Zander #3
It’s funny how quickly that part of me could be swayed for the right situation, the right woman, and how desperate I am now for her to be mine.
It’s been there for five years, simmering under the surface of casual hookups and meaningless sex, knowing that I’d already found the best fucking thing to ever happen to me and I’d let it go, severed it from my life, because I was a fucking coward and couldn’t figure out how to make that work in the life I’d created.
Now I’m willing to put it ahead of everything else, but I may be too late.
“It would be a hell of a way to announce we’re making this work.”
She considers my words for a moment, pursing her lips and shaking her head. “This isn’t going to work. I need someone solid and dependable. Someone like Knox. You like novelty and would be done with this as soon as the shine wore off. I’ve already been through that and I can’t do it again, Zander.”
Her words are a bucket of ice water over my head, dousing me in reality.
She’ll never trust my ability to change unless I show her.
I have to get rid of the fucking football player first. I won’t share her, but this isn’t my choice to make.
I have to convince her I’m the only man she needs in her life, the only man that could complete the family we’ve created and I’ve missed out on for years.
Before she can get around to telling me to leave, the front door opens and a flurry of noise and activity tornadoes into the house and my heart rate ratchets up with it.
Harlowe turns to me with wide, nervous eyes. “That’s Hendricks. Don’t make me regret this. You have one chance with him, Zander, don’t fuck it up,” she whispers.
I feel my hope deflate with her words, while a new anticipation twists my stomach into knots at the prospect of meeting the source of the noise and movement. Will he like me? Will Harlowe introduce me as his father?
My brain short circuits and I’m left with just white noise as soon as he rounds the corner to the kitchen, the world slowing down and my vision tunneling so all I see is the boy.
He’s radiant, dark hair curling softly around his face, gray eyes animated as he heads for Harlowe, holding out toy cars clutched in his fists.
He launches himself into her arms, his little voice running a stream of chatter the whole time.
She catches him with a practiced ease that makes me oddly jealous, standing up with him wrapped around her, completely absorbed by his story and laughing a full, unguarded laugh at something he says.
The moment is frozen in my brain, a snapshot in time that will stay with me the rest of my life—Harlowe holding her boy, my son, lit by production lights, surrounded by the familiar tableau of her kitchen, an indulgent smile just for him—is seared into my retinas and instantly filed away in the most beautiful sights folder of my brain.
It instantly replaces Machu Picchu at sunrise and resides next to the hundred other snapshots of her in the Maldives that live there already.
“Hendricks, I want you to meet someone,” Harlowe says, setting the boy down and angling her body towards me. “This is my friend, Zander.”
I don’t even let her friend comment get to me because I have the full attention of this little person to contend with, and I need to make the best first impression possible.
“Hi,” he says, eyeing me for half a second before he decides I’m worthy of his attention. He holds out his hands. “This is Optimus Prime and this guy’s the Batmobile. Who do you want to be?”
“Batmobile, for sure,” I say, with a quick look at Harlowe.
She’s tense, her hands clasped at her stomach as she watches us.
She gives me a small nod when I answer. I notice a well-dressed Asian woman standing unobtrusively on the other side of the island, watching the introduction with a sharp eye.
This must be Harlowe’s mother. She raises an eyebrow at me when she catches me staring, then inclines her head at Hendricks as if to say back to him, idiot.
“Want to build a racetrack for them? I have lots of Legos and blocks, come see.” He doesn’t wait for me to answer, holding out the Batmobile for me to take, then grabs my free hand.
His own little hand is strong as he pulls me into the living room, and I savor the warmth and reassurance of it before he lets go to quickly dump out a plastic tote filled with blocks on the carpet.
So, that was it? I was just accepted by this little kid when he asked to play.
Maybe four-year-olds are simpler than I thought they would be to win over.
Simple or not, I know my world just got turned upside down and will never be the same.
All the complications of life just dimmed, my focus narrowing down to one universal truth that replaces everything: this is my child and I will do anything to make sure he is happy, safe, and has everything his little heart could want, including me and his mother working together, rather than against each other.