Chapter 40 Melted Her Heart
MELTED HER HEART
“Coming,” Jocelyn yelled when she heard a knock at her door five days later. “No, stay, Maverick. I don’t know who it is.”
The toddler always wanted to charge whoever was coming over. She wondered if he thought it might be Chance coming to get him. Since Chance was at the pub, it could be him. He said it’d be before Mav had to be in bed. He didn’t give a specific time he’d be home, just that he was held up.
Or it could be a neighbor complaining about the noise.
Maverick had been yelling out in excitement for the past twenty minutes.
He thought it was funny and she was struggling to get him to stop without punishing him for doing it.
This parenting thing was hard.
She didn’t want to take away any joy in his life when he’d had so little that she could see.
She got to the door, turned around and saw Maverick still on the floor playing with his favorite musical toy and shouting animal sounds back.
Her hand was on the knob, her eyes through the tiny piece of glass to see the last person she expected.
What. The. Freak.
She could ignore her ex who had been blowing up her phone for over a week just like she’d been doing to his texts and voicemails.
But he wasn’t going away, and maybe this would be the end of it.
“I know you’re in there, Jocelyn. I heard you talking.”
Not to mention the fact that the TV was on and Maverick’s music was going on his toy.
She unlocked the door and pulled it open.
“What do you want?” she asked.
He looked past her and saw Chance’s son on the floor, his jaw dropping.
“You had a baby?”
“Does that look like a baby to you?” she asked. What an idiot.
“It looks like a toddler and one that could be my son,” Victor squeaked out. “You bitch. How could you have my kid and not tell me?”
She threw her hands up. “Oh, my God. You saw me a year ago. You wouldn’t even leave me alone for the year after I left you. You would have known if I were pregnant and I wasn’t. I should kick your butt for even insinuating I’d be that kind of a person, let alone you calling me a bitch.”
She whispered the last word. Maverick’s vocabulary was increasing by leaps and bounds and that wasn’t a word she wanted him to pick up.
“Then whose kid is it?”
“I don’t owe you any explanations,” she said. “But I’m going to give you some so you’ll leave me alone. First off, I’m not sure how you found out I was dating someone, but it’s none of your damn business since we’ve been done for years. Over two years to be exact.”
“So it’s your new boyfriend’s baby?” Victor asked. “Where is he? I want to see who you think is better than I am.”
She laughed. “There are many people better than you out there. All this time you’ve been gone and you’re back because you hear I’m dating someone. I don’t get it. None of it.”
“What we had was great,” Victor said. His voice got that annoying whine to it that it had while he was begging her to return to him. “I’ve changed. I saw a therapist.”
“Good for you,” she said sarcastically.
“I mean it. I’m better. She told me to go back to the last person I was with. The one who said I was damaged and try to make amends. To repair that relationship. That’s what I wanted to do. But I saw you with some guy the first night I was here.”
“You’ve been watching me?” she asked.
“No. I didn’t mean that. I know your parking spot, and there has been a truck in front of the garage door. Then you came out with the person that night and leaned in to kiss him.”
She had no clue when that could have been that he wouldn’t have seen Maverick. Unless the toddler was already in the truck when Victor pulled in.
None of it mattered.
“I don’t care. We are done. You’re not welcome here. I’m glad you’ve got a therapist and that she’s getting you all set in the head.”
“She said there wasn’t anything wrong with me,” Victor said. “That it’s natural to have urges like that. I just needed to explain it and come to a common ground.”
“Save your breath for the next person,” she said. “I mean it. Go.”
“Is there a problem here?”
She’d heard the elevator ding and was hoping it wasn’t Chance who would turn the corner and see Victor standing in her doorway.
On second thought, maybe this was a good thing.
“Nope,” she said. “Because Victor, my ex, was just leaving.”
“Oh, the guy who wanted to call you Mommy in bed?” Chance asked, then gave Victor the once-over. “Looks about right.”
The old Chance was back.
The one from high school who didn’t give a shit about anyone. What he said or who he said it to.
Part of her had been missing that, as it was replaced with Chance the Dad.
She loved that guy.
He was awkwardly sweet and tender to his son, but so genuine it melted her heart.
This Chance was giving someone the once-over that wasn’t worth his time and walking into her apartment but then standing behind her. And he was sexy as all hell.
He was letting her handle it on her own but being next to her to jump in if needed.
Thank you, dating Gods, for finding her the man she’d wanted all along.
One to let her handle her own problems in life, but be supportive.
“You told him,” Victor said, his face red.
“Yep. But hey, your therapist knows and said it’s normal.”
There was squealing behind her. Maverick must have just noticed his father and come running.
“I think that’s your cue to leave,” Chance told Victor. “Because if I have to put my son down and deal with this man to man, you’re not going to like it.”
Victor looked at her, his lips scrunched up. “He’s welcome to you. You were a cold bitch in the bedroom anyway.”
Chance handed Maverick to her and took a step forward. “Did you just swear in front of my son and call my girlfriend a bad name?”
Victor took several steps back and put his hands up. “I’m leaving. She’s all yours.”
“Thanks, not that I need your permission or approval,” Chance said and shut the door in Victor’s face.
“Sorry about that. I thought it was you knocking. I wasn’t going to answer it when I saw who it was, but he called my name. He heard the noise in here.”
“What did he want?”
“You’re not mad he showed up at the door?”
“Did you call him?”
“No,” she said, her lip curling. “He’s been bugging me and I’ve been ignoring it.”
Maverick was reaching for him again, so she let him be taken into Chance’s arms while he processed her words. “Why didn’t you say anything to me?”
“Because it’s not a big deal. I haven’t replied. He mentioned I was dating someone and I didn’t know how he found out. He said that he had seen me kissing you one day. Your truck was parked in front of my garage. He saw Maverick and thought he was his son.”
“Is he stupid?”
“I more or less reminded him he bugged me for over a year after we split and he would have known if I was pregnant. And that I’m not the type of person to even do that.”
“So he wants you back or something?”
“You’re really not upset over this?”
“Did you think I’d be jealous of him?”
She laughed. “My bad. Maybe you don’t get jealous of anything.”
He shook his head. “Don’t turn that into this. I’ve had plenty of things in my life I was jealous of, but situations like that, nope.”
She wasn’t sure how she felt.
Maybe he wasn’t thinking of her as much as she was him.
Which was a knife into the heart when she was so thankful she had found the man of her dreams.
Literally, her teenage dreams.
“Excuse me,” she said. “Women just flock to you.”
“You did,” he said, smirking. “Kept coming back for more.”
As much as she wanted to argue, she couldn’t.
Her nose scrunched up. “I want to be annoyed but can’t when I find this really sexy. I’ve missed this side of you.”
“What side?”
“The cocky, confident man that flicks people off who aren’t worthy of him.”
He grabbed her hips and yanked her into him. “You’re worthy of me.”
“Dad, Dad, Dad.”
They looked down, and there was Maverick with his hands in the air.
“Oops. Kind of forgot about him while my eyes were darkening over the man in my life being all sexy.”
“Should we be talking like this in front of him?” he asked, picking Maverick back up.
“Oh, stop,” she said. “It’s natural. I saw my parents flirting with each other all the time. I think that is why it’s so comfortable for me. Don’t you want these things for your son?”
“I want him to have a normal life,” he said.
“Be you, Chance. Not what you think or want or thought you should have.”
“It’s hard not to think of those things.”
She gave him a kiss on the lips, then gave one to Maverick. The little boy giggled like she knew he would.
“He needs to see affection. He needs to know it’s okay to show it and it’s healthy.”
“He needs you in his life,” he whispered.
“Yes, he does. I hope his father does too.”
Chance’s eyes searched hers and he nodded, but that was all she was getting.