Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Peyton
He follows me into my room, and I take off the graduation gown, tossing it towards my closet and waddling my way to the rocking chair my dad got me. Owen watches me with a soft smile before sitting on the corner of my bed nearest to me. His eyes roam over the pile of baby gifts spilling from my closet.
“My mom is ridiculously excited. She wants to clear out the guest room to turn it into a nursery, even though it’s closer to them than me,” I say with a small laugh. I wince, rubbing at my side where he kicked.
My cheeks flood with heat, embarrassed at the additional thing I’m about to admit. “Do you want to know what we’re having?”
Owen’s tongue rolls over his bottom lip before he blows out a breath. “Sure.”
“It’s a boy.”
He chuckles, his shoulders slumping with relief. “Oh, thank god. I don’t know if I could handle another teenage daughter.”
His eyes lift to my face, and his smile drops when he sees my expression. I don’t like the reminder of our age difference, or how he literally has a child the same age as me. I glance down at my belly, running my hand over the curve.
“Do you think he’ll be made fun of for having a sister the same age as his mom?” I ask, thoughtfully. The past few months had me thinking about his social life a lot. How vicious kids can be, how cruel they could be for no reason other than their own sick pleasure to inflict pain.
Owen holds out his hand, hovering just above my stomach. “Can I?”
I nod, letting my hand drop to the side. A shudder runs through me at his touch, and he slides off the bed to kneel in front of me, cupping my belly with both hands. He leans forward, resting his forehead on me. My heart hammers away in my chest as I watch him. He looks so lost and hollow as if finding momentary peace in the eye of a storm. “I’m here, buddy. I promise I’ll do whatever it takes to be with you, both of you, and never leave your side.” He presses the soft whispers against my dress, and I know it is just meant to be for our son but I hear it. My eyes fill with tears, and my nose tingles as my heart aches.
“Owen,” I let out in a sob, leaning forward towards him.
He looks up, startling at my cry. His hands cup my cheeks, and he wipes the fallen tears. “What’s wrong?”
“What you said. It made me s-sad.”
A gargled noise echoes in his throat, and he kneels before me again. “Why? What happened, Peyton?”
I sniffle, trying to control my hormones. “I’m sorry I kept him from you. I honestly wasn’t sure if you wanted him.”
He swallows, letting go of me to sit on the edge of the mattress. “I guess that’s fair. I’m sure Brit and Elise would have planted the wrong ideas.”
“It’s not just—I mean, she made you out to be an absentee father,” I whisper, not wanting to hurt him further. Another reason was that I knew how much his bar meant to him. I couldn’t ask him to give it up, nor was I prepared to move out there and leave my parents behind.
Owen nods, his jaw tight. “Yeah, I’m sure.” He looks away from me; glossed over eyes stare at the wall across the room. “It’s more complicated than that, but I tried. I tried so hard to be a part of her life and then at sixteen, she just stopped. Stopped picking up my calls, stopped answering my texts, stopped coming to visit in the summer, and I even flew out to her twice. Neither her nor her mother picked up the phone the entire week I was in town. I only knew she was alive and well because of her grandmother giving me updates.”
“Why didn’t you take Elise to court?” I ask, my heart aching at the fact that he longed to be a father.
He shakes his head. “It wouldn’t have mattered at that age. She could choose who she wanted to spend time with. Before that, Elise and I had a decent schedule going and set the amount of child support I paid without having to involve the courts.”
“I would never do that to you,” I say. I feel like he knows that already, but I don’t want him to have any doubts. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I’ve only known a few months.”
Owen stares at me, one corner of his mouth lifted. “I know, Peyton. Plus, things are different for us.”
“They are?” My eyebrows knit together.
He nods. “Yeah, at least I hope. I want to give us a chance. Take you on a proper date.”
Biting down on my lip, I try to hold back my tears. “You do?”
“Yeah, honey. I do. I want you, and I want our baby.”
“We want you too.”
“Thanks,” my dad mutters as I hand him the basket of dinner rolls.
Owen sips his soda, glancing at him and then me. It’s the first word he’s said since the parking lot at my graduation. Even when Owen had come home with me, my mom kept him caged in their sun room while I guided Owen to my room.
“You know he didn’t mean to knock me up, right?” I say with a sigh, directing my annoyance at my dad.
Owen coughs, choking on his drink, and sets it on the table while covering his mouth. My mom lets out a soft laugh, shaking her head.
My dad lifts his eyes to meet mine. “I’m aware, Peyton.”
I shrug my shoulders. “I’m just saying, if you’re going to be mad at anyone in this situation, it should be at me since I didn’t keep up with my birth control.”
He groans, leaning into his seat and rubbing a hand down his face. “I’m not mad at anyone. I just wish it was different, sweetheart. That you had met someone, fallen in love, and started your life with them.”
“Respectfully, I’ve been enamored by your daughter from the second I saw her,” Owen says, and my heart swells. I look at my mom, who is beaming. “I didn’t know who she was when we started chatting till Brit found us.”
“And knowing she’s the same age as your daughter didn’t stop you?” my dad asks, pinning him with a glare.
Owen swallows, glancing at his plate for a second before shaking his head. “No, I knew she was an adult about to finish college. And while I knew we were in different places in our lives, I felt a pull to her I couldn’t ignore.”
“Dad, I make my own choices. And I don’t regret what I did with Owen. The only thing I regret is keeping him out of the loop.”
My mom reaches over and pats Owen's arm. “I think that was more my doing. I kept reassuring her everything was fine, but we have every ultrasound photo from the appointments if you want to see them.”
“I’d love to, and I want to be around for the rest of the pregnancy,” he says.
The silence in the room is suffocating. My parents are staring at him in disbelief, and while I feel the same, I’m also trying to hold back tears because he sounds like he really means it. Owen’s immediate acceptance of the pregnancy is affecting me more emotionally than I expected. “What about your bar?”
“Tiff can manage it without me. I would just need to check on it every once and while.”
“And in the long run?” my dad asks.
Owen shrugs, wiping his mouth before taking a sip of his beer. “Whatever Peyton wants. If she wants to stay, then we’ll stay. If the possibility of moving to California is there, then we can discuss it. Twenty years ago I let a woman walk away with my child, and it was one of the worst mistakes of my life. Not because I cared for the woman, but because my child was raised without me. I don’t want to lose Peyton or our son. I want to spend every day with them.”
This time my mom wipes the tears from her eyes and sniffles, staring at Owen with the same affection I usually see directed at me. My dad clears his throat and nods once. “That’s all I hoped for. So I guess the only thing left to say is… welcome to the family.”