Chapter 6
Six
DEREK
A minute past nine, and I stare at every driver of every car turning into the parking lot. None are Emily or Emily-like. Chances are, she’s on the other side of the country, preparing for a fresh start.
I stand outside the diner entrance, and a group of women walks by. I step up to open the door for them. A cap and sunglasses aren’t the smartest disguise, and I’m lucky this city is big, and people are too busy to recognize a country musician lurking outside a family eating establishment.
“Good morning,” I say, opening the door for them.
“Thank you. Waiting for someone?” One of them asks.
“Yes, ma’am.” The years of living in Nashville slip out.
“If your friend doesn’t show, we’ll save you a seat,” she says, wearing a big smile.
I walked right into that one. “I’ll consider it, thank you.” If Emily doesn’t show, I might need a friendly ear.
When I close the door, my head snaps towards the parking lot. The door to a twenty-year-old hatchback squeaks open. Emily steps out, wearing her hair pulled up into a high ponytail, big sunglasses, a white blouse, a denim skirt, and heels. She closes the door, but it gets stuck and she bumps it with her hip. The door doesn’t close. I instinctively move toward her.
“Oh, hi.” She pushes her butt into the door and places an arm across the roof of the car.
“Are you trying to close the door while pretending to lean on it?”
“No.” She steps away from the door and it pops open.
My eyes drift into the backseat of the car. There’s a car seat and a booster. No one else is with her.
“I didn’t say I was bringing him.” Her forehead wrinkles above the oversized sunglasses.
“We’ll arrange it soon enough.” I open the door completely and put my strength into it as I slam it shut. The door clatters its disapproval of my rough treatment, but it stays closed. “Will it open later?”
She purses her lips and thanks me while she uses the key to lock the car. “I’ll be fine.” Should I be worried about her driving children around in a taped-together car?
“Has a mechanic approved of that thing being on the road?”
She frowns at my question.
She shakes her head and hooks her bag over her shoulder. “Nana was late in coming over to watch the kids and then Victoria took her time picking out an outfit and James couldn’t find his favorite shoes…” She glances over my shoulder at the diner. “We should get something to eat.”
James needed help to find his favorite shoes? Yesterday, I woke up preoccupied with Saddles’ grand opening and a summer full of planning for Santos’ launch. Now, I’m wondering what shoes would be a little boy’s favorite. And did I want to be the one helping him find them?
As we follow the host to our booth, I can’t help but take in the elegant shape of Emily’s neck, her defined shoulders, and the determined strides making her hips sway. My eyes linger on her tan, luscious legs, but they’re no match for the perfect, plump ass in front of me. Lucky she couldn’t read my dirty mind last night when she caught me staring.
I’m losing my sanity, being equally angry at and attracted to this woman.
Once we’re seated, we read the menu in what could only be an uncomfortable silence broken by the server bringing water and asking what we would like to drink. When she leaves to fill our order, I force myself to relax into the backrest. “Start from the beginning.”
Her gaze wanders out the window. “I did what I had to.”
My teeth jam together. “What you had to do was tell me.”
Her attention returns to me with narrowed eyes. “Wasn’t easy.”
I scrub at my face. Her stubbornness strengthened over the years. I spent the night trying to process there's a little human carrying my genes. That I made. With Emily.
“Was him not knowing me easy?”
“It was safe.”
“You said the same thing last night. Safe from me? His—” The word swirls over my tongue, not quite formed yet, and saying it out loud will make everything real. Because saying it means the title is mine. Thinking about it is one thing, but saying it is a commitment to the meaning of the word. Or what I believe it means. “—father?”
Emily sits motionless as she observes me. Her silence is answer enough.
“You don’t think I’m good enough for him.” I shift in my seat.
The hard look she carried since she showed up softens. “I didn’t say that.”
A few guests give us curious looks. I force my back deeper into the red vinyl of the booth. I drink half the glass of ice water.
“I didn’t say that,” Emily repeats, her voice softer and gentler than earlier. “After that awful night, I couldn’t risk you rejecting him, like you did me. I convinced myself I made the right decision. Ryan, the person you saw, argued I should have gotten your number before leaving. Ryan wanted me to find you at another show. He offered to approach you, but I asked him to let it go.”
You could have kept trying, burst into my mind, but not out of my mouth. The night in Virginia, I aimed to end every thought and feeling carrying a trace of Emily forever. If I would have been on the receiving end of the shit I said, I’d be gone, too. But she kept a major secret from me. So, the anger returns. An act impossible to forgive, even if a part of me understands her reasons.
Last night, since sleep was impossible, I studied each photo of my son as if it could tell me how he’d react to me. I searched for every clue of who he was.
He’s perfect in every picture. The pictures show a boy who laughs, is curious, and is part of a loving family. He has a little sister who seems to adore him. What could I be angry about for James? Could I be angry about James being cheated out of a dad? He hadn’t. He has the perfect family.
What happened between Emily and Victoria’s father?
“Where is he?”
“My nana is watching them.” She checks her phone like she’s waiting for something.
“The man he thinks is his other parent.” I can’t give my title away to the other man. Although I’d seen pictures to tell me he took the role seriously, I couldn’t say it to Emily.
“Arlington.” Emily cast her eyes down.
Would this guy still support me as part of James’ life, or would he do whatever Emily wanted? My focus should be on meeting my son as soon as possible, yet my questions are about capturing what exactly I’m walking into. “Separation? Divorce? Custody?”
Her eyelids close and moisture lines them. As upset as I am with her, my fingers reach for her cheek to wipe away the tear. I snap back to my side of the table before she opens them.
“Training accident.”
Oh. That Arlington.
She opens her eyes and wipes at her cheek with the back of her hand. “Fourteen months ago. Two months later, we moved here, desperate for a change of scenery.”
Emily is a widow with two kids. She lost her partner, and the kids lost a parent. I rub at my chest. “I’m sorry for your loss. How are James and Victoria doing?”
“First few months were rough. I questioned if moving here was wise, but it was best for us. They’re better now. Better than me.” She lowers her voice for the last part like she didn’t mean for me to hear.
They’d been here a year. And she didn’t think to look for me? “My father lives in the same house.”
“I’d already tried. What would be different now?”
“You could have brought James with you to get through his hard stubborn ass.”
“And have him find out before you?”
“Charlie did. Can’t keep harping on what went wrong.” I run a hand through my hair. I give her something so we can move forward. “I don’t hate you.”
She eyes me like she’s trying to figure out if I’m being honest. “Well, what a relief.” Her dry humor lands in the space, slowly diffusing the anger, and it pulls a smile out of me.
"Good, because then this would become terribly complicated," I send back.
Her eyes shine with a smidge of amusement. “How is he?”
“Hasn’t changed, but we’re not here to talk about my father.”
“And Jesi?” Emily leans forward.
“She practically lives in her research lab in San Francisco.” How am I going to tell my sister, my father, and Tyler I have a son? “I want to meet him. Today.”
Her palms pop up at her sides. “He doesn’t know.”
“He will eventually.”
I expect a rebuttal. None comes.
Emily’s hands and shoulders drop. “There’s something you should know. ”
Everything in my chest plummets to my fucking feet. “What?”
Emily makes a frustrated noise. “James likes things people don’t associate with boys.”
She’s hedging. I almost retort with a get to the point, and instead, opt for, “Tell me everything.”
Emily’s fingertip draws a circle on the veneer table top. “He likes the usual boy things, playing T-ball, Star Wars, and cars. He also loves dancing and putting on shows for his sister and me. He’s into fixing his hair, his nails, wears pink. Sometimes, I buy him dresses from the girl section.” She avoids looking at me.
“Emily.” I call her name and wait until she makes eye contact. When she does, I hold her gaze so she knows I mean what I’m about to say. “I saw the hair, the clothes, the makeup, the nails. It’s what kids do. Nothing changes.”
“He’s not like the boys on his team or in his class.” Emily worries her bottom lip.
“You don’t think I can handle it.” The not-enough feeling that always plagues me around Emily intensifies.
She releases a noisy breath. “Parenting isn’t pretty. There will be moments, no matter how strong or famous you are, you won’t be able to handle. Will you walk away when he asks why no one wants to be his friend? Or what does a certain word mean, and you can’t tell him it’s a derogatory term. Tell me, Anderson, what will you do?”
No one wants to be his friend? My eyes sting.
I ignore the walking away barb because I’ll have a chance to prove to her that I’m not like her father.
I didn’t have the best role models as parents with a mother who left us and a father who buried himself in work after. What do I know about parenting? Or parenting a kid when he’s hurting, because for damn sure, my father never tended to those weak feelings. A photo of James in a dress reminds me he will need everyone in his corner. I don’t know how to parent. I haven’t had the chance. No one is an expert when they start something. It took me months of practice to master the frets without relying on my lips or counting. Am I ready to roll up my dad sleeves and be who my little boy needs?
The one thing I wanted as a kid, after my mother ran off, was the one thing I could give my son. “He’ll always have me.”
“This is a full-time job, Anderson.” She narrows her eyes at me like she knows how much I hate her using my last name. She probably enjoys watching me squirm. “He can’t hug a video dad. He can’t understand how you feel through a telephone call. How will you show him you love him? And don’t say buying him presents.”
What made me fall for such a stubborn woman? Fall? I fell. Not a present emotion. At all. I let my irritation filter into my words. “You’d rather him live without his real father than have me in his life at all, even if it’s not up to your standards. This isn’t an all or nothing world.”
“For him it is.”
“You mean for you.”
She says nothing, only peers at me as if I were a specimen under a microscope and she can pin point any doubt about my commitment. I straighten my back, making myself taller. I wait her out. Will she let me in?
“How would this work, exactly?” She crosses her arms over her chest.
I’d devised a plan last night. “I’m working with our tour manager to adjust my schedule. I’ll call every night before a show. I’ll fly in when there are two or more nights free.”
“What about when he gets pushed in the playground and needs you and you’re flying across the country?”
Is this what she’s been dealing with? “I’ll remind him he’s strong. Then I’ll kick those kids’ asses and their parents. It’s more than he has now.”
She rears back as if I had told her I could grow a second head by putting my thumb in my mouth and blowing .
If she fights me at every step, we won’t ever get any closer to figuring out this mess.