Chapter 11
ELEVEN
Reeves
The Sash: A decorated ribbon worn across the body by the grand marshal as a signal for the crowd to follow.
The word hangs between us.
I don't move.
My hands are flat on the table. My breathing is steady. Six years of training holds the outside of me in place while the inside does something I don't have a name for yet.
A child.
Mine.
The word sits in my chest like a foreign object. I don't know what to do with it. I don't know what it means yet. I only know it's true.
The timeline starts assembling on its own.
Six years since I left town, since I shoved that letter into a drawer without opening it and walked away.
Six years of deployments, training cycles, and missions that carried me halfway around the world while something else was happening here that I never even considered.
The image comes back with uncomfortable clarity. The kid riding his bike down the street the other day, his little legs pumping hard as his mother encouraged him.
He glanced over his shoulder once as he realized he was upright, his face as clear as day for me. Charli's back was to me, but I got to see his face.
My stomach tightens as the pieces slide into place.
My son.
I look back across the table at Charli.
The light from the bar falls across her face, catching the familiar angles of her cheekbones and the stubborn lift of her chin. She looks the same way she always did when she had already made a decision and did not intend to apologize for it.
Steady. Certain.
Even now.
“So does that mean he's six?” I ask.
My voice comes out quieter than I expected, controlled enough that most people would not hear anything unusual in it.
"He's five." Charli shakes her head slightly. "Six years minus nine months. His birthday is in November."
November.
My limbs go numb, like they aren't even attached to me. I shift my legs under the table just to confirm they're still there.
He's five years old. Five years of a life I didn't know was happening.
I swallow and reach for the water, the dryness in my mouth catching up with me.
"What's his name?"
"Benjamin." Her eyes stay on mine, unwavering. "We call him Benjy."
We. That we doesn't include me.
The name needles into my bones, becoming more real by the second. There's a boy, who is five years old, named Benjy, who has my blood coursing through his veins.
I lean back slightly in my chair, trying to organize the information the way I would process any new intel on a mission. Facts first. Emotions later. If at all.
But this isn't a mission. This is my life. A life that suddenly has a five-year-old boy in it that I never knew existed.
"Does he look like me?"
The question feels hollow, almost inadequate, but it's all I can think about in this moment. I want to know him, even if I'm not sure I'm capable of being a father.
My mind snags on the name, running it through its circuit again.
He's named after her father.
It clicks into place, making perfect sense while simultaneously driving home the reality of my complete absence. The boy carries nothing of me. Not my name, not a single day of his five years. Nothing except maybe some genes.
Charli takes a sip of her cocktail. "Yes. He has your eyes. They are your exact shade of green. And when he concentrates, he tilts his head exactly like you do."
Emotion wells up inside of me, and I have to blink away the threat of tears. I'm not sad or happy, but the gravity of it all threatens to consume me.
I unconsciously straighten in my chair and clear my throat.
"Does he know about me?"
I watch her neck bob as she swallows. "He knows his father lives somewhere else and that we weren't together when he was born. I never lied to him, but he doesn't have the understanding to ask questions, really."
I absorb this silently while the bar sharpens around us.
A glass hits the counter somewhere to my left. Ice shifts in a shaker. A woman laughs too loudly at the next table.
Every sound is distinct, like it’s right beside me.
None of it touches what’s happening in my head.
The server stops by when she sees my empty glass. "Y'all doing okay?"
"I'd love another," I answer back. I look at Charli's glass and see she still has more than half left. "Do you want anything else?"
"I'm good right now," Charli answers, looking at the server, not me.
"You didn't try to find me," I say as soon as she's gone. It's not a question, but there is a part of me that wonders why she didn't try to share any of this with me over the years.
"You made yourself clear about what you wanted, Reeves. No marriage. No kids. No roots." Charli's voice stays level, factual. "I wasn't going to trap you when you explicitly said you didn't want children.”
The bourbon burns as I take another swallow. I imagine saying that's different, or I would have come back, or you should have told me anyway.
But none of that is true enough to speak aloud. Because it probably wouldn't have changed anything.
Or, would it have?
"What does he like?"
A small smile touches her lips, genuine for the first time tonight. "Trucks. Water. How things work. He takes apart his toys to see what's inside them."
Each detail cracks like a bullet. They are direct hits to places I didn't know could hurt.
"Is he..." I pause, searching for the right word, "...happy?"
"Very. He is a sweet boy, very protective of his friends, of people he sees as vulnerable. He's an old soul in a lot of ways."
The server drops off a fresh bourbon for me, juggling a tray full of other drinks. I offer a weak excuse for a smile and grab the glass as she moves off.
I turn the glass in my hands. The weight of learning all of this life-altering stuff in a short time presses down on me.
"Why didn't you try to reach me over all these years?" The question slips out before I can stop it. I'm not angry with her, necessarily, but I do feel like she could have done more. "Six years, Charli. That's a long time."
She tilts her head slightly, confusion crossing her face before understanding clicks.
"I did tell you, Reeves." Her voice is calm but firm. "I left that letter on your windshield. I had no reason to believe you wouldn't read it. We always left each other notes like that."
The memory sharpens into focus. That white envelope tucked under my wiper. The way I yanked it off and shoved it in my pocket without opening it.
"But we had just..." My words trail off as I remember.
"We had just gone through a pregnancy scare two months earlier." Her fingers trace the condensation on her glass. "You made it crystal clear you didn't want kids. Or marriage. You said those exact words to me. I wasn't going to have an abortion."
I can't argue with that. I remember the relief that flooded through me when that second test came back negative, how clearly I'd told her I wasn't built for fatherhood.
"When I found out I was pregnant, I didn't know what else to do." She looks directly at me now. "I wrote everything down and left it where I knew you'd find it. I didn't want you to feel pressured, because I was going to have this baby regardless of what you wanted."
The weight of what she's saying sinks into me.
"When you never called or came back, I assumed you'd made your choice." She shrugs one shoulder. "The message seemed pretty clear. I wasn't surprised, because you'd said it before."
I lean forward, both hands gripping my glass.
If I had opened that letter six years ago, would I have come back? The honest answer twists in my gut like lead.
Probably not.
The man I was then would have seen it as a trap. An anchor. A threat to run from.
And she knows it.
"You weren't wrong." The admission guts me to say out loud. "About what I wanted then."
She nods once, accepting this without surprise. We both know it's true.
The irony cuts deep. I make decisions fast. I don’t hesitate when business needs to be handled or look away when it matters.
And yet the most consequential choice I ever made was not a choice at all. It was ignoring an envelope on my windshield.
One moment of avoidance created a child I never knew existed.
I take a long swallow of bourbon, letting it burn all the way down. The past is locked in place now. There's nothing to argue or defend.
"What happens now?" I ask, shifting toward the present. "With Benjy."
Charli draws back slightly, her fingers tracing a pattern on the table. "Exactly what's happened, Reeves. He’s thriving and growing. I mean, if there's something you want here, you're going to have to tell me. I can't guess what this means for you."
I can't begin to guess what it means for me. I certainly can't expect her to.
"I'm guessing he doesn't know that his father is in New Orleans right now?"
"No." Charli tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. "I always planned to tell him the whole truth when he was older, when he started asking real questions. But until now, there wasn't a reason to make it complicated."
"That day I drove by your house." My voice comes out rough. "I saw you teaching him to ride his bike. I figured he was your son, but I never, ever imagined he was our son."
Charli nods. "I can understand that, now. If you didn't read the letter, how could you have known?"
"Is there someone in his life that he sees as a father figure?"
I know this is a dangerous question, but I have to know. At the very least, I deserve to know.
"Yes."
I'm suddenly nauseated. Now I wish I hadn't asked. What a stupid fucking question. Of course she's married.
"My father. We spend a lot of time with my parents, and my father fills in where a father might."
Where a father might. Where I should be is what she probably wants to say.
The bar hums quietly around us. Glasses clink somewhere near the back wall, and a low conversation from the next table is suddenly all I can hear.
Neither of us speaks.
I look up and meet Charli’s hazel eyes. The words come before I can run through the consequences.
“I want to meet him.”
They sit there between us.
Charli’s posture shifts almost immediately. Her shoulders pull back, and her expression tightens in a way I remember well. It is the same look she used to get when someone crossed a line she had already decided she would defend.
“That’s not a small request, Reeves.” Her voice stays calm, but there is steel under it. “I have spent his entire life building stability for Benjy. Five years of routine, of knowing what tomorrow looks like for him.”
She tears at the damp napkin under her cocktail glass. Little bits of soggy napkin are balled up around the glass.
“I can’t just bring someone new into his world without understanding what you expect.”
She studies my face for a moment.
“What exactly are you asking for?”
It is a fair question. I haven't thought past the part where I see him with my own eyes.
“I’m not asking you to tell him who I am,” I say. “He doesn’t need to know that yet. I just want to meet him.”
My thumb moves slowly along the rim of my glass while I search for the right words.
“And then what?” Charli tilts her head slightly.
“You disappear again for another six years?” she asks quietly. “Or you drop into his life when you happen to be in town between deployments?”
I hold her gaze.
“I don’t know,” I admit.
The truth is heavier than anything else I have said tonight.
“My life isn’t exactly predictable. I spend months at a time overseas. I only just found out I have a son. I need time to figure out what that means.”
“That’s exactly the problem.”
She sets her glass down carefully on the table.
“Benjy isn’t a thing you figure out later. He’s a little boy. And little boys need people who show up.”
What she is saying is absolutely correct, but that doesn’t make it any easier for me to hear. This is the moment I have to do the fucking right thing, not the easy thing.
“Let me see him,” I say quietly. “Just once while I’m home.”
Her eyes search my face like she is trying to measure the kind of man I am, if I’m good enough to know the son she’s protected by herself all these years.
“Give me some time,” she finally says. “My first job is protecting him.”
I nod slowly.
“I can respect that.”
A moment passes before I add the part she needs to know.
“I’m only here for another week before I leave again. I fly out a week from tomorrow.”
She doesn't answer me. I drain the rest of my drink and suddenly realize I need to move. I can't sit here anymore.
I nod and signal the server for the check. Neither of us speaks while the receipt prints. After the server leaves, I look at her, trying to find the right words, but they don't come.
"I'm sure you need to get home to him. Thank you for meeting me."
Charli studies me for another moment, as if she is trying to decide whether I mean that or if I am already pulling away.
“I'll think about what you're asking,” she says.
It's not a yes.
But it is not a no, either.