Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
I closed my eyes slowly as my heart fractured. The last thing I wanted to do was change the way Kaylee looked at Jace and I could tell from the way Olivia’s eyes started to water that she was struggling with the same thing.
“Can I?” I asked. Olivia nodded and I turned to Kaylee. “You know how your mom said all families look different?”
“Yeah,” Kaylee said, still chewing away.
“Well, that’s true, and there are a lot of ways parents can make babies. Jace can be your dad because he’s always there for you, right? He plays with you and does fun stuff with you and your mom?”
“Yeah, and he’s taking me to the father-daughter dance at school.”
“Right,” I said. “Jace is pretty awesome, and he would probably love to be your dad if that’s what you want. He’s a good friend of mine too.”
“You know Jace?” she asked.
I chuckled. “Yes, very well. When Jace met your mom, you were already growing in her belly. Has she told you about that?”
“Yeah, I was in her belly when I was a baby,” Kaylee said, sitting up straight and looking proud of her knowledge.
“Well, I helped her grow you in her belly, which makes me your biological dad. Jace can be your dad too and you can do all sorts of cool things with him. It just means that you and I share what’s called DNA.”
“What’s DNA?” she asked.
“It’s the stuff in our bodies that makes us who we are. So, you and I have the same smile,” I said, grinning as I pointed to my mouth. “See.”
She giggled, still eyeing me with uncertainty. I looked across the table at Olivia as she wiped at her eyes. I took her hand. “You share DNA with your mom too. That’s why you have the same eyes, and that pretty brown hair. You’re made up of a little bit of her and a little bit of me.”
“What about Jace? Am I made up of him too?” she asked, looking at our joined hands.
“No, you don’t have any of Jace’s DNA. Luckily, you don’t need his DNA for him to be your dad too because you love him and he loves you.”
“I get two dads?” she asked, turning to Olivia. “And a mom?”
“Pretty lucky, huh?” Olivia said, squeezing my hand. She turned to me and mouthed, “Thank you.”
“Cool. Are you going to hang out with me like Jace does?” Kaylee asked.
“If you want me to, I would love to do that,” I said.
“Okay.” She shrugged. “Hey, Mateo has two dads.”
Olivia joined her in a conversation about her classmates as she walked through what she knew about their families while we finished our chili.
It was several minutes before Olivia extracted her hand from mine and the disappointment I felt at her absence was notable.
Kaylee ran to the couch, talking a mile a minute about the dinosaurs she hoped would be in the movie while I helped Olivia clean up the kitchen.
“You did great with her,” Olivia said as I held the pot for her to scoop the leftover chili into a glass bowl.
“Thanks,” I said. “I don’t want to take away from what she and Jace have at all. It would crush him.”
“I know,” Olivia said with a sad smile. “I’m really glad we’ve had him. And I’m really glad that now she’ll have you too.”
“It seems like you’re doing a great job with her, Olivia,” I said, setting the empty pot into the sink and filling it with water. “I know you and Jace may, or may not, pursue a relationship, but I really hope that either way I can still be in her life. Like a lot.”
She put a hand on my shoulder. “I think the three of us will do a fantastic job of parenting her together. And once we figure out what our situation is, we’ll explain it to her as best as we can. I’ll never stop you or Jace from being in her life, Kayden. I promise.”
I wiped my hands on my thighs. “Can I hug you again?”
She chuckled and wrapped her arms around my neck. “Yes. And in general, you can hug me whenever you want.”
I grinned as I buried my face in her hair. “I think I might have missed you more than I let myself realize,” I said.
“I know exactly what you mean, Kayden,” she said softly.
I held her slender body against me, the feel of her in my arms so different from the feel of Jace’s tall, hard body, and I marveled at how she felt like she belonged there just as much as he did.
It was a good thing I believed in the capacity of humans to love more than one person at a time, because I was going to fall for Olivia just like I’d fallen for Jace.
I could only hope that didn’t make things even harder for all of us in the end.
After watching the entirety of The Land Before Time, during which Kaylee sat between Olivia and me and asked two dozen questions and spouted off at least ten facts about dinosaurs, Kaylee hugged me goodnight.
My eyes welled up so automatically that I wondered if it was the same reflex that caused parents to cry when they held their newborns for the first time.
It was a short hug, and she had no idea what it meant to me, but still, a few minutes later I shut the door to Olivia’s apartment on an absolute high. My daughter hugged me.
Thirty minutes later, I knocked on Jace’s door with a grin stuck to my face from this feeling of joy I’d never experienced before. He pulled the door open and beamed when he saw me. He was wearing gray sweatpants and no shirt, revealing all his tattoos, and immediately igniting my lust for him.
“Hey, I didn’t know you were coming over tonight,” he said.
“I had the most amazing night, Jace. I just want to lie next to you and tell you about every minute,” I said.
Jace grabbed my shoulders and pulled me into a hug and I slid my arms around his waist, holding him tightly and reveling in the love that poured off him.
He’d told me the other day that he hadn’t felt truly loved until he met his moms, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt truly loved, at least not since my brother died.
It was hard to remember a feeling from more than twenty years ago.
Jace made me feel like I was worthy of his affection and like he’d do anything for me, maybe even sleep in a chair to watch me when I’m sick.
He made me feel loved in a way I hadn’t realized I needed in my life.
“She’s awesome, isn’t she?” Jace said softly in my ear.
I pulled back and looked at his bright green eyes. “Is it weird that I think I might love her already and I only spent a few hours with her?”
“No,” he said, pulling me into his apartment. “You’re her dad, lots of parents fall in love right away. I’m sure there’s some biological explanation in one of your books. Then again, I loved her after one visit and we don’t share biology.”
He kicked the door shut behind us and led us straight to his room. The shades were already drawn across his large windows and Sapiens, the book he’d borrowed from me, was propped open on his pillow.
He moved the book to his nightstand and we both climbed onto the bed and lay facing each other on our sides. “Tell me everything,” he said, taking my hand.
I ran my thumb over his. “I will, but first I want to say thank you. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t even know she existed.
I know there are other ways fate could have intervened for me to find her, but finding her through you, knowing you trusted me enough to encourage Olivia to tell me about her, that means the world to me, Jace. ”
He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me flush against him. “I’m glad you see it that way.”
I reached up to touch his face, letting my fingers dance around in his beard.
“You ground me, Jace. You make me feel loved and confident about myself. You accept me as I am, and you even seem to like most of the traits that make it hard for other people to get close to me. You quiet the noise in my head whenever you’re around, and that is no small thing, babe.
You’re a better partner than I ever could have imagined finding,” I said.
“What I’m trying to say is, I’m in love with you. ”
Jace took a sharp breath and gripped my waist harder. “Please tell me you mean that.”
I chuckled. “Of course I mean it.”
He crashed his lips against mine, pulling at me until there wasn’t a sliver of space between our chests or our hardening dicks.
“Fuck,” he said, pulling back and kissing down my neck. “I love you so much, Kayden. I was afraid if I said it, I’d scare you off.”
I shook my head as much as I could with the grip he had on me. “You have to stop thinking the people you love don’t want to be loved by you. Being loved by you is the greatest gift of my life. I haven’t seen Olivia running off yet either. Just love us. We won’t go anywhere.”
He gave me another deep kiss before cupping my face in one hand.
“Maybe I ground you, but you complete me in way I didn’t even know I needed.
You encouraged me to be honest with Liv and you’ve accepted my growing love for you both with an openness that I never would have thought to ask for. You’ve given me everything, Kayd.”
“You deserve everything,” I said. “And it’s nice to know that somebody did something for you for once.”
I leaned forward and kissed him again and our tongues tangled together. We made out for several minutes, cocks grinding, before Jace pulled back, panting. “I want to hear about your night with Kaylee.”
I pushed him onto his back and climbed onto him. “I’ll tell you everything. But I’m going to fuck the man I love first.”
Jace nodded his head rapidly with a grin, pulling my face back to his. “I like that plan, let’s do that.”
I laughed as our lips crashed together again and we became a tangled mess of limbs as we tore our clothes off.