Chapter 6 #2
Dosia met his eyes without hesitation, and while he saw anger in her gaze, there was something else too.
Something that spoke of hurt and a deep loneliness only someone who had faced the world’s challenges alone could understand.
Pumpkin wanted to take all that pain away, to vow here and now that she would never have to face anything alone again…
But even he knew it was too soon for those words.
She was already on the brink of running.
Slow and steady would win this race.
Softly, he said, “Please don’t mistake my intentions, now or then.
I wanted to keep seeing you six years ago and that desire has not gone away.
I searched for you, and by some twist of fate, you ended up at this restaurant tonight too.
I don’t plan on letting this opportunity slip through my fingers again.
I’m an open book, baby. Ask me anything and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.
No secrets. I told you I’m thirty-four. I’m a single dad to this little guy.
” He blindly tickled SJ’s tummy. “I was raised by a single mom because my deadbeat dad bailed on us when I was a toddler. She passed away nearly ten years ago now. Prior to six months ago, I was a mechanic. And probably the most important fact about me is that I fucking hate pumpkins. What else would you like to know?”
Dosia wasn’t proud of how rude she was being.
Not proud at all . And it wasn’t just because she swore she could feel her mother’s ghost standing behind her, glaring in sheer disappointment at her daughter’s behavior.
The worst part? She liked Pumpkin. He was funny and sweet, and gods, he was amazing with his son.
Thankfully, the waitress, Piper, returned with their food before Dosia got a chance to answer Pumpkin’s last question.
What else did she want to know about him?
Her heart and her brain were so torn. The one thing they could agree on was how much she wanted to know everything , and not just because she feared she’d vastly misjudged the guy.
What if…? What if everything she’d thought she knew and had seen six years ago wasn’t true? What if she’d seen certain things and made gross assumptions based on the college students closer to her age?
Dosia hadn’t lost her virginity the night she’d conceived JJ. She’d been with other guys—or she should say boys . Pumpkin—or Vodka, as she’d thought about him for the last six years—had been the oldest man she’d ever been with.
Her behavior the night of his patch-in party was just as reckless as his had been.
They’d both been drunk, and she’d never judged him for that.
It would have been entirely hypocritical and ridiculous.
When she’d discovered her pregnancy, she’d come back for him.
She’d wanted to tell him. Dosia couldn’t remember now what specifically she’d wanted from him, but she knew he had a right to know she was having his baby.
It had been the responsible thing to do.
Sitting next to him at this cramped table, smelling him so close, and watching him with his son, Dosia had to pause to wonder what had really been driving her dislike for this man all these years.
He kept saying that, if she’d stayed and hadn’t snuck away in the middle of the night, he’d planned on asking her out.
She had no way of knowing that, and she’d been more concerned about getting back to her grandparents’ house than leaving her name and number with him.
But she did recall how much she’d liked him, how much she thought about him in the weeks leading up to her taking that pregnancy test. She’d even fantasized about finding him again the next time she’d traveled to Mount Grove to visit family.
Dosia had always been good at being self-aware. Rarely did her subconscious rule an action or decision. Growing up with Calliope, it had been hard to get away with things, and she’d learned at an early age how to take a pause and self-examine her feelings and desires.
As she stared down at her steak, because her ovaries couldn’t take watching Pumpkin spoon-feed his son mac and cheese, she realized Pumpkin had been the one time she’d been rash, that she hadn’t listened to Calliope and she’d ignored her own desires over what she’d seen that night through the bar window.
Her chin trembled. Because she’d been fucking jealous.
Dosia looked up at the ceiling, and would swear she felt her mom’s hand squeeze her shoulder in comfort as Dosia tried to hold back tears.
She’d been jealous. Plain and simple. At twenty-one, newly pregnant and less mature than she cared to admit, she’d seen Pumpkin through that bar window kissing both women on his lap, and she’d been fucking jealous.
Not that she wanted to be one of those women.
Maybe it had been more of the fact that he’d been with them at all instead of home alone, pining for her.
And in all honesty, her birthday celebration had been her first time getting drunk. She’d also assumed that he’d remembered more than what he was now claiming to remember, which didn’t sound like it was much more than she remembered.
Gods above, what had she done? What would her life, her daughter’s life, be like now if she’d just pulled up her big-girl panties, stormed into that bar, and told him she was pregnant?
Her eyes fell on SJ, who was a cheesy, drooling mess, and so fucking happy. She’d deprived her daughter of this . A father.
Quickly wiping her eyes, Dosia took a shaky breath.
She had no intention of telling Pumpkin tonight about JJ.
It was neither the time nor the place, and she’d been emotionally, not to mention physically, manipulated enough for one night.
She needed to finish her dinner, accept a ride home, exchange numbers with him, and then figure out her next step.
She would figure out more about Pumpkin, get to know him better, and then she could introduce him to his daughter.
Yes, that seemed like a reasonable plan. Something a rational person would do. The fear of how he’d react, that he’d try to take JJ away from her, was still very, very real. She could not, would not , tell him about JJ until she knew for certain that he wouldn’t fight her for custody.
And she still wouldn’t be asking him for anything. She didn’t want or need anything from him.
Realizing that he was only picking at his veggies because they were something he could easily pick up in between feeding SJ airplanes and choo-choo trains of mac and cheese, Dosia pushed her plate aside and reached for his plate.
Pumpkin paused, to SJ’s impatience, to watch as she started cutting up his steak into small bites that he could easily feed himself while continuing to feed SJ.
His dark eyes lit up and he sent her a crooked smile that was utterly too sinful. A shiver ran down her spine. Dosia shifted in her seat, feeling like a spotlight had just been placed over her as she tried to ease the ache between her legs.
“Thank you,” he said when she returned his plate to him.
Dosia nodded, purposefully casting her eyes downward at her own plate. She wasn’t really hungry now, but she knew she should eat something, especially after that glass of wine earlier.
Frankie was keeping quiet, and other than offering Pumpkin a napkin when SJ had spluttered noodle bits onto his face during a particularly loud laugh, was keeping to herself.
When Dosia had joined their table, she’d felt like the third wheel.
She could only imagine how Frankie now felt, Pumpkin’s attention split completely between SJ and Dosia now.
Leaving father and son to their food, Dosia ate a piece of broccoli before asking Frankie about her life.
Pumpkin wasn’t sure what was going through Dosia’s mind, and it was killing him. And it wasn’t just because he wanted her attention all on him . It wasn’t. Really.
Well, mostly.
Something had changed, though. Dosia was smiling and seemed more at ease talking with Frankie about their college experiences, family, and women-stuff.
Pumpkin kept his eyes on SJ but his ears were entirely trained on Dosia’s words.
He was taking it all in, filing small tidbits away, like how she’d had to drop out of college during her junior year due to a family matter, and she had family in Mount Grove, and how her aunt had called her back recently to help with the family business. While vague, it was a start.
And he tried not to be envious that she was divulging this information to Frankie instead of him. But he took it as a win either way. She was relaxing, and hopefully, that was a good sign for getting her to meet with him tomorrow night. Just the two of them. In a nicer, candlelit setting perhaps.
Or maybe it would have to be somewhere closer to home.
He couldn’t drive after all, and his masculine pride hated the idea of her picking him up.
Maybe he could get one of the prospects to drive them.
The club’s SUVs were extremely spacious in the back, and if neither Pumpkin nor Dosia was distracted by driving, the things they could do to each other…
Pumpkin cleared his throat and quickly scooped up the last of the mac and cheese from the dish as his dick came to life.
Jesus, he was a sick bastard. Sitting here with a full-blown erection while trying to feed his son mac and cheese, his mind entirely distracted by the naughty thoughts of what he wanted to do to Dosia.