Chapter 20 December 20th #2
“April would stop in most days. I know she was checking up on them, but she spun it differently, played on the doting aunty card. They tolerated each other. Chelsea and April.”
“Your sister didn’t like her?”
He laughs, and it’s not in humour. “That’s putting it mildly. The feeling was mutual. April saw a gold-digging, self-important, selfish woman, and Chelsea knew April had figured her out.”
“Had you? Figured her out?”
“I had no plans to build a life and a family with her. Not with any woman. She wanted to be kept. Lunches, shopping, going on exotic holidays. Albi got in the way of that. She demanded a nanny, I refused. Then she left.”
I stare at him, dumbfounded. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “And you’ve not heard from her since?”
“Not a peep.”
My mind can’t compute such heartlessness. How any mother could abandon their child. “And you’ve done it all yourself since.”
He shrugs, like it’s nothing. And it’s absolutely everything.
“I was never supposed to be a father, Camryn. Having kids never crossed my mind. But Albi happened, and here I am. Fucking loving being his dad.” My heart melts.
“April helps out a lot. I have Lynette, who takes care of the house, and Ron who drives us to school and then me to the office each day. I do my best.”
Dec suddenly isn’t just a beautiful man whom I’ve fallen deeply in love with.
He’s a beautiful human. A beautiful father.
“I think you’re amazing,” I whisper, reaching for his face, raising to my knees and crawling onto his lap.
Cuddling him. Like he’s cuddled me when I’ve needed it.
I hate that he’s been forced into silence. I hate that I’m the reason.
“And so are you, Camryn. For surviving. For going on, no matter how you dealt with it.”
I don’t know about that. I became a wretched, cold, hateful bitch.
Until I met Dec.
And, more significantly, the transition happened before I knew about Albi.
“Tell me what I need to do to make this work,” he says, grabbing my hair and pulling my head away, looking at me with imploring eyes. “How do I make this okay?”
“No more silent lies,” I whisper.
“No more, I promise.” He takes my hand and pushes it into his chest, and I swallow, bracing to say the words I need to say but am scared to admit. The words that I’m trying to bury but can’t.
“I’m scared I’ll fall in love with him, Dec.” My voice is broken. “And then it’s not just you I lose. What if this, us, all falls apart?”
He shakes his head. “It won’t.”
“You don’t—”
“It won’t,” he reiterates sternly. “I’d never invite a woman into my son’s life if I wasn’t one hundred percent certain she was going to stay.”
“Even me?” I question. “After everything, how can you be so sure?”
“How can you not be, Camryn?” he asks, making me inhale subtly. “Because if you feel even a fraction of the love for me that I feel for you, you must love me a fucking lot.”
“I’m a wreck,” I whisper, and he smiles.
“You’re the most stunning, deep, spirited woman I’ve ever met. And now it’s time for you to stop pretending to be anything other than that.”
A broken sob escapes, and Dec takes me down to my back and kisses it away, reminding me just how he makes everything better.
And I trust that he can. Wholeheartedly.
“He’s so sweet, Dec, and I’m sorry for reacting like I did,” I say around his mouth, my hands in a frenzy, feeling him everywhere I can.
“I wasn’t rejecting him. I was just so shocked.
I’m sorry I ran out.” Sorry I couldn’t say the words I was feeling.
“Shut up.” He rolls us into the middle of the bed, swirls his tongue a few more times, groans, and rolls us back, crowding me, caging me in, kissing the living daylights out of me.
I don’t tell them to, but my hands go to the waistband of his sweatpants and start shoving them down his thighs with his boxers, spiking another deep rumble at the back of his throat, as he pushes himself up to his knees and yanks his hoodie over his head, casting it aside and dropping back to his fists, kicking his legs as I wrestle the material down them.
“Are you sure?” he asks quietly, panting down at me, passion and need swirling in his eyes.
Am I sure?
I reach for his neck and pull his mouth onto mine, rolling my hips when he levels up and slides into me easily and slowly, our kiss pausing for a few moments as we both suck in air.
He gives it a few moments, the pressure inside me fierce, before he withdraws and starts driving in and out slowly, circling his tongue again.
Eyes open.
It’s a beautiful moment full of acceptance and love.
And my body finally thaws.
We both come quietly, both of us shaking wildly as our kiss loses its momentum, and Dec collapses onto me, breathing heavily in my ear.
Spent and settled, we lie in a naked tangle of limbs, dozing, our breathing finally back to normal, his fingertips stroking my hipbone.
“You said you couldn’t have kids,” I murmur into his neck.
“I had a vasectomy.”
“Extreme,” I murmur.
“Maybe. You said you couldn’t either.”
“I had some women’s problems after Noah was born. There was a five percent chance treatment would work and I could go on and have more children.” I look up at him. “I work with numbers. I know good odds when I hear them. It wasn’t worth the pain.”
He shakes his head, trying not to smile at my lame attempt to lighten the situation. “So . . .”
“I had Noah, he was enough, so I had a hysterectomy.” I lay my head back down and narrow my eyes. “I often wonder if I’d have another if I could. And I always reach the same conclusion.”
“Which is what?”
“No,” I whisper. “Because I couldn’t bear to lose again.”
Dec’s stroking fingers falter for a little too long for me not to notice. My words bring us back round to loss. Will that fear ever be gone? “We’ll take this slow,” he says quietly, and I nod into him.
“What if he doesn’t like me?”
“Shut up,” he whispers. “Some women in this world don’t have a maternal bone in their body. You’re not one of them, Camryn.”
“I can’t be his mother,” I whisper. He doesn’t expect that, does he? The poor woman who lost a child, grabbing an opportunity to push her instincts onto a kid that isn’t her own.
“Camryn?”
“What?”
“I said, shut up.”
“Where is he now?”
“April’s getting him ready and taking him to school.
” Dec pushes his lips into my head and starts unravelling our legs.
“My phone.” He scrambles to the edge, the vibrating phone breaking through the rustle of the sheets.
As Dec roots through the pocket of his sweatpants, I think of all the times we weren’t together over the past few weeks.
The calls he took quietly. The calls he missed.
The fact he didn’t come to see me later on his birthday.
He was taking care of his boy. I can’t ask myself how I didn’t know, because who would have?
There were no signs whatsoever. No kids’ stuff around his house, no smears on his expensive suits, no crumbs in his car.
“How did you get into my flat?” I ask, sitting up in the bed, the duvet puddled around my naked body.
He unbends, his phone in one hand, my keys in the other.
“You left them in the door.” Disapproving eyebrows are raised as he chucks them onto the bed, and I shrink.
“April?” he says, wandering over to the window, looking out at the view of the street.
I rest back against the headboard and check the time.
Eight thirty. I need to call the office.
My lips twist in contemplation as I find Dec by the window again.
Naked. He works. Is a single dad. Where the hell does he find the time to work out, because that body can’t naturally be that firm?
“Put him on the phone,” he says, wedging a hand into the window frame, making his back muscles undulate.
I grab my phone to distract myself, feeling all kinds of wrong admiring his body while he’s on the phone to his son.
I start texting Thomas to let him know I’m feeling no better.
“Hey, little fella,” Dec says, turning and coming back to the bed, sitting on the edge.
“We talked about this, remember?” He squints, listening hard.
“You loved it yesterday. Lynette spent weeks making it, and you look so cool.” He blinks.
Frowns. Sighs. “Put Aunty April back on.” He drops to his back and stares at the ceiling.
“On a scale of one to full-blown meltdown, where are we?” His palm meets his forehead.
“Okay, I’m on my way.” Hanging up, he drops his head to the side. “I’ve got to go.”
“Is everything okay?”
Getting up, Dec pulls on his sweatpants and feeds his arms through the sleeves of his hoodie, stretching the neck to get it over his head. “It’s the nativity play today at school. He’s decided he’s not going to be in it.” He gives me a pained look. “I’m sorry.”
“Please, don’t apologise.” I wave him off, but, unreasonably, feel the loss already.
Dec comes to me, bending over the bed as he pulls his hoodie down his torso. “I’ll call you, okay?”
I want to say, Will you? Please do. Don’t forget about me. But that would be inappropriate. Of course his son comes first. “Okay.” I cup his face with both hands and kiss him square on the lips. “I hope you figure it out.”
He blows out his cheeks. “I’m not hopeful. He’s got his granddad’s stubborn streak, and it’s definitely nature not nurture, because he never fucking sees him.” I press my lips together, not sure if it’s fitting to laugh. “I love you,” he says, our eyes level.
“I love you too.”
Pushing off the bed, he strides to the door but stops on the threshold. It’s a few long seconds before he turns around. “Why don’t you come?” he asks and then bites down on his lip.
I still on the bed, thrown. “What?” I murmur, as if I didn’t hear him. “Oh, I’m not sure . . .” I fade off. That it’s a good idea? “I think—” My eyes drop to the mattress and dart.