Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
ADAM
Most men have time to prepare for a child, time to prepare for the idea of becoming a father.
Nine months to be exact. The emotions clogging my mind right now are unbelievable.
I love him already. I’ve known him for ten minutes and already I know I’d die for him.
I accepted him the moment I laid eyes on him.
How could I not? I look at him and see my mini twin. His ice blue eyes, smirky little smile.
“Ain’t that some shit, hey big bro?” Billy says as we ride back to the job site.
I honestly have no idea how I am going to concentrate to close out the day.
This is when accidents happen, when people aren’t paying attention.
It’s a bad idea for me to go back to work right now, but I can’t figure out what else to do.
“Do you want to go get shitfaced?”
I throw a side eye at my little brother who’s watching me with a shit eating grin. “What is wrong with you? Haven’t you learned that lesson?”
He shrugs as I place my eyes back on the road, coming around the corner of Dew Drop, our job site. Though, getting shitfaced does sound good right now.
“I mean, if I just found out I’d be paying child support for the next eighteen years, I’d need a drink.”
I pull up and slam on the brakes a little too hard, jerking the truck to a shocking halt. I turn in my seat to stare at him.
“Child support? What the fuck does that mean?”
“You can do a paternity test, but it’s clear he’s—”
“No. Why would I pay child support? Is she leaving? Is she taking him away from me?”
He undoes his seat belt and slowly opens the door. I probably look like a wild animal, ready to pounce and he’s just taking precautions.
Smart man.
He slides out of the truck and so do I, rounding the hood and stopping at the walkway. “I don’t know what she’s planning. Relax, bro, I was just trying to make a joke.”
“Now is not the time for jokes, Billy. This is fucking serious. She’s been keeping him from me! I have a son!”
“She’s been keeping him from all of us, Adam.
” He grows serious which makes me pause for a moment and listen to him, Billy is hardly ever serious.
“You’re not the only one this affects. I have a nephew.
I’m an uncle now. Mom and Dad? Fucking grandparents.
” He grabs ahold of my shoulder giving me a shake, stepping a little closer.
“Grand-par-ents.” He spits out every syllable as its own word.
“Mom is going to have a stroke when she finds out about him. So, you see, big brother, you’re not the only one living this crazy dream right now. ”
He's right. This affects us all. Chelsea running, hiding Dominic, then popping back up, has just changed every one of our lives.
I slump against the truck. “What am I supposed to do now?”
“First thing you should do is go get a car seat and tint your windows. You won’t be able to pick up women with a car seat in view.
” He jumps out of my reach as I take a half-hearted swing at him.
“Right now, we go back to work. We handle the day and when it’s quitting time, you’re going to go straight home and I’m going to follow with pizza and beer and the rest of the guys.
We’ll get our heads wrapped around this and then get drunk and second guess every decision we just made. ”
He shows off that Casanova smirk as he throws his arm around my shoulders, pushing me to walk to the bed of the truck and start grabbing the boxes of tile.
“I think that’s the most sense you’ve ever made.”
He laughs. “I have my moments. Now come on, Big Daddy, let’s get back to work.”
I went back to work because what else could I do? But my mind wasn’t on the job. For the first time in I don’t know how long, burying myself in my work just didn’t kill the memory.
And that worries me because that’s my compartmentalization.
It’s how I move through my day, it’s how I arrange my thoughts and put things in order.
I need to work. I need to keep business number one.
The fact that it slipped from my mind today means that I just stepped into a whole new realm of life now.
It’s something I have no idea how to navigate through.
* * *
I sent Billy home at the end of the day. I canceled his plans to come over with the guys. I just couldn’t do it. As the day wore on, I couldn’t shake my thoughts. The more I thought, the less work I did. So now I’m paying for it.
I tiled that damn bathroom until it was past eleven at night.
My body hurt and I was starving. I closed everything up and drove home.
As I pulled into my driveway, I watched Francesca’s old house from my rear-view mirror.
Chelsea’s car was in the driveway, but the house was dark.
I’m sure they were both sleeping. I wanted to go over there, to knock on her door and demand she give me answers.
Where has she been for two years?
Why did she leave?
Why is she back?
Why didn’t she tell me she was pregnant in the first place? Was I that bad of a boyfriend?
I lean my head back on the headrest and imagine Chelsea pregnant. I’m sure she was even more beautiful. I would have loved to see her belly grow with my son. Watched as two became three.