47. Chapter 47
Seren
“Thank you for bringing him home,” I said to Derek while cuddling a sleepy Cai against my chest. The second I held him again, something inside me unclenched.
His warm little body melted into mine like he belonged nowhere else, his shampoo and sticky toddler scent settling over my skin until I could finally breathe properly for the first time in days. “I’m really grateful you’re here.”
It was the truth. Without Derek, everything over the last week could’ve fallen apart. Cai had stayed in his routine, stayed safe, stayed happy despite the chaos swallowing the rest of us whole.
Derek nodded once as he stepped inside, shutting the front door quietly behind him. “He’s such an amazing kid, S.”
“Yeah, he is, isn’t he?”
A small smile tugged at his mouth as he watched Cai already drifting toward sleep again. “You’ve done an incredible job raising him without me.”
The words landed so unexpectedly. “Derek—”
“No, I mean it.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket, shoulders lifting slightly like he already knew I was about to argue with him.
“I know I help now, and we’re finding our rhythm with things, but for a long time, it was mostly you.
” His eyes flicked to Cai. “You gave up everything for him without ever making him feel like something was missing.”
Emotion rose thick and immediate in my throat, because there had been so many nights when I’d been terrified that something was missing. That loving Cai fiercely wouldn’t make up for all the ways I wasn’t the two parents he deserved.
“I didn’t really have a choice,” I said quietly.
“You did, though.” His gaze returned to mine. “You could’ve resented it. Plenty of people would’ve. You were twenty-one, Seren.”
I let out a small breath through my nose. “You were too.”
“Yeah, but I still got to leave afterwards.” There was no defensiveness in it, which caught me off guard.
“I still got to go back to my apartment and sleep through the night and finish college without carrying a diaper bag everywhere.” Releasing a heavy breath, he shook his head slightly.
“You never got that version of your twenties.”
People loved calling me strong.
Very few people ever acknowledged the cost of it.
“I love him,” I whispered, tightening my hold on Cai instinctively. “I’d do it all again.”
“I know you would.” Derek’s expression softened. “That’s why I’m glad you’ve got Jake.”
The words caught me completely off guard all over again, my eyes snapping to his. I assumed he might want to talk about it, make demands of some sort. But this wasn’t that.
“He’s really good to us.”
Derek looked down at his feet, scuffing his shoe back and forth.
“I used to think maybe one day we’d figure it out again,” Derek said finally, his voice low now.
“Not because we were ever really right together, but because sometimes when people have a kid, you think maybe that’s what’s supposed to happen eventually. ”
A part of me might’ve believed that too, especially when Cai was tiny, and all I longed for was him to be with me on night feeds, early mornings, taking half the load of it all. But we never settled into that routine.
Being here now, with our son in my arms and my heart whispering another’s name, I knew that being bound to someone wasn’t the same as being loved by someone.
The bathroom door opened behind us, like my thoughts summoned him.
Steam curled briefly into the hallway before Jake appeared, water trailing down the planes of his chest before disappearing into the white cotton slung around his hips.
His arm flexed as he rubbed a towel into his hair, the unruly strands flopping onto his face regardless.
Every single appropriate thought left my brain.
Warmth swept through me in a single, undeniable wave, lighting every nerve before sinking to my core. It felt like more than desire—like some hidden part of me had stepped forward, recognizing him with a certainty that I couldn’t deny, my soul sparking to life in his presence.
Jake glanced up then, catching sight of us both standing by the door. His movements slowed slightly, eyes immediately finding mine first before dropping instinctively to Cai in my arms. Only when he gave me a smile that popped his dimples did he notice Derek. “Oh, hey, man.”
“Yeah.” Derek laughed to himself. “You definitely never looked at me like that.”
Heat rushed so violently into my face I thought I might actually combust on the spot.
“Oh my god,” I whispered.
Jake blinked. “What?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Derek said, smiling. “I’ll see you guys soon.”
He left, and I knew I’d tell Jake what we talked about, but he was transfixed on Cai snuggling into my chest. “Hey, little man,” he murmured quietly. “You back home with Mama?”
Cai stirred sleepily against my chest at the sound of his voice, blinking one eye open before reaching a tiny hand toward him without hesitation.
“You want a cuddle?” Jake asked as Cai nodded. He took his hand and pressed a kiss to it. “Give me two seconds. Let me get dressed, and I’m all yours.”
That promise of being all his wasn’t lost on me. If anything, it solidified words that I wanted to say. My heart became wild with it, but I knew my son needed him just as much in this moment.
“You missed him that much, huh?” I whispered softly.
“Mhm,” Cai mumbled sleepily.
A few minutes later, Jake reappeared in gray sweats and a black T-shirt, and the second Cai spotted him, his whole body lifted.
“Jakey.”
Jake gathered him carefully against his chest, one hand cradling the back of his head automatically as Cai melted into him with a tiny, exhausted sigh.
Jake swayed slightly where he stood, purely instinctive, rubbing his hand slowly up and down Cai’s back.
He was a natural, and there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that I wanted to keep him forever.
Especially since Cai had claimed him with an I love you already.
The same three words were on the tip of my tongue, but then Jake’s eyes lifted to mine, a sparkle in them so bright, they rivaled the sun.
He exhaled with a shaky breath. “I love you.”
My stomach swooped to my feet as he stepped closer.
“I’m so in love with you and your son. I couldn’t keep it in any longer.”
My lips curved with a watery smile, letting myself believe that this was really happening.
“I think I was meant to meet you both in that coffee shop,” he said.
“And I know that sounds insane, because I don’t really believe life works like that, but…
” He huffed a small laugh at himself, eyes dropping for a second before finding mine again.
“I’ve had a lot of things in my life feel temporary.
Places I didn’t belong. Mistakes I kept trying to make sense of afterward. ”
He reached for my hand, threading our fingers together carefully before bringing them against Cai’s back, like he wanted all three of us inside this moment together.
“But you two never felt like one of them.”
Emotion climbed into my throat as I tried to swallow around it.
Jake’s thumb brushed once against my knuckles. “Watching you love him the way you do…” His voice roughened slightly. “Getting to witness that feels like a privilege.”
I could barely breathe with the ache forming in my chest.
“I want to be the gravity that keeps your feet on the ground when everything else feels unsteady.”
My breath caught softly, but he kept going.
“Let me be the person you come home to after every good day and every terrible one. Let me stand beside you when life gets loud. Let me celebrate every single thing as you get everything you deserve and more.” His hand tightened slightly around mine.
“I don’t need perfect. I don’t need easy. ” His voice cracked. “I just need you.”
All I could do was stare at him standing there in the middle of my apartment with my little boy asleep against his chest, looking at me like loving us was the easiest thing in the world. A tear slipped down my cheek, and he was right there to catch it.
Our eyes remained locked in an embrace, and I felt my future slot into place.
I thought about the girl I’d been at twenty-one, terrified and exhausted and holding a newborn in the middle of the night while wondering if love alone could really be enough to build a life on.
I thought about Jake growing up, always expecting people to leave, learning how to make himself easy to keep around because nothing permanent had ever truly belonged to him before.
And somehow, all the broken pieces of those lives had led us here.
To this apartment.
To Cai asleep against Jake’s chest without an ounce of hesitation in him.
To me being looked at like loving us wasn’t a burden to shoulder, but something precious he wanted to protect.
Maybe fate wasn’t some grand, impossible thing. Maybe it was just two lonely people finding the exact thing they’d spent their whole lives missing inside each other.
A family for him. A home for me.
Someone to love my son as fiercely as I did.
“I love you too,” I whispered, though what I truly meant could never fit inside three little words.
As though my heart, after enduring years of storm and solitude, had at last found the one place it could rest without fear.
Lifting to my toes, I carefully leaned in to press a kiss to his lips, feeling his smile.
“Say that again,” he mumbled against my mouth.
“I love you.”
His head dipped lower, taking more from the kiss. “Best thing anyone has ever said to me.”