Chapter 19 #2
Jesus, I should latch on to that while I could. When I told him the truth, this expression would disappear into something entirely different. And I’d deserve all the anger and disappointment. Betrayal was sometimes an impossible pill to swallow.
Fuck.
“You’re seriously scaring me.”
The panic in his eyes, the raw vulnerability in his voice, they were my undoing.
“I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
“Jesus, Cass, stop.” He was in my space, wrapping his arms around me. “Everything is fine.” He held me tighter as I hugged him so hard, I didn’t know how I’d be able to let go.
But I needed to do this. Finally tell him the truth and accept the consequences, even though my heart would undoubtedly break.
“I need to talk to you,” I managed, easing back but not letting go.
“O-kay,” he said slowly. He grabbed my hand. “Let’s go to our room.”
I nodded and mutely followed him.
The space felt so much like ours, even though it hadn’t been all that long. Change in such a short amount of time shouldn’t have been possible, but here we were, and I’d never felt more at peace, more loved.
This was my home.
Emotion threatened to nudge me into a babbling mess, but I swallowed it back. Dylan deserved the truth without me being incoherent.
Asses on the mattress, I considered letting go, suspecting Dylan would be eager to release me once I shattered his trust in me. Since I could be a selfish fuck, I held on tighter, memorizing the feel of his skin, how light his hands appeared under the glow of the bedside lamp.
“Cass.” His tone was sterner than before, demanding my attention.
Our eyes connected, and I appreciated the patience visible in his.
“What are you sorry for? Yesterday morning?”
I suspected that meant dawn was fast approaching, and Dylan would have to be at work soon. There was nothing like the double whammy of having an inconsiderate asshat for a husband. Obviously, the asshat was me in this scenario.
“No,” I croaked. We’d already discussed his parents yesterday and what happened in depth. That was just before we’d called Granger, our lawyer. While I’d felt like shit that Mikey had been exposed to the confrontation, it hadn’t been my fault.
“Okay.” With unwavering focus, he leaned into me, squeezing my hands. “That’s good. So what’s going on?” His expression was open, waiting patiently for me to speak.
I wanted to close my eyes and miss his expression. But being a coward was not an option. He deserved more than that.
With clammy hands and my heart racing at the speed of a hummingbird’s wings, I fixed my eyes on his, taking in the familiarity of the warm brown a few shades lighter than my own. Maybe he’d find a way to forgive me.
There was only one way to find out.
With a deep inhale and not-so-steady exhale, I battled through the constriction in my throat trying to prevent me from speaking. “When Paula told us all about her infertility, you know how we all rallied, supported her decision.”
If Dylan was surprised by my words and Paula being the topic, he didn’t show it. Instead, he nodded, saying, “We were devastated for her. She was so eager to be a mom one day.”
“She would have been an incredible mom,” I murmured, my tone filled with reverence. “When she first approached me about being a donor, I laughed her off.”
There was a slight widening of his eyes, but he remained silent.
“You knew Paula better than any other single person.” I pulled a tender smile at the memory of her. “She was the most… tenacious woman I’ve ever known.”
A slight uptick of his lips and Dylan added, “You mean bullheaded.”
“That too.” My tone turned subdued as I continued, “She also knew exactly what she wanted, but to her credit, it didn’t take too much convincing.” A bittersweet huff of a half laugh escaped me. “I’ve not always been known to think things fully through.”
Dylan’s brow shot high, and his lips pinched. “You could say that. You have moments of being pretty reactive.” The pointed look he shot me told me he was absolutely thinking about our shotgun wedding.
Not a chance would I ever want to take that back.
I told him as much, adding, “Reactive means also relying on your gut instinct, right?” Since he didn’t call me out, I carried on.
“And there are two major decisions I’ve ever made that I said yes to almost immediately.
And only because I knew in my heart, hell, in every fiber of my being that they were the right call to make.
That they’d be life-changing and amazing. ”
The words continued to race out of me in an impassioned torrent as I willed Dylan to believe me.
“And I can’t regret them, not ever. That doesn’t mean I was always right or that I always made the right call, especially as it meant I betrayed you, but fuck, Dyl, I love you and Mikey so fucking much that me doing stupid shit and just thinking of the now and not the bigger picture can’t be wrong, right? Like, I know it’s wrong that I didn’t—”
“Cass.” Dylan squeezed my hands when he cut off my babbling. “Take a breath for me.”
I did, kind of wishing he would have just let me unravel and release everything I’d been holding back. An inhale and a wobbly exhale and I nodded.
“Better. Okay?”
“Yeah.”
“So these two major decisions. One of those wasn’t joining the League, right?”
With a shake of my head, I tugged my bottom lip into my mouth, taking a moment to center myself.
“One was marrying me?”
“Fuck yes.” The words punched out of me. “I think we were always meant to be here, together, as a family, and I don’t know how we could have gotten there without getting married. And that hot-as-hell kiss.”
His lips twitched. “It was pretty life-changing.”
It seriously was.
“And I know when I jumped all over Granger’s suggestion that we should get married for Mikey it was fast and done with literally five seconds of thinking time… and I know I didn’t in my wildest dreams expect this would be where we ended up—”
“But your dream changed,” he cut in, and fuck my heart and how it bounced around in my chest. That night watching basketball, surrounded by a sea of nameless faces, had brought everything into sharp focus.
Just how much Dylan meant to me and how much my love for him had changed into something so much more special.
“It did. It has. You and our life together with Mikey are all that matters.”
Dylan swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple dipping with the loud click of a dry throat. And when his quiet question “And what’s the other one?” sliced through the air between us, there was no escaping the truth.
“I’m Mikey’s biological father.”