30. Chapter 30
“Are you sure you want to come, Sam?”
He scoffed at me. “As if I would let you meet your dad alone.”
Sam never stopped amazing me. “But the diner will be loud and busy.”
He visibly swallowed as his Adam’s apple bobbed. “I know. I’ll use my earbuds if I need them. It’s not like we haven’t been to the diner before.”
“Right, but we usually go when it’s the least busy.”
“I can do this so I can be there for you.”
I grabbed his face and pulled him into a languid kiss full of tongue. Shit, we really needed to have sex again, and soon.
“You are always there for me.”
He ran a hand through his hair and rubbed the nape of his neck, then started to pace, the nerves oozing off him. “I ah… called Alpha. We talked yesterday.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“I’m going to try, Star. He’s going to find me a pro-bono therapist… to talk to me through video conference.”
My stomach flipped as a rush of warmth spread over my skin. “And you think you aren’t brave? Holy shit, Sam… this is huge ! I’m so proud of you.”
I forced him to stop pacing and pulled him into a hug. He tangled his fingers in my curls, holding me tight. “It’s so fucking scary.”
“I know, baby.”
“But I want to do this… for us.”
“No, you do this for you. I love you just as you are, but I also want you to stop hurting.”
“I want to stop hurting, too.”
Thank god. Finally. Sam needed to be happy. He deserved it, but I could only do so much.
“Now, let’s go see your dad.”
“I think I’m going to be sick,” I said as Sam and I stopped in front of the old diner where Stix’s mom worked, though I wasn’t sure if she worked today or not. Maybe I should’ve called and checked. Having another familiar face there would help.
Our crew came here a lot, even if it was just for coffee, so this place was familiar territory.
My father planned to drive up from Bethesda to meet us here. It took me a few weeks to get the courage to do this. At least my cast was finally off, and I could walk like my old self again.
“What if he doesn’t show? Fuck, what if he does show?” I mumbled.
“He’ll show. He seemed excited to hear from you.”
“Yeah.” Sam wasn’t wrong. My father had sounded surprised, to say the least, but he seemed eager to talk and meet with me.
Hell, meeting me had been his idea. He didn’t seem like the kind of person to abandon his kid, but what did I know?
I had wonderful foster parents who dumped me back into the system.
Sam and I stepped inside hand-in-hand. The familiar smells of sugar, coffee, and breakfast food were welcoming, easing my pounding heart a little. We both looked around the restaurant. Was he here yet?
“Uhm, is Grace Jamieson working today?” I asked the hostess.
The young blonde girl smiled and nodded. “Yes, would you like a seat in her section?”
I nodded. “Yes, please.”
“Nate? Sam?” asked the familiar voice as the hostess grabbed a couple of menus.
“Hi, Ms. J.!” Sam and I said at the same time.
She was carrying a heavy tray full of breakfast foods, but had a smile on her face before looking at the hostess. “Sit them at my station, would you, Janice?”
“Sure thing,” she said.
When we sat at a small booth, Sam sat next to me, putting in his earbuds as I quickly texted a message to my father to tell him I’d arrived and where we were seated.
Ms. J stopped at our table, slightly out of breath and brushing stray fallen hairs from her face. “Now, what can I get you boys?”
“I’m not sure I can eat,” I said.
“Oh? Why’s that? What’s wrong, honey?”
“I’m… meeting my father for the first time.”
Her dark brown eyes grew wide as she scanned the restaurant before sitting down across from us. “What’s happened?”
I shrugged. “Nothing… I just thought it was time and shit… sorry.”
“Let me know if I can do anything or if you need to talk. I have to get back to work, but I wish you the best of luck, sweetheart.”
“Thanks, Ms. J. I guess I’ll have a Coke and the nachos.”
“You got it.”
Sam smiled at her and waved, so I nudged him to order.
“Oh, I’d like your American breakfast and orange juice.”
“Sounds good.”
She walked off, and Sam put his earbuds back in. He’d take them out when my father got here. When he grabbed my hand under the table, my breathing settled.
My knee bounced as I kept scanning the front of the restaurant, which had a clear view of the door. My breathing and heart stopped when a man in his thirties walked in. I knew deep down it had to be him. I squeezed Sam’s hand, and he looked up at the man approaching us.
He was slightly darker than me, and while I didn’t look a lot like him, we definitely shared the same eyes and full mouth.
His tight black curls were shaved low to the scalp, but he wore a short beard.
Though he was taller and broader than me, I definitely saw myself in him with a weird sense of familiarity.
“Jesus… you… you look just like her,” he said.
His eyes watered, and his lip trembled, looking uncertain as to what to do. I had no emotional attachments toward the man I barely recognized, but his emotions pulled them out of me, anyway.
He quickly swiped his face. “Can I sit?”
Sam removed his earbuds and squeezed my hand, staying quiet. I nodded and introduced him to Sam.
The air was heavy with awkwardness as we sat in silence before Stix’s mom came up and took his order of just coffee.
“I… never thought I’d ever see you again,” my father finally said. “Biggest fucking regret of my life…” He choked back a sob and scoffed, looking around the restaurant with slumped shoulders. “Maybe this place is too public for a meeting like this.”
“Why?” I blurted.
He furrowed his thick brows and nodded. “Yeah, you deserve that. Uhm, your mama—”
“Is dead. I know.”
He nodded again. “Sepsis. She got it after we got home from the hospital. She had a really high fever, was shaking, and struggled to breathe. I rushed her to the emergency room, and the doctors tried to save her, but she died anyway.”
So they had brought me home first. That didn’t look like abandonment at first glance.
“You arrived in this world a bit early, but you were healthy beyond that. Your mama and I were so damn young. Too young for sex. Too young to have a child… But you know, we were teens and thought we had the world all figured out.”
Ms. J returned with our food and his coffee before eyeing Isaiah again with a protective vibe, but walked away, saying nothing.
“I loved your mama as teens might. When we learned we were having a baby, I wanted to do the right thing. I put in more hours at work while trying to keep up my grades at school. She took on work, too… God, our parents had been furious with us, but we were determined to keep you and do the best we could. Your mama wanted you so much. I did, too, but mostly, I just tried to step up and be a man.”
My eyes watered, and some tears slipped. To hear those words shattered my view of my parents. To learn that they might have cared about me once… I didn’t know if that was a relief or if it hurt more.
“My parents were assholes. They hurt me, and it really messed me up. Nate here has been amazing and has taken really good care of me… sorry, this isn’t about me… Anyway, I just mean Nate’s great. Sorry…” Sam slouched and frowned at himself.
“Thanks, baby,” I said.
Isaiah scanned Sam for a bit before looking back at me, probably noticing for the first time how closely we sat together.
Sam’s hand started to get really clammy like mine, and his fingers trembled a bit, so I leaned in to whisper. “You can eat and put your earbuds in. I’ll fill you in later. You being here is enough, okay?”
He bit his bottom lip and nodded. Once his earbuds were in, he started to scarf his eggs and hash browns.
“Is he a friend, or…?”
“Sam is my forever person… My best friend, foster brother, and boyfriend.”
He nodded and looked at Sam again. “I’m glad you have someone in your life like that.”
I had no idea how tight my muscles were until he spoke those words that completely lacked judgment.
Isaiah’s long fingers spun his untouched coffee mug around on the table while my food got cold. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d passed up a plate of nachos. I’d have to bring it home, not wanting to waste our money.
He exhaled a shuddered breath. “Your mama lay there in the hospital bed, unmoving, still looking alive, as I held your tiny little body swaddled in blankets in my arms, only a week old. The grief hit me so fucking hard, along with a hefty dose of fear. Her mother wailed in the room while her father cried silently in a dark corner… your grandparents… fucking bastards.”
I looked up at him with the venom in his voice. “What?”
“Look… Nathaniel—”
“Nate.”
“Nate… I fucked up, okay? We both did, but we really tried to keep you and do the right thing… but our parents? Nah, they were all about the ‘you made your bed’ attitude and refused to help. All of them wanted Ines… Inny, to get an abortion or give you up for adoption.”
I’d often wondered if I would’ve been better off if I’d never been born, but then I’d met Sam, and for once in my life, I didn’t feel so alone.
“S-so you gave me up?”
His dark eyes looked at me, so full of pain and guilt, forcing me to glance away. I didn’t want to understand how much he hurt. He still let me go.
“Not at first. I took you back home with me after Inny had died. God, your mama had left us, and I was so clueless about how to raise an infant on my own. I needed to work and go to high school, barely scraping any money together with no help from anyone. I got this shitty month-to-month apartment that didn’t care about my age.
I lived right here in Baltimore, and I did my best, but…
I was only a kid myself, Nate. Maybe things would’ve been different had Inny lived.
If I dropped out of school, I’d never get a decent-paying job to even pay for daycare, which was so expensive and more than what I’d earned, and I could barely afford the formula to feed you. ”