Chapter 8 #2
His hair is short and reddish brown, and his smile… his smile is mine too. His arms and legs are flailing about, probably because he sees the playground. He’s easily the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
“Asher?” Someone else demands my attention, forcing me away from the only people I want to see. “What do you think? Will the team win the Super Bowl this year?”
“I hope so,” I tell the person before I mumble out, “Excuse me.”
I turn away from them and walk with determined strides toward Wynter, who has stalled on the edge of the playground without entering it. She’s wearing her hair up in a high ponytail, a simple white T-shirt, jean shorts that show off the smooth, pale skin of her legs, and a frown.
“What is it?” I ask as I draw closer.
“Everyone is taking pictures and videos of you. This wasn’t the best idea.” She turns and starts to walk away.
Panic surges within me. “Wynter?”
“Lose the audience and come find me down by the bench under the huge oak tree.” With that, she quickens her stride, and shit, I didn’t think about that. About being recognized and what that would mean for her and for me meeting Mason.
I turn back to the playground and give anyone who is still watching me a wave, and then I leave, walking on the opposite path from the one she took before I double back, cutting along the grass and taking off into a sprint, desperate to find them.
I spot them tucked beneath the tree, and a pulse of relief thrums through my veins.
Wynter is sitting with her back against the thick base of the tree, shaded by the large branches and heavy mantle of leaves.
Her long legs are outstretched as Mason climbs all over her.
Urgency moves me in their direction, and a moment later she notices me coming and glances up.
Our eyes meet, and I have the biggest urge to kiss her.
The way I wanted to last night.
She doesn’t feel new. She feels like months and months of yearning, of fantasizing, of not being able to get her out of my mind.
Then there’s Mason.
My feet move, and then my knees give out, weakened by the sight before me. I’m crouching beside them, staring into his green eyes that match hers. “Hi.”
He blinks at me, turns to Wynter as if he’s checking to make sure it’s okay, and then treats me to a wet smile complete with a smattering of tiny teeth.
Without warning, he crawls off her lap and straight onto my thighs.
My hands latch around his ribs, and then I shift so that I’m sitting with my legs folded.
Only he’s not content with sitting. He uses me as leverage to help him stand, bouncing his little butt and making a contented noise when I finally do.
“I take it that means he’s happy?”
Wynter is quiet, but I catch her nod out of the corner of my eye.
“I’m sorry about the crowd. I didn’t think it through.”
“We’ll have to figure it out as we go. I’d like to keep this a secret for as long as possible if you’re okay with that.”
I cock an eyebrow. “Ashamed I’m your baby daddy?”
She rolls her eyes at me even as she fights her smile. “I’m not calling you daddy.”
“Not even when I spank you?”
She pulls a few blades of grass out of the ground and tosses them at me.
“Fine, I’ll settle for you just saying my name when that happens.”
“Asher!”
I grin. “Yes. Just like that. Maybe with a little moan to it.”
“Oh, my God. Stop!” More grass flies my way, but her smile is something else.
She’s something else. So beautiful and yet so serious now.
I wonder if becoming a mother did this to her or if that night in the bathroom was an anomaly.
She said it was. That the riskiest thing she’d ever done was sneak up to the VIP floor.
But oh, how I want to peel back her petals and coax her into blooming just for me.
Mason jumps on my thighs, calling me back to the situation at hand, and I grow serious too.
“I get it about the public. I don’t want him in the spotlight either, and me having a kid out of nowhere will do just that.
There will be a lot of questions for both of us that I don’t think either of us is ready to answer.
I’ll do everything I can to keep this quiet for as long as I can, but eventually, it’ll get out. ”
“I know that,” she says, watching as Mason crawls all over me, standing on my thighs, pulling on my hair, and yanking on my T-shirt.
I lift him up in the air, holding him over my head. “Wow. You’re a bruiser, big man.”
“He’s in the ninety-ninth percentile for weight and height.”
I give her an arrogant smirk. “Like his daddy.” Something about saying that makes me laugh. Daddy. So weird. How on earth did this happen? Yesterday at this time, I was playing ball and trying to impress her while finding a way to tell her who I am. Now, I’m a daddy. “Can I play with him?”
“Of course. That’s why we’re here.”
I lean in and kiss her cheek. It takes us both by surprise, but I’m filled with so much love and gratitude that I can’t help it. I tell myself to pull away. Knowing that my lips shouldn’t linger on her skin and that I shouldn’t be taking a deep inhale, trying to catch some of her fragrance.
My nose glides up her face, toward her ear, and when I feel her stiffen against me, I whisper, “Thank you.” Pulling back, I give her a wink and then stand up. I carry Mason until we’ve cleared the tree, and then I toss him up in the air, letting him fly, and catch him as he shoots back down.
“What are you doing?!” she shrieks, on her feet in a motherly panic as I do it again. Mason belts out a squeal of laughter, loving every second of it as he flies in the air, his arms and legs outstretched, his hair catching the breeze. “Careful! You’re going to drop him.”
I throw her a quick side-eye after I catch him again. “Sweetheart, I’d die before I’d ever drop him. I’m a quarterback. This is what I do.”
“But your shoulder!” Her wild eyes are all over me.
“Aw, how cute. You’re worried about me. Is that as my doctor or my baby mama?”
“Can we please stop with the icky titles?”
“I don’t think they’re icky. I’m actually having a ton of fun with them. My hot doctor is my baby mama. What could be better than that?” I’m honestly not joking. I think it’s the greatest thing in the world. “There should be a Hallmark card that says sorry, not sorry I came inside you.”
Mason squirms in my arms, wanting another round of acrobatics, and I have that goofy grin fathers get when they have that moment when they realize their kid is awesome and fun and theirs too.
How can you love someone so much after just meeting them a few minutes ago?
Scratch that. How can you love someone before you’ve even met them?
This kid could ask me for my spleen right now, and I’d cut the fucker out of my body and hand it right to him.
“Asher. Please.”
I turn back to my beautiful ice queen. “You gotta lighten up, sweetheart. Enjoy the moment a bit more. My shoulder is totally fine right now. And he likes it. Watch.” I toss him again, higher this time, and he flails through the air, landing soundly back in my hands because I’ll always catch him.
I bring him into me, smelling his hair and kissing his face.
“I’m glad he’s not older. I’m glad he’s still a baby and doesn’t know that I haven’t been in his life all this time. ”
“He likes you,” she says softly, running her hands through his hair, staring at the side of his face in a way that makes me wonder if it’s easier to look at him than me.
“Of course he does. Everyone likes me.”
“Not me,” she quips, rolling up onto the balls of her feet and kissing the back of his head.
Christ, I like her. “That’s a lie. If it weren’t for Mason, I’d have had you pinned to that chaise last night as you begged for me to do dirty, dirty things to you.”
A flush rises up her face, but she passes it off with a perturbed twist of her lips and yet another eye roll at my expense. “Yes, egotistical meatheads only after sex truly turn me on.”
“Good to know, but I never said I was only after sex.” I hand Mason off to her. “Why don’t you both come up to my place? I think we should talk.”