Chapter 17
Chapter 17 Everything I ever thought I would say left me. All the words. All the justifications. He would never know me. And he didn’t. The last time I’d seen him he hadn’t seen me—his eyes weren’t even open yet. Now a man stood before me. My son smiled nervously down into my face, as he would any other stranger he just met. I did that. Noah was somewhere behind me, I could feel him. His presence was powerful back there, like he was waiting to catch me again. Ever available to be my rescuer. But the face I’d seen when I walked in didn’t look powerful. He looked like I imagined I did. I wanted to hug this beautiful man-child in front of me, but I found myself stuck. Did I have that right? Was he a hugger? Would he stiffen and recoil if I did? Instead, I stood there awkwardly, trying to stem the new tears that insisted on pushing forward, and I reached out with one hand. Touched his arm. He was real and solid and something about that released everything. Fat tears rolled down my face as I laughed and cried at the same time. “It’s so good to see you again,” I managed to say. Seth smiled and took my hand in both of his. “It’s good to finally meet you. ” Yeah. Well, there was that. “How did you—how are you here?” I asked, hoping he wouldn’t let go. I was holding my son’s hand, and every possible nerve in my body was aware of it. Holding his hand for the first time. Seth turned to Johnny Mack and smiled again before looking back at me. “Mr. Ryan looked me up. ” I glanced at Johnny Mack, who met my eyes for just that one second before blinking away. He looked him up. I have real grandchildren to get to know. My blood. Ah. Got it. How cute. He looked him up for himself, or probably as a gift for Noah. Had Noah and I not reconnected, if Shayna were the protective jealous shrew she should be instead of being so damn nice to me, would I even be standing there? Yes. Because Noah would have done the right thing. “In all honesty,” Seth continued, “The timing really worked out because I signed up on an online list last year. ” He gave a boyish shrug that tugged at my mommy heart. “I figured it’d be nice to know where I came from. In case there was anybody with eleven toes or insanity that hits at thirty or something. ” Everyone laughed. And it felt wonderful. I swiped tears off my cheeks and let myself laugh, watching my amazing boy stand there with everyone staring at him like he was under a microscope and still talk with ease and make a room full of strangers laugh with no problem. “Well, no extra limbs that I know of,” Linny said, sniffling loudly. “But the old man has serious sanity issues. ” Johnny Mack reddened and tried to look good-natured in spite of the fact that nothing in him could ever be that. Seth chuckled and continued to stand there as I realized we needed to do something besides stare at him in the little room. “Um,” I began, profoundly. “Do you want to go sit down? Go next door to the bookstore—it’s mine, we can do that,” I rambled. “Or forget the store, I’ll close it for the day. We can go to my house and—” Wait. No. “I think staying here in the diner is fine,” Johnny Mack piped in. “And what, cram everyone in a booth?” Linny said, fixing him with a look. “Let them go, he’ll be back. ” Seth looked amused at the tug-of-war over him. “Hey, I’m just grateful to be here. To meet everyone. ” He held his palms out. “I’m here today and tomorrow, so there’s no rush. ” He looked at me and then to Noah, as if we were the deciding votes. Which I guess we were. “Whatever you want to do. Wherever you want to go. It’s probably gonna be weird anywhere so don’t stress. ” Damn good thing he was the grown-up in the situation, because I felt like neither of us were. “Noah, Jules has the right idea. Why don’t the three of you go over to her house so you can just be comfortable and relax,” Shayna said, her hands on his arm. “It’s okay,” she said reassuringly as he looked down at her in surprise. But I knew what that look was, as the same sense of oh shit permeated my brain. Why had I suggested that? Going back to my house? With Noah. In my living room. Where we almost did the deed just two days ago. No, we needed Shayna there, because that made it infinitely better. Always better that the pregnant fiancée come along—the one whose phone call stopped us from the primal monkey sex on the rug. “Or we could go back to your dad’s house,” I said quickly, meeting his eyes and pretending he was someone else so Shayna wouldn’t see it. My stealth skills were toast. “If that’s better. ” Noah nodded, looking spent. “Probably so. ” “Well, then I can just go—” Shayna began, looking uncertain. “You don’t need to go anywhere,” I said. “You stay with us. ” Her face relaxed and she smiled a thank-you to me that didn’t quite reach her eyes. Nothing had. That was something I’d learned about her in the short time I’d known her. She wore her worry there. And something was chewing on her. Was it me? Did she know? Surely not. Or maybe she was beginning to suspect since Noah and I were wearing our crazy like neon signs. Then again, maybe that was my own paranoid guilt waving at me, and she just had a lot on her plate. Like being unsure about marrying Noah. “Let’s go,” I said, leading the way, needing to move and needing to stop looking at him even more. Ruthie dabbed under her eyes and stopped me to throw her arms around my neck. I felt the weakness come into my bones, as everything in me just wanted to drop to the floor and sit cross-legged across from her and unload all my woes like we did when we were girls. But there was no time for that now. “I’ve got the store,” she whispered. “Go. ” “Thank you,” I breathed. On the sidewalk, I turned back to Seth, struck once again with the Noah resemblance. “Do you—have a car? Want to ride with me?” “I’ve got my truck over here,” he said, probably grateful for the breathing space for the fifteen seconds it was going to take to get to the house. “I’ll follow. ” “Good,” I said, turning down the sidewalk and then spinning around with a hand up. “I don’t mean good, like good, I just meant—” “I got it,” Seth said, laughing and getting into his truck with a wink. “Of course,” I mumbled, smiling, as I turned around and walked toward my car on legs I couldn’t feel. I passed Shayna and Noah getting in his truck and refused to look that way. I was going to his friggin’ house, I’d see plenty of them there. I shut my car door and plugged my keys in, watching my hands tremble. I gripped the steering wheel and squeezed my eyes shut. My breaths got choppy and I knew what was coming. I pressed my hand against my mouth to push it back. “Oh, my God,” I whispered, sucking in sharp breaths against the burn. “I just met my son. ” • • • Seth cased the place very much like Noah had when he’d come to my house that first morning, hands in his jacket pockets and eyes soaking in every detail. He of course went to the photographs first, and I wondered what that felt like. Looking at photos of a family that you should have been part of but weren’t. His photos were in another house, with another family. Noah explained each and every one, named grandparents and cousins and told funny stories that had been captured of him and Linny. Shayna and I sat on two separate couches and listened as Noah danced around every one but the prom picture of us. Until he did. Or Seth did, actually. He picked it up and turned to me with a smirk that made the skin on my back tingle. He looked so much like his dad in that moment it was surreal. “Nice hair,” he said, holding it up. Noah laughed and I scrunched my nose. “It was the eighties, baby, what can I say?” I held a hand out for it. “Let me look at that. ” Seth walked it over to me and sat on the arm of the couch like it was entirely normal for us to look at something together. I stared up at him for as long as I dared before he could catch me and it would get awkward. Then I blinked my vision free and focused on the dusty framed picture that was starting to show some age. A skinny Noah with a hideous tux and a head full of shaggy dark hair smiled back at me, his arms wrapped tightly around a dark-haired girl with a secretive smile. She held flowers in front of where I knew Noah’s hands rested protectively. I knew what that smile was about. We’d just found out about the baby and hadn’t told anyone yet. It was still our little secret. Before the rest of the world had a chance to weigh in. God, we looked so young, and in love. “You were there,” I said softly, my voice barely more than a whisper. I pointed to the flowers. “Right there. ” “You were pregnant then?” Seth asked, his voice warm over me. “We’d just found out,” Noah said, walking closer but still keeping a safe distance. “No one knew yet. ” “It was still just ours, then,” I said, not looking away from the picture. From the moment in time—probably the only one caught on film—when we were happy and in love and full of romantic ideas of what having a baby would be. “Before parents found out. ” I pointed to Noah’s huge grin. “See? How happy he was? My dad hadn’t threatened to castrate him, yet. ” Noah laughed, a hearty sound that made me look up in spite of myself. An invisible hand squeezed my heart as our eyes met, but I didn’t look away this time. Memorize this moment, Jules. For this one tiny microsecond, the three of us are together again. He saw it, too. As his gaze flickered between Seth and me, the rawness came to the surface. My own eyes filled, and I finally had to look down and blink it away. “Was this your senior year?” Seth asked. I shook my head. “Junior. ” I cleared my throat of the huskiness. “We weren’t together for—” “I left town,” Noah said. “After—after you were born. ” He sat on an ottoman across from us, and I glanced over at Shayna. She looked like an island over there by herself. “I went to stay with my uncle in San Antonio and finished school there. Signed up for the Navy, and all that. ” “Your father sent you away?” Seth asked, a frown on his face. “No, it was my idea,” Noah said, looking down at his hands. “I had to get away. I couldn’t be here. Couldn’t just—go back to school like nothing ever happened. ” He sat up taller and inhaled slowly. “Never planned on returning, but life changes things sometimes. ” “When did you come back?” Seth asked. “Last week. ” Seth laughed. “Seriously?” “Seriously,” I echoed as Noah looked at me so intently that I couldn’t look away or blink or anything. My fingertips went numb. Noah looked down at his hands again, releasing me from that damn freeze-glare of his, the haunted memories still sitting on him as he mentally replayed everything. I felt Seth’s gaze on me, and my skin felt like it was a thousand degrees as he put a hand on my shoulder. “Did you leave, too?” he asked. “No,” I said, unable to look away from Noah’s face. “My parents let me stay home sick for three days and then—” My words stuck in my throat. And then what? What was I supposed to say? That I stopped caring or eating or talking to anyone? That I lived on angry music and alcohol and whatever drug I could find at the moment? That I pushed away everyone and everything that resembled what normal used to be? Anything that required feeling. My friends, my art, books, life. Until Ruthie reached down deep and yanked me out of my own self-imposed hell. And then there was Hayden. “—I managed to graduate, let’s just leave it at that,” I said, handing the picture back to Noah. Seth was studying me, however. Damn it, he had that Noah thing. “It wasn’t your idea to give me up, was it?” “No,” I said, the word coming out on a heavy breath. Noah got up and put the picture back in its place on the table, and Shayna rose to stand next to him. The picture of love and solidarity. “My—my parents made all that happen,” I said. “My mother, mostly. She—thought it was the best thing for me. ” Oh, that was a nice way to put it. “She was a coldhearted micromanaging shrew that arranged a deal with your adopted parents to get photos of you,” Noah said, his voice even. “That she then kept hidden in a box and took that secret to her grave. Jules didn’t see them until day before yesterday. ” My mouth dropped open and Seth’s eyebrows lifted. “Well, okay then,” I said softly. “Now you know the true guts of it. ” I touched his hand. “I’m sorry, Seth. ” He squeezed it back and got up to take Noah’s place on the ottoman, facing me. “Don’t be,” he said. “I mean, yes, be sorry for what you’ve given up, I understand that. But don’t be sorry for me. ” Seth smiled, a little apologetically, and it reminded me of Becca when she was in trouble. “I had good parents. A good childhood. You gave me to great people who loved me. ” My chest burned hearing those words. I loved you, too. Every day. “I’m so glad to know that,” I whispered. “I can tell they did a fantastic job with you. ” “And they were always honest with me. With me and my little brother. They adopted Shon three years after me. They told us even when we were little that we came from other mommies’ tummies,” he said with a smile. “And you showed me a picture of that. ” Before I could stop myself, I reached out and touched his cheek, rough in one spot where a razor missed and very different from the velvetiness of the last time I’d done that. To his credit, he didn’t flinch or pull away. “So tell us about you,” I said, needing to lighten the heaviness of the room. “I’m boring,” he said on a chuckle, relieving some of the tension. “Seriously. ” He pointed at me and Noah simultaneously. “Business owner with a crazy mom—no offense. ” “None taken,” I said with a laugh and little head bow. I had to laugh. What else could I do? “—and a Navy SEAL?” he continued. “My life is very sedate compared to yours. ” “How’d you know all that?” Noah asked. “Mr. Ryan told me,” Seth said. “Well—you added the crazy mother part. ” “Glad to fill in the blanks,” I said. “So, what do you do, Seth?” Shayna asked, speaking for what I realized was the first time since we’d arrived. She still wore that look of hers. The one that made her appear not totally in the room with us. “I’m a police officer,” he said. “Just made detective, actually,” he added with a smile that lit up his face. “Youngest in my precinct. ” “Sedate?” I reached over and patted his hand. “I don’t think so! That’s amazing, Seth, congratulations!” Noah crossed the room, beaming, holding out a hand as Seth got up on instinct. “That’s awesome,” Noah said, gripping Seth’s hand in that manly thing guys do. “You should be so proud. Your parents—” He faltered, and I saw the struggle in his eyes. “They must be over the moon. ” Seth smiled and glanced back at me as if to gauge his words. I forced any sadness from my face—he didn’t need that burden. I wanted him to feel free to say anything and not feel awkward. “They are,” he said. “My mom threw a big block party and forced all her neighbors to bring food. Even got her pastor to come over and bless me. ” I laughed. “Sounds like something my Nana Mae would do—Nana Mae!” I sucked in a breath and looked at Noah as if he could possibly understand me. “Oh, my grandmother has to meet you!” “Your grandmother is still alive?” Seth asked. “Yes, I’m not that ancient, thank you,” I said with a wink when he reddened. “And Nana Mae is eternal. She will love you. ” My breath caught in my throat. “And Becca, my daughter. ” It was my turn to look at him with apology in my eyes. How do you look into the eyes of a child you gave away and tell him you kept the next one? He blinked a few times, and I would have given anything to be in his head, viewing those thoughts. Or then again, maybe not. “I was going to ask if you had any other kids—if I had any siblings,” he said finally. “Wasn’t sure how to bring that up. ” “You bring up anything you want,” I said. “Coming here like this—that’s a pretty brave thing, baby. Even for a grown, big badass police detective. ” Seth laughed and I focused on the smile in his eyes instead of Noah’s right behind him. Seth’s were safer. “There are no taboo questions. Nothing off-limits. ” “Okay,” he said. I took a deep breath and stood up so we were all on the same level. “You have a sister—a half sister. She’s seventeen going on thirty, and her name is Becca. ” “Sounds like fun,” he said. “Everyone should be tortured with teenagers at some point,” I said. “Oh, I get that,” Seth said. “I see more than I want of teenage drama in my job. Or I did as a beat cop, anyway. ” Seth glanced to Noah, and I saw the hollowness enter Noah’s eyes as he tried to fill it with Shayna. He put an arm around her and pulled her to him. “I never had any other kids,” he said. His eyes met mine instead of Seth’s. “But Shayna and I have one on the way now. ” I swallowed hard as Seth congratulated them and hugged Shayna. That was my life now. How it was going to be for a friggin’ eternity. I almost wished Patrick was back next to me so I could introduce him as my boy-toy and get the edge back. Wow, that was mature. “So, who do I meet next?” Seth asked, bringing me back. “Or what is next?” I smiled. “This is your show. What do you want to do?” “I have no idea,” he said with a boyish grin that made him look much less grown up. He held his hands out wide. “Honestly, I’m winging this. And that is so far outside my box, you have no idea. ” I raised an eyebrow. “A planner, are you?” “To the core. ” I laughed and moved before I could think about it. “You come by that honestly,” I said as I hugged him. His hesitance made me freeze and pull away. “I’m sorry,” I said. Maybe he wasn’t a hugger. Maybe he wasn’t a demonstrative person. Maybe he wasn’t that comfortable with meeting his parents yet—No. I had to stop that train, cold. We weren’t his parents. We gave him life, but his parents raised him. “No, it’s okay,” he said, looking troubled. Or maybe embarrassed. “I’m just still nervous, I guess. ” “Totally understandable,” I said, wanting to stick my head in a freezer to chill the heat coming off my face. “Why don’t we go grab some lunch at the diner,” Noah said. I knew he was trying to diffuse the sudden awkward turn of conversation and help me out, but he was suddenly standing too close for my heat-infused brain to handle gracefully. “Lunch is good,” I said, backing away from him a step and knocking into the coffee table. Loudly. Noah grabbed my elbow to steady me and ended up pulling me closer in the move. I bit down on my lip as I looked up into blue eyes that darkened with memory and cursed my body’s automatic reaction to him. Not. Mine. To. Want. That needed to be filed away under stupid things never to do again. Regardless of all the things his face was telling me. “I’m good,” I said, smiling to prove it. “Just clumsy. Let’s go. ”