Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
LUKAS
Idon’t think I’ve ever been this nervous before.
Not before my first professional game. Not before the playoffs.
Not even when I packed up my life and left Québec for England, knowing I was leaving behind everyone and everything familiar to chase a career that suddenly felt bigger than home.
Yet, standing outside Camille’s temporary apartment building at eleven in the morning feels worse than all of those things combined.
Rain clings to the shoulders of my jacket as I stare up at the narrow brick building, my stomach twisted so tightly it hurts. I barely slept again. Every time I closed my eyes, my brain replayed the past forty-eight hours on a loop.
Even now, it doesn’t feel real.
My phone buzzes in my pocket just as I reach the entrance to Camille’s building.
Camille: Third floor.
I take a deep breath before heading inside.
The staircase smells faintly of dust and fresh paint, and my trainers squeak slightly against the old flooring as I climb the stairs. My pulse gets worse with every step.
Third floor.
Third door.
I stand there longer than necessary before knocking, and the door opens almost immediately when I finally do.
Camille looks exhausted. Not dramatic or fragile, just worn thin around the edges. Her dark hair is tied back messily, and there are shadows beneath her eyes I don’t remember from before. She smiles before stepping aside silently to let me in.
The flat is small but warm, filled with evidence of a child everywhere. Tiny shoes beside the radiator. Crayons scattered across the coffee table. A stuffed dinosaur abandoned upside down on the sofa. The sight of it all knocks me for six.
Because this is real, this existed without me for two years.
I hear tiny footsteps heading down the hallway before I see him.
Félix appears cautiously beside Camille’s leg, one small hand gripping her jeans tightly as he stares at me with those enormous blue eyes.
Everything inside me feels like it stops working properly for a second. He’s smaller than I expected. When I first saw him outside of the rink, he was dressed in a thick, warm coat and boots, but standing here before me now, he looks tiny.
Soft dark curls fall across his forehead. Tiny trainers light up briefly as he shifts nervously against Camille’s leg. His cheeks are pink from sleep or warmth, and he looks at me with open uncertainty. I am a stranger to him.
Camille glances down at him gently. “Félix, c’est Lukas.”
Not Papa. Not your father. Just Lukas. I think maybe I deserve it, then I remind myself that I had no idea he existed until Camille turned up at the rink with him.
Felix hides further behind her leg, peeking around cautiously. So I crouch slowly instead of moving closer, trying not to overwhelm him.
“Salut, mon petit bonhomme,” I say softly.
The French comes instinctively. Natural and automatic in a way nothing else has felt lately.
Félix blinks at me, then looks quickly up at Camille. She rubs a hand gently over his curls. “?’est beau, bébé.”
He studies me for another long second before whispering something too quiet for me to hear. Camille’s expression shifts slightly. “He likes your accent,” she says quietly.
I almost laugh at that. “My accent?” I repeat softly. “C’est le même que le sien.”
Camille’s mouth twitches faintly despite everything. The tension between us feels different today. Less explosive and more exhausted. Neither of us has the energy left for anger right now.
Félix continues to watch me cautiously as I get back up.
“I brought something for him,” I admit awkwardly, lifting the small carrier bag in my hand.
Camille looks surprised. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I know.” I suddenly feel stupidly self-conscious about it. It took me forty minutes in a sports shop yesterday to choose something that didn’t feel too big or too pathetic.
Camille kneels beside Félix. “Tu veux voir?”
He hesitates before nodding.
I crouch again, carefully pulling the tiny mini hockey stick set from the bag. It’s plastic and soft foam, bright blue with tiny matching goals. Félix’s eyes widen instantly.
A weird kind of misplaced pride blooms in my chest. I have not earned the right to be proud of him, yet I am. “Hockey,” I explain in French.
Félix looks at the stick, then at me. Then he finally takes one cautious little step forward. Camille goes very still beside him. I think we both realise how important that tiny movement feels.
Félix reaches for the stick slowly before immediately clutching it against his chest. A tiny smile appears. And God, that smile destroys me.
“Merci,” he whispers shyly.
Emotion lodges so abruptly in my throat that I have to look away before I can answer. “De rien, mon c?ur.”
Camille watches me carefully after that. It’s as though she’s trying to figure out whether letting me in was a mistake. Honestly, I think we’re both wondering that.
By early afternoon, Félix is sitting beside me on the floor of the living room, and we’re surrounded by foam hockey pucks. I keep lining up shots at the goal for him, and he’s loving every second.
Apparently, tiny children have absolutely no concern for emotional devastation because after an hour, he decides I’m acceptable and begins treating me normally. Which makes this both easier and infinitely worse.
“Again,” he demands in French, shoving one of the foam pucks toward me.
I laugh despite myself. “You are bossy.”
“Again,” he repeats firmly.
Camille snorts quietly from the kitchen. “Yeah,” she says dryly. “He gets that from you.”
I glance up at her automatically, and she freezes. The silence that follows is strange. It’s not hostile, but full and heavy.
Because there are suddenly years between us, neither of us knows how to navigate them. I look back down at Félix before it becomes too much. He swings the tiny hockey stick enthusiastically, missing the puck completely.
I grin despite everything. “Ah, mon Dieu. Your technique is terrible.”
Félix gasps in exaggerated offence, then bursts into giggles.
The sound hits me straight in the chest. I missed this.
Not this exact moment, but all of it. The first laugh.
His first words. The first time he walked.
Every bedtime. Every fever. Every tiny, ordinary moment that slowly builds a child’s life.
I wasn’t there for any of it.
Grief crashes through me so suddenly that I almost stop breathing. This little boy already has an entire world, and I’m arriving late to it all.
Camille watches me from the kitchen doorway, and I wonder if she sees it happening. The heartbreak and the guilt. She knows me well enough to recognise it, so I figure she sees through me.
Félix crawls suddenly into my lap without warning to retrieve the foam puck lodged beside my leg. The contact is so unexpected that I freeze. His tiny, warm body leans against me, and his small hand grips my sleeve absentmindedly.
Complete trust.
My heart aches with it.
“Papa, look.” The words are casual and unthinking, but they hit me like a slap. Everything inside me stops. Camille stills in the doorway, and the whole world seems to hold its breath.
Félix points proudly toward the foam goal he accidentally knocked over. “Papa, look.”
I stare at him. At this little boy sitting in my lap, calling me something I have not earned yet. Emotion climbs so violently into my throat that it burns. I can’t speak for a second.
Félix blinks up at me uncertainly.
I manage a shaky smile eventually. “Oui, mon c?ur. I see.” My voice sounds wrecked, because I am.
Entirely.
Félix beams proudly before wriggling away again, completely unaware that he has altered my entire existence with one word.
Papa.
I drag a hand briefly across my mouth, trying to steady myself. Camille looks away, and I know she’s giving me privacy inside my own collapse.
Later, after Félix falls asleep on the sofa halfway through a cartoon, the flat finally quiets. Muted evening light spills through the windows into the room. I sit beside him carefully, watching him snooze.
His tiny hand is curled beneath his cheek. His curls a mess from sleep. One sock is half-falling off because, apparently, toddlers live in permanent chaos. But on his face is the faint hint of a smile, proof that he’s happy, that Camille is raising a content child.
My son.
The thought still feels impossible. But also, terrifyingly natural now.
Like some missing part of me shifted quietly back into place the second he said, Papa.
I brush my fingers gently through his hair before I can stop myself.
The protectiveness that follows is immediate and absolute. Nothing matters more than this now.
Nothing.
Not hockey or my career. Not sleep. Not anything. And almost instantly after that thought comes the guilt, so sharp it makes me flinch.
Kate. Hudson. The life I was starting to build with them. I close my eyes briefly, exhaustion pulling hard at my bones. Because I know what comes next. I know what kind of father I need to become.
And I don’t know how to do that without destroying the best thing that has happened to me in years.