on her door, my heart smashed into my throat with enough force to K.O. a guy. I stared at the brass number and letter screwed to the wood as I waited for her to answer. 4C. Foresee. There was something prophetic about that.

Or perhaps life was just playing with me? Laughing at me? Perhaps life had a twisted sense of humor? Ha, you think you know what’s going to happen in your future, Brendon Osmond? You think you have some control over it? Didn’t foresee this, did you? Ha. Now who’s the optimist? Now who’s gravy?

I was about to knock again, my heart pounding harder in my throat, damn near deafening me with each thumping beat, when the door opened.

Amanda stood on the other side of the threshold. Her eyes were red and puffy. Her cheeks were wet. The tip of her nose pink. She caught her bottom lip with her teeth, studying me without saying a word. Haunted grief swam in her eyes. I couldn’t help but notice she didn’t release her grip on the doorknob, as if ready to close it again.

“So …” I began. And stopped. I had no fucking clue what to say. Maybe I should have planned this? My gut wasn’t coming to the party at all.

Amanda pulled a slow breath and let it out with a soft hitching whimper. “I’m sorry.”

I let out my own breath, a shaky sigh. “Think I should come in.”

She nodded, opening the door wider and stepping aside.

Walking into the living room, I cast my gaze about the empty space. “Where’s Chase?”

“She went looking for you. I suspect she’s always wanted to be in a high-speed taxi pursuit and you gave her the chance.”

A laugh hiccupped out of me, a nervous sound I’m pretty damn certain I’d never made before in my life. “So it’s very likely she’s out there at the moment chasing down some random taxi?”

Amanda’s answering smile was as nervous as my laugh. She nodded, hugging herself as she leaned her back against the closed door. “It is.”

I looked at her. Noted she’d replaced the towel with faded cut-off denim shorts and a loose black T-shirt while I’d been gone. Her hair hung about her face in damp strands. The makeup was gone from her face. She was beautiful. So beautiful. Gorgeous.

And she’d lied to me for over two years.

Another sigh tore from me and I crossed to the closest sofa and dropped into it. I met her gaze across the small room. “Okay, you need to explain things to me.”

She nodded again. “I do.”

“Firstly,” I said, mouth dry. “Were you pregnant when you told me we were over?”

“Yes.”

My chest tightened at the anguish in her whisper, even as a cold finger of anger traced up my spine. I looked at her, waiting for her to say something else. She didn’t.

My fist balled before I could stop it. Dropping my stare to my clenched fingers, I willed them open. “Is that why you ended us?”

“No.”

The answer cut at me, a physical pain I didn’t know how to deal with. “Did you know you were pregnant?”

“No. I found out a month later.”

My head roared, a storm of questions I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t want to hear the answers to them. But wanting and needing can be two very different things.

Raising my head, I looked at her again. “Why did you end us?”

Confusion flickered across her face. She rubbed at her arms, as if she was cold. “You’d just told me you loved me. You were the first guy who’d told me that who I actually believed. You were also the first guy I wanted to say I love you back to.”

I frowned. My gut churned. “So you ended us because we loved each other? Excuse me a moment for falling back on what may be clichéd thinking, but isn’t mutual love the reason to stay together?”

A wry laugh fell from her. “Bren, you were twenty-two. I was twenty. We were both still students, from opposite sides of the world. How were we meant to stay together?”

I ground my teeth. “We would have figured that out.”

“Do you remember when you told me? That you were in love with me? Do you remember that night?”

“I do. A guy doesn’t forget the first time he tells a girl he loves her. And when I’d told you I loved you, it was the first time I’d told anyone I loved them. Anyone. We’d been at La Jolla, on one of the beaches there, lying on a picnic blanket under the stars, listening to the waves break on the shore, doing nothing else but being relaxed, contented in each other’s company. It’d hit me, being there with you, that I’d never been more at peace, more happy and centered and present in my life, and it was because of you. Just that – a simple realization of a simple, undeniable fact.”

The memory flooded me with pain and mocking happiness so absolute I couldn’t draw a breath. The realization had rendered me equally moved that night. I’d laid there, looking at her, overwhelmed by the truth of what I felt for her, and said “I love you, Amanda.”

She’d studied my face for a long moment, the darkness of the night hiding her eyes from me, and then had pressed herself against me and kissed me until I was so fucking hard I was in pain.

Three days later, I was on a plane back to Australia, numb. It wasn’t until I was back home, back at work, back in class, that I’d realized she’d never told me she loved me back. The color had already been bleached from my world by then. Looking at her now, I wondered when the colors had returned. And were they going to disappear again?

“That night scared the shit out of me, Bren,” she said, her voice husky. “I wasn’t ready for it. I wasn’t ready to be in love, not even with someone as incredible as you. But I was. I spent the next two days trying to figure out what to do, growing more scared with every minute.” She shook her head, lowering her gaze to her feet so her face was hidden by the damp strands of her hair. “And then I did the second most stupid thing of my life – told you it was over.”

“The second most stupid thing?”

She looked up at me again. Her eyes swam with tears. “The most ridiculous thing was not telling you I was pregnant.”

And here we were. At the main topic of conversation.

I drew a slow, steadying breath into my lungs. Anger scraped at my sanity once more. “Okay then,” I said, holding her stare. “Tell me why you didn’t.”

Her wobbly laugh surprised me. She shook her head, rubbing at her arms again. “Damn you, Brendon, I wanted you to ask me if it was yours.”

I frowned. “Why?”

“I wanted you to give me a reason to get indignant. But you believe me. The thought didn’t even cross your mind, did it? That you may not be the father?”

“No.”

She laughed again, although this time it was more a harrowed sob. “See? This is why I didn’t tell you. Because you are Brendon. This is how you approach life. With one hundred percent conviction. You didn’t even try to suggest you may not be the father. You’re incredible and giving and trusting. If I’d told you, you would have thrown everything you’d planned in your life away to come back and do what you thought was the right thing.”

“What I thought was the right thing? It is the right thing, Amanda. No thinking required. It is the right thing. But you denied me that.” My anger flared hot as blood roared in my ears. I clawed at the back of my neck and looked away. “You didn’t even give me the chance to be a part of this.”

“A chance at what? Being trapped? Being in love is all well and good, but love won’t stave off resentment and contempt when you look at your life – full of dirty diapers, puke-covered clothes and sleep-deprived nights – and remember the plans and dreams you had. You weren’t only managing a business in Australia, Bren, you were talking about creating a chain of them. You were getting amazing grades, had an amazing life, and amazing goals. Goals I knew you would achieve. And you are achieving them. Look at you, already talking to a bank manager about a business loan. What twenty-five-year-old does that?”

“The same twenty-five-year-old who would have wanted to know he was going to be a dad the second the woman he loved found out.”

The accusation – for that’s what it was – left me on a flat snarl. Yeah, I was angry. It had been a while since I was this angry. The last time I’d punched Raphael Jones and then got into a brawl with a gun-carrying bodyguard. This time I had no outlet for the rage building inside me, unless I could get to a gym, a boxing ring, somewhere to let out my pent-up physical energy ASAP.

I didn’t like that. And I sure as shit didn’t like that I was angry. I didn’t do anger like this. It wasn’t me, it wasn’t the Brendon I wanted to be.

“I’m sorry, Bren,” she said, tears freely rolling over her cheeks. “I didn’t …” She stopped, scrubbing at her face. Sniffed.

A part of me – so small it was worrying – wanted to stand up and walk to where she still hugged herself against the door. I didn’t.

Couldn’t.

“Did the thought of telling me ever cross your mind?”

“I called you twice,” she said, with another one of those shaky laughs. “The first time was a week after I found out. I hadn’t told anyone, not even Chase. God, I couldn’t even begin to think how I’d tell Mom and Dad. Dad …” She stopped, closed her eyes, sighed, and then looked at me again. “I was sitting in my car, outside an abortion clinic, waiting for it to open, when I called that first time.”

An empty chill pressed at something deep inside me. I stared at her. Had I thought I was angry before?

“I called you to tell you. To apologize for fucking up. To ask if you’d come back so we could talk about it. I so desperately needed you to hold my hand, to tell me it was going to be okay, it was going to be gravy.” Another laugh, choked in a sob. She wiped at her cheek with the back of her hand, her shimmering eyes flicking around the room. “I sat there in my cold car, aching for your warmth, your strength, staring at that closed abortion clinic, and some girl answered your cell and said you were busy. The international clock app on my phone told me it was one am in Sydney. I figured you’d moved on.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

The question was out before I could stop it. And with it, my anger. I rose to my feet, gaping at her. “You called to tell me I was a dad and bailed when some chick answered my phone? When was this? A week after you found out? Which was a month after I left? So, what? Five weeks of me being back in Sydney?” My brain tried to pinpoint the night she was talking about. All it could come up with was I must have been at a party. I’d tried to erase the memory of Amanda by partying. And by partying I mean getting drunk, sitting in a room full of my fellow students, hating the noise, the smell, the taste of everything. I had vague recollections of Heather looking out for me. Vaguer ones of her stopping Shelly White from giving me a blowjob on the front lawn of Mackellar House during one particularly bleak bender.

“Jesus, you have no idea who it was who answered my phone, but you immediately leap to the conclusion I was fucking someone? What? Getting you out of my system with my dick? What kind of guy do you really think I am, Amanda?”

She flinched.

Guilt smashed into me. I closed my eyes, dragging my hands through my hair as I attempted another steadying breath. The first one hadn’t done its job, after all.

“Sorry,” I said, dropping my hands and opening my eyes again. “I’m sorry. That … I shouldn’t have said that.”

“If it helps, I didn’t think you were fucking me out of your system,” she said, a sheepish smile pulling at the edges of her lips. “I just … I just realized you’d done what I told you to do, which was to get back to your life. And even though I wanted you there with me, that realization helped me at that very second.”

“How?”

Her smile turned warm. Her eyes grew soft. “I started the car and drove away from the clinic and never went back. I knew then any child of yours would be all about living life to its fullest. And I wanted that in my life. I wanted your energy, your optimism, in my life. I wanted to be connected to it in the most unbreakable way imaginable.”

Remember how I said I’d always been able to tell what Amanda was feeling? But how, since arriving this time, I couldn’t? Now there was no denying what she was feeling. Not at all. It was all there, in her eyes. Sorrow, regret. And love. I could see it. I could feel it. Oh man, could I feel it.

“And every time I hold Tanner,” she continued in a husky whisper, “every time I kiss him, cuddle into him and breathe in his smell, I think of you and thank you.”

A heavy lump filled my throat. “My son’s name is Tanner?”

Amanda nodded. “Tanner Fitzgerald Sinclair.”

I let out a wry laugh. “Fitzgerald? Oh, Mandy, no.”

Fitzgerald is my middle name. Don’t ask.

Amanda raised her shoulder in a little shrug. “Sorry?”

I chuckled again. The fact I did surprised me. Honestly, I hadn’t expected to. “When was the second time you called?” I asked. I don’t know if I wanted to feel angry again, if that was the reason for asking, or if I needed to know when a future I could have had had been denied me. If I needed to be able to identify the moment fate had fucked me – us – over.

“About a year ago. I saw you on YouTube, beating up some royal bodyguard.”

With a moan, I dropped back to the sofa. “Crap.”

“I called to see if you were okay. And then I realized I couldn’t talk to you without telling you about Tanner, and that made me realize how much I’d completely messed up, how long it had been since we’d spoken, and so I hung up before the connection was even made.”

I watched her lean against the door. Watched her let out a soft sigh. Watched her waiting for me to say something.

“Did you want me in your life, Amanda?” I finally asked.

She curled her lips in a sad smile. “Every day I wanted you in my life. And not just when Tanner wouldn’t sleep or he was sick and I was covered in poop or vomit. On the day he was born I wanted you there more than I can say. To show you what you’d helped create. It hurt so much that I’d … I’d robbed that of you. The first time I held him, I saw you in him. Oh, God, Bren, I wanted you there so much I felt you in my very soul. And then, as he was growing up, there were days I’d ache to turn to you, to share him with you, to feel your hand on my shoulder as I blew raspberries on his tummy … The first time he sat up, I actually called your name, looked for you to share it with. The first time he crawled … his first step …”

Something hot and tight twisted in my gut at her words.

A tear trickled down her cheek. “But as those days passed, as too many days passed, I didn’t know how to do it. I didn’t know … and I was so scared you’d hate me, scared you’d hate us for destroying your life. If you didn’t know about your son, you couldn’t hate him, right? Better to not know about him than … than hate …”

She slid to the floor against the door, a crumpled mess of broken sobs, and hugged her knees.

I moved then. Toward her. In three strides, I was there on the floor beside her, folding her into my arms, holding her to my chest. “It’s okay,” I murmured against the top of her head, her hair cool and damp under my lips. “It’s going to be okay.”

I accepted what I was doing was insanity. I accepted she’d shattered my trust in her, but I held her anyway. Because she was right. I am Brendon. I am the eternal optimist. I roll with whatever life throws at me, I see the joy in every situation life presents me. And life had presented me now with a future of infinite adventure and unknown excitement.

A son. I had a son with the girl I loved and we would show him how wonderful, how amazing life truly was. We would do that. Together. Now all the secrets were out, we would take on the world and live. Truly live.

I could do this. We could do this. We really were going to be okay.

That’s what I thought at the time.

What we think and what is real, however, doesn’t always line up.