Chapter 6
six
Leo
Iwalked back to my house in an angry haze.
Angry at Carolina for keeping Luke from me.
Mad at myself for never returning her messages.
Livid that I'd missed all this time getting to know my son. Time I would never be able to get back.
Nail prints were embedded into my palm by the time I opened the front door and entered the house, shutting the door harder than I meant to.
The loud sound caused Brooks and Holden’s heads to snap in my direction. Holden picked up the remote off the coffee table and muted the show they were watching.
“What happened? You were over there a lot longer than I thought you would be,” Holden said, his voice laced with concern, as he sat back on the love seat and waited for me to explain.
I looked over at Brooks, and he looked back at me, his sole attention on me as if he could sense that I needed him.
I paced the room, unable to even utter the words.
How did I tell them what I’d just discovered?
How did I admit that I was partially to blame for everything I’d missed in my son’s life? Years ago, when I pictured having kids, I thought about babies and watching them grow. Now I had a child much older, and I knew nothing about him.
“Are you okay, Leo?” Brooks asked, and I paused my pacing to look over at him, still at a loss for words. I put my hands on my hips and hung my head, then shook it.
No, nothing was okay. My head spun at everything I didn’t know and wanted to know and the multitude of questions that raced through my mind. I was angry. Hurt. Mad. Betrayed. I felt like I would burst. I wanted to scream into the abyss until I could think clearly.
“Why don’t you sit down and tell us?” Brooks suggested, probably so I wouldn’t keep making him dizzy with my pacing the floor.
I took his suggestion and sat in the chair across from the couch he sat on, and my elbows rested on my knees as I looked over at him.
“I met our neighbor,” I started because I couldn’t just blurt out the fact that I was a father.
“Why does it seem like that’s a bad thing?” Holden questioned.
“It’s Carolina,” I admitted. Holden chuckled at first, then full belly laughed as he hit his knee, clearly finding the situation hilarious.
If he only knew the half of it.
“Why’s that so funny?” I barked back.
“Only you, bro,” Holden responded, not elaborating one bit.
“Still not getting why you’re hysterically laughing there, bro.”
Nothing about this situation was funny in the slightest.
“Because you can’t escape her now. You didn’t want her anywhere near you, rightfully so, and now she’s right next door, the closest that she could possibly get.”
I wanted to throw something at him.
Only Brooks beat me to it and threw a throw pillow right at his head.
“What was that for?” Holden asked as he caught the pillow and threw it back in Brooks’ direction.
“Leo’s clearly struggling and has somethin’ else to say. We need to be there for him, not raze him right now. Save that for later,” Brooks said with a smirk.
He turned his attention back at me and nodded, waiting for me to continue.
“I told you I saw the car seat in the back of her SUV. I caught a glimpse of her son tonight,” I continued, my fists clenched tightly as I rested my head atop both to restrain my emotions.
“Why does that have you frazzled? You clearly knew she had a child,” Holden questioned.
“Because he looks just like me,” I admitted, letting out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
“What?” Holden screamed and sat upright, all joking now gone from him.
“I have a son,” I repeated, still trying to wrap my head around the full idea of fatherhood and what that would entail.
“How do you know he’s yours?” Brooks questioned, rightfully so, but it didn’t stop me from whipping my head to look at him, a scowl on my face.
Small towns talked. A lot. And I knew people would think the same thing, but they wouldn’t callously question me right to my face. They’d whisper behind mine and Carolina’s backs and come to their own conclusions; all likely would be far from the truth.
I took my phone out of my back pocket and opened the photo of Luke. Looking down at it, I couldn’t help the soft smile that graced my lips as I tossed the phone to Brooks.
He looked down at it, his eyes bulging, as he saw exactly what I did. He let out a low whistle as he continued to stare down at the photo.
“Let me see,” Holden said and after taking one last look at the screen, Brooks tossed it over to him.
“Holy cow,” Holden said loudly as he looked from the phone back up to me then down at the phone again.
“Now you see why I didn’t question it,” I said in a snarky, protective tone.
The moment I saw Luke, I knew, and I had this immediate sense that I wanted to protect him.
Maybe that was what fatherhood entailed.
I wouldn’t know. I’d only known I was a father for about a half hour.
I knew nothing about being a father, but the only thing I was sure of was that I would be there for my son.
He’d know he was loved and wanted, even if I wasn’t there from the beginning.
“Yeah, Leo. I see that now,” Holden said, the apology in his tone as he tossed the phone back at me.
“What’re you going to do?” Brooks asked.
Without thinking or attempting to contemplate what he meant, I bit back, “Be there for my son.”
“I wasn’t questioning that. I know you, Leo. You wouldn’t have a child and not care for it. I meant, where do you go from here?” Brooks reiterated.
I should’ve known that, and if I was thinking clearly at the time, I would’ve been able to distinguish what he meant.
But right now, I felt raw and open, feelings I’d buried deep and only revealed when I was alone to myself.
Everyone thought I was this playboy who took nothing serious.
And I let them because it was easier than revealing the truth.
“I’m having dinner with them one day this week. I need to look at the schedule and see when I have an early afternoon.”
“She kept him from you. Why did she return now and not eight years ago when she found out she was pregnant?” Brooks asked.
Brooks Courtright was the oldest of my siblings and forever known as the serious Courtright.
He was the most logical thinking one of us, and his questions were valid, questions I’d considered as well.
“She said she tried to contact me, which she did, but I never returned her calls, emails, or wrote her back. As to why she’s back now, I’m not sure. I didn’t ask. I only asked if she planned on staying.”
I hope she meant what she said. She’s parented Luke by herself all these years, and now that I knew about him, I wouldn’t let her leave without a fight.
“And what did she say?” Holden asked.
“She said she wasn’t planning on leaving.”
Now that I thought about it, her response didn’t promise she’d stay, just that as of right now she was.
I would need to ask her again, because I wanted to get to know Luke and be in his life going forward, however much she’d let me.
I wasn’t going to be an every other weekend father.
I was going to be hands on and in his life as much as she’d allow.
“Well, that’s something at least,” Brooks said as he took a breath then smiled. Something funny must’ve crossed his mind, and I asked him what it was.
“Now you have to tell Mom and Dad,” he responded with an even bigger grin. I groaned.
My parents would be supportive of me, but while my dad, Sawyer, would be silent and let me figure things out on my own, my mom, Lillian, was a different story. She was more inquisitive than me, which was where I got it from as a child.
“How do you feel about findin’ out you have a child?” Holden asked. The deep question coming from him kind of shocked me. He usually tried to keep things light, but his voice was full of concern for me.
“I’m not sure yet. I’m shocked. I’m angry.
I’m sad. I feel so many emotions at once that I don’t know which one to focus on so I can process the news.
All I’m certain of is from the moment I saw him, I felt this intense urge to protect him.
I can’t explain it,” I admitted, some of the pressure in my chest lifted as I said the words.
“Maybe you should talk to Gentry and Ainsleigh since they have Livvy. I know she’s a newborn, but they’d understand how you feel about Luke,” Brooks suggested, and as I let the idea mull around in my head, I knew he was right.
Part of me wanted to keep Luke to myself for a little while, but I didn’t have that advantage. The moment someone who had lived here long enough to know me as a child saw him out in town, word would spread like wildfire. I’d have to have those conversations quicker than I’d like.
“How’d you react when she told you?” Brooks asked.
“I wanted to scream and yell, but I couldn’t even speak, I was so shocked. She had to help me over to the rockin’ chairs on her porch before I fell over from the shock of it all. Thankfully, I held in my emotions and had a quiet conversation with her instead of screamin’ at her,” I told them.
“That’s good. You’re the most levelheaded of us all even though you have a wild side no one can seem to tame,” Holden joked to lighten the mood for which I was thankful.
“I don’t know what to do with all these emotions coursing through me. I don’t know whether to hit something or yell out my frustration,” I told them. I might be levelheaded and think before I react in tough situations, but I didn’t handle emotions very well. Not since she'd left me.
“You feel them. Process them the best way you can. Rome wasn’t built in a day.
You’ll figure everythin’ out,” Brooks replied, and I knew he was right.
I just didn’t know how to be patient. I liked resolving things quickly, but this situation wouldn’t resolve itself overnight.
It’d take quite a while to get into a grove.
I just had so many questions I didn’t have answers for, and getting them meant I’d have to talk to the one person I never thought I’d speak to again.
“I’m goin’ to hit the hay. I can’t think straight, and I need a good night’s sleep before I tell Mom and Dad,” I told them as I stood and stretched.
“Tomorrow’s a new day. You’ll figure it out. Have faith,” Brooks said, and I nodded and headed off to my room.
Sleep wouldn’t come easy tonight knowing the person who held all the answers slept right next door to me.