Page 43 of When I Had You

Then reality sets in.

I rub the back of my neck, glancing up at my mom and son out on the terrace finger painting together. “I spoke out of—”

“I’m just kidding,” she says, not sounding like she was joking at all.

Fuck.

“The team. Your brothers—”

“So many reasons would make dating a bad idea.” It’s not hard to catch the strain of disappointment in her tone.

I feel the same, but my son’s legacy is important to me. “I’m sorry,” I add as if that will change the downward turn this conversation has taken.

“No. No need to be. I should go, though.”

I fill the cup with apple juice and sigh. “Yeah, me too.” Sucks it had to end this way. “Take care, okay?”

“You, too. Bye.” She hangs up so fast that I don’t get to say goodbye on my end.

Women are so fucking complicated. I leave my phone on the counter and take the drinks outside. “Who’s thirsty?”

“Me,” Cullen says, raising his painted hand. His blue eyes match mine, his hair straddling between Terpidy’s brown and my darker blond. It just started changing this year. It was all me until he was four. Not an ounce of this kid could be denied as mine. I would never, but thinking back, Terpidy got what she wanted until I lost my contract.

Suddenly, pieces popped up online, suggesting that some model out of Brazil was the father. Since his eyes and hair were the opposite of mine, she struggled to sell that story to the press once they got photos of our son.

We didn’t have a downfall. We had a reckoning with reality.

We have nothing to do with each other except co-parenting. Now, he and my mom are the only family I have and need.

I set the cup down in front of him and place my mom’s glass on her side of the table before sitting beside my son. “Drink up, buddy.” I point at his paper. “I really like this bird.”

“It’s a bear.”

“Oh wow. Yeah, I can for sure see that. Ferocious. Are those the ears?”

He giggles. “That’s his teeth, Daddy.”

“Ah.” I face-palm and laugh with him. I’m not the best at this stuff since I didn’t have a father figure around to show me how to be a dad, but my mom always encouraged me, even if I was shit at something. She made me believe that failure was success in practice. I can only hope to parent as well as she did. . . still does.

“How about we wash our hands, Cullen?” my mom suggests.

He’s already getting up before she finishes asking the question. He walks inside, and she gets up to follow him but stops just inside the door. “If you ever want a night off, Cullen can stay at my apartment. I’m happy to host a sleepover.”

“If that is something he wants to do, we can arrange that, but you don’t need to take him for me.”

“I know you don’t get a lot of time off, and when you do, you have Cullen—”

“I want to spend time with him. I don’t get much as it is with being on the road all the time during the race season.”

“I know. You’re a great father, Cash. You’re also a good man and a great catch. I just want you to know that if you don’t want to be alone, you don’t have to be.”

“What brought this on?”

“Just haven’t seen you smile like that in a long time. I thought it might have something to do with that phone call you were on.”

Cullen yells, “Grandma,” from the bathroom.

She looks in that direction and back at me. “I better get that kid washed up before he makes a mess.”

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