Chapter Four #2
“I understand,” he said. “But look, it’s a long drive.
You and Oliver just spent hours in the car.
By the time you could pack everything up again and eat, it’ll be late and it feels like an even longer drive when you’re exhausted.
At least spend the night and see how you feel tomorrow. I’ll keep my family in line.”
“You have to tell them,” she said quietly. “You can’t let them believe that you and I…you know.”
“I was pretty emphatic about that not being a possibility, but yes. I’ll tell them what we know to be true. You adopted Oliver from Kelly, who was still married to me when he was conceived, and it seems likely—though not certain yet—that she lied to both of us.”
“I don’t want…the family names, you know? Until we know for sure if those are his aunts and uncles and grandparents out there, I don’t think it’s healthy for anybody to go there yet.”
Daddy.
Brian scrubbed his hands over his face, willing his voice to be steady even though his entire body was trembling.
“That’s fair. Just as a heads-up, though, my family loves kids in general so they’re going to be all over him, but that would be the case no matter whose kid he is.
Some random camper could show up with a toddler and by the time the parents unhooked the camper, the kid would be sucked into the Kowalski vortex. ”
“Okay. But as a heads-up right back at you, if I get uncomfortable, I’m going to take him into the camper and we’ll stay inside until we leave tomorrow.”
“Fair enough. I can send them a text now, so we don’t have to talk about it when we go out there.”
When she nodded, he pulled up the family group chat on his phone. It took him a minute to compose the text message, especially since his hands were trembling slightly and he kept messing up so badly even autocorrect wasn’t sure what he wanted to say.
Kelly is Oliver’s bio mom and the math says he could be mine.
Siobhan adopted him, but K lied to her about our situation and she didn’t know.
S might stay if we don’t make it awkward.
Will do paternity test after wedding. Until we get the results, be chill and focus on the wedding, please.
And don’t blow up my phone with replies or I’ll block all of you.
“Do you want me to read it to you before I hit Send?” he asked.
“If you don’t mind.” After he’d read it aloud, she shrugged. “That’s all there is to say right now, I guess.”
“We should probably give them a few minutes to read it and get the initial burst of talking about it out of their systems.”
“I know he’s not even two, but I hope they’ll remember Oliver is listening.”
“They will.” He hit Send.
After the whooshing airplane sound told them his family was now in the loop, a tense silence settled between him and Siobhan again.
Quiet wasn’t good. Since the moment he realized he might have a son, his head had been like a snow globe.
Every time somebody spoke, the snow globe was shaken and his thoughts were the flurry of flakes.
But in the silence, the snowflakes got a chance to settle and Brian could make sense of his thoughts.
One in particular was picking up steam, like a snowball rolling downhill.
Maybe Kelly had lied to her sister, but if Siobhan hadn’t hated Brian since day one and had supported their marriage, maybe Kelly wouldn’t have left him for some other guy. Maybe they would still be married, raising their son together.
He didn’t say it out loud. Right now, his only objective was getting to know the child he knew in his gut was his son. To do that, he needed to keep Siobhan at the campground, and that would be challenging enough without rehashing the years of animosity between them.
“I didn’t know,” she whispered, and since she was looking at her hands, Brian wasn’t sure if she was talking to him or to herself.
“If you’d known, you probably wouldn’t have shown up at a gathering of my entire family with him.”
She couldn’t have known how strong the resemblance really was, of course, because she had no way of knowing what Brian and his brothers had looked like at that age.
But if Siobhan believed there was even a hint of a possibility Brian was Oliver’s father, he didn’t think she would have even come herself, never mind brought the boy with her.
“You’re right about it not being fair to put Oliver back in his car seat for hours,” she said. “But I’m probably going to leave tomorrow. There’s no way this isn’t awkward.”
“Give my family a chance,” he said. “For Steph’s sake, at least.”
Siobhan looked him in the eye, her gaze unflinching.
“I adore Steph. We’ve been friends for years.
But there is literally nobody on this planet more important to me than Oliver.
If I think it’s a bad idea for us to be here, using Steph’s wedding to emotionally blackmail me into staying won’t work.
As soon as one of my boundaries is crossed, we’re gone. ”
“I’m sorry. I love Steph, so that was a genuine ask, but I can see how it looks like I’m using her to manipulate you. And maybe I am on some level, I guess. I’ll try not to anymore.”
“Thank you.”
There didn’t seem to be anything else to say, so Brian stood. “I’ll go out and make sure they’re settled down.”
“I’m going to use the restroom first—maybe splash some water on my face—and then I’ll be out.”
As he walked across the grass, he knew the moment he was spotted because everybody snapped into act natural mode. They weren’t very good at it, and he chuckled before his gaze landed on the little boy who looked like a replica of his own baby pictures and the sound died in his throat.
His son.
Brian wasn’t sure how he was supposed to keep his family’s expectations in check when he couldn’t even control his own, but he wanted Siobhan and Oliver to stay. He had to try.