7. Chapter 7
Chapter 7
“Hi, son.” Paul pulled me into a hug, and I returned the embrace before we took our seats across the table from each other. He greeted me the same way every time, and it was beginning to feel more natural, him calling me son.
I wasn’t quite ready to call him Dad yet—and I wasn’t sure I ever would be—so I replied in my usual manner. “Hi, Paul. It’s good to see you.” And I meant it. I really liked Paul Bouvier. Was he a perfect person who’d never made any mistakes? Absolutely not. But was he one of the most genuine people I’d ever met? A million percent.
It’s why I tolerated his affections and no longer cringed when he called me his son. He’d been so fucking kind and understanding with me and the way I struggled with all this new information. He answered every question I had for him, even the things that were difficult for him to discuss.
“How is work going?” he asked.
“Very well. Both jobs. I got to work with the team this past weekend. Not much exciting going on, mostly serving high-risk search warrants.”
His face was solemn as he nodded. “I’m very proud of you, Cruz, but I worry.”
“You don’t need to. We’re the most highly trained officers on the force, so we’re prepared for anything.”
“I don’t doubt your abilities for a second, but I know what you do can be very dangerous. I just keep telling myself that your training will keep you safe.” His head tilts to the side. “Did I tell you I came to your boot camp graduation?”
My eyebrows lifted in surprise. “No. Really?”
Paul stares at his plate for a moment, and when he looks back up, his blue eyes are filled with tears. “Of course I did. I came to so many of your events and hid in the back. Your high school graduation. All your playoff games your senior year.”
My mind was blown. “You came to my baseball games?”
His smile broadened. “That walk-off homerun you hit over the left field wall in the state finals almost hit me in the head. Luckily, the guy beside me was wearing a glove, and he caught it.” He inhaled a deep breath and then blew it out. “I still have the ball.”
“Wait. What? You said the guy beside you caught it.”
“I bought it from him.” Paul reached beneath the table and pulled out a cardboard box with my name written in marker across the top. His eyes were wary when they met mine. “Do you want to see my Cruz box?”
My already blown mind practically detonated. “You have a Cruz box?”
His jaw trembled with emotion and then clenched hard and firm as he nodded. “It was the only thing I had of you. I couldn’t have my son, but no one could take away my memories.”
Damn. It was difficult to see the raw pain on his face. It told me what I already knew from our discussions. I was never some illegitimate bastard child he’d been happy to get rid of, which was my initial thought. No, I was the son who had been kept from him but who he had never forgotten.
“I’d love to see it,” I told him, my voice sounding huskier than usual.
Paul’s smile could only be described as prideful when he unfolded the lid and opened the box. “Here’s the ball.” He handed it to me, and I turned it over and over in my hand, my fingers finding the familiar bite of the laces.
“I can’t believe you have this,” I said, the sweet memories of that homerun infusing my veins with nostalgia. The resounding crack of the bat, the rise of the ball, the velocity of a perfect hit that I didn’t even have to watch to know it was gone. But I’d watched it anyway and then lost sight of it as I rounded first base.
“I was wondering if… if you’d sign it for me. You have no idea how much I wanted to march down onto that field after the game and ask for your autograph, but I didn’t want to take away from your big moment or upset your mother.”
“Sparkling water and a whiskey sour,” the server, Kenzie, said, setting down our drinks before we’d even ordered them. We’d been coming to this place for almost a year, and we got the same beverages every time.
Paul informed me on our first visit here that he had given up drinking years ago, and when he told me why, I was shocked by his honesty. It was a story he hadn’t even shared with Auburn and Monty, though he said he planned to when the time was right.
“Do you have a pen I could borrow?” I asked Kenzie, and she pulled one from her pocket. I took it and signed my name on the baseball before handing it back to Paul. “There you go. I think this is the first time I’ve ever signed a ball.”
“Thank you,” he breathed, holding the small sphere in both hands like it was made of gold.
I passed the pen back to Kenzie, and she used it to write down our orders, pasta primavera for both of us. Paul began pulling items from the box, narrating their history for me.
“They sold these as souvenirs at your graduation,” he said, holding up a maroon tassel. The strands rippled as he gave it a little jiggle. “I was so proud of you for being the Salutatorian. Your speech was really good.”
“I was nervous as hell,” I admitted with a chuckle. “I’m not exactly the get up and talk in front of people kind of guy.”
“I couldn’t tell. Now this? I could tell you were nervous in this Christmas play. You kept shifting around.”
I took the folded program and busted into laughter. It was from when I played the esteemed role of Wise Man Number Two in third grade. “I had to pee. That’s why I was so antsy,” I admitted, and Paul grinned across the table at me.
“Well, good job on not peeing on the stage. That’s something.”
“You really came to all this stuff?” I asked, sorting through the paraphernalia he’d collected over the years.
“I did, and for what I couldn’t make it to, Ben sent me pictures and programs.” It no longer startled me when Paul referred to my papa with such familiarity. The two men had forged a kind of friendship, with their love for me as the cement that held it together.
“Thank you for being there. I mean, I know I wasn’t aware of you yet, but it really means a lot to me now.”
Paul graced me with an affectionate smile and a pat on my hand. “It was my pleasure. I wish I could have done more.”
We cleared the table as Kenzie approached with our dinners. “I hate that I didn’t even know you existed until you were six,” Paul said once she was gone. “I still remember the first time I ever saw you in person. You were playing in the front yard, and you gave me the cutest little snaggle-toothed grin.”
I’d heard this story before, but I sat quietly and ate as Paul told it again. It seemed to bring him some kind of comfort to talk about.
“I had gotten a private investigator to locate Estrella for me. I still thought about her all the time, and I had to know why she’d run. He found her in Texas, and I took a flight down the next day and found the address to your house. When I saw you playing with your dump truck, you looked up at me, and as soon as I saw your blue eyes, I just knew. You looked exactly like your brother, Monty.”
I knew from my research and from Paul’s stories that Monty was his third child, with me being three months younger than him. Paul twirled some pasta around his fork and took a bite before continuing.
“My heart was beating so fast. All I wanted to do was scoop you up and hold you, but I didn’t want to scare you, so I asked to speak to your mother. You ran inside to get her, and as soon as she saw me, she sent you back inside.”
“And she cussed you out in Spanish,” I filled in as he took a drink of his water.
“Right in the front yard,” he said with a chuckle. “Then she took off her shoe. I’m pretty sure she was going to throw it at me, but your papa pulled up just then and defused the situation.”
“He was the only person that could calm her down when she got riled up,” I remembered. “I got a shoe thrown at me once when I was seventeen. Completely deserved though. I stayed out all night without calling. Luckily, it was only a fuzzy slipper, but the intent was there.”
Paul gave me an amused shake of his head and rolled his eyes. “Teenage boys. Auburn gave me the most trouble. Monty was pretty quiet. He had a girlfriend named Kassie, so he spent most of his time with her.”
“You told me Monty is single, so I guess they broke up?”
Paul’s lips thinned and turned down at the corners. “That’s a story for another time. Anyway, after your father got Estrella—sorry, Stella—calmed down and in the house, he came back outside. Demanded to know what the hell I wanted.”
I took a bite of my excellent pasta and listened to the story I’d heard at least three times already. “I assured him I didn’t want any trouble, but that I thought I deserved to know if I had another child. He didn’t admit it then, but he offered to get together and talk with me the next day.”
Paul took another drink of his sparkling water. “We planned to meet at a small pub, and I was almost shocked out of my shoes when he actually showed up.”
“If Papa said he was going to do something, he did it,” I said, and Paul smiled.
“He really was a good man, Cruz, and I’m sorry you lost him too soon.” He looked away for a long moment, his voice soft. “I can never tell you how grateful I am that you had him in your life. I couldn’t have asked for a better father for you.”
This was the thing I appreciated most about Paul Bouvier. From the first time we’d met face-to-face last year, he’d spoken about my papa with nothing but respect. There was never a hint of awkwardness or bitterness in his tone, only gratitude. And he never once tried to use his position as my biological father to usurp Benjamin Estrada’s position as my real dad.
Paul dabbed at his mouth with his napkin and smiled wanly. “Do you want the old man to shut up? I know I’ve told you this story before.”
It seemed to bolster him to tell it, so I indulged him as Kenzie refilled his water glass. “Not at all. Continue.”
“So I met with Ben, and he told me Stella wanted nothing to do with me. She was being tight-lipped, but he said she seemed afraid.” He pulled at the back of his neck. “I’m assuming that had something to do with Chloe.” His top lip curled into a sneer at the mere mention of her name.
He’d told me before about his wife’s blackmail scheme against him, and I was happy I’d never met the bitch.
“I’d gotten a hotel room and thought about the situation all night. Didn’t sleep a wink. You seemed so happy and well cared for, and I didn’t want to disrupt the only home you knew. Once your papa knew I meant no harm,” Paul continued, his voice taking on a musing quality, “he agreed to keep me in the loop regarding you. In return, I wouldn’t try to get custody of you.”
“Papa related to you as a father,” I stated.
Paul nodded. “He was very kind and understanding about it. Your mother was already pregnant when they met, so he knew you weren’t his biological son. We came to a mutual agreement. It was the hardest decision I’d ever made in my life, but disrupting the life of a child with two parents and a stable home would have been cruel. I never wanted to hurt you, Cruz.”
Sincerity rang through every syllable, even as a tear slipped down one cheek.
“I know, Paul, and I appreciate it so much. I know that was a huge sacrifice on your part, but you were right. It would have been traumatizing for me.”
He nodded and swiped away the tear with the heel of his hand before picking up the box he’d set beside his chair. “There are letters in here from your father. I know you’ve read mine to him, but I thought you might like to read the story from his perspective.”
Slugging back the rest of my drink, I attempted to rein in my emotions. “I’d love that.”
“You can keep them, but I’d like to have the mementos back when you’re done looking at them.”
“Of course,” I assured him.
Paul left some money on the table, and we rose. Setting the box on my empty chair, I pulled him into a hug. “Thank you,” I said quietly. “You mean a lot to me, Paul.”
It was the first time I’d initiated any kind of affection with him, but it felt good and right. He’d given me the gift of hearing my father’s voice through those letters, and I couldn’t have been more grateful.
“You keep this,” I said, pulling the baseball from the box and placing it into his hand. “I’m sure it’s worth at least five cents now that I’ve signed it.”
His face creased into a smile. “It’s worth everything to me, Cruz. More than you know.”
And before my emotions could get the best of me, I picked up the box and walked from the restaurant.