Page 49 of Waiting for Friday Night

His brows drew together before he shook his head. “I wouldn’t have taken the online DNA test if that were the case.”

“Why did you take it?”

He lifted one shoulder. “It was on a whim. I told my sister what I did in college. I mentioned that I wondered if I had a kid out there. She said I should register through the online testing site and maybe one day I’d find my kid.”

“You went looking for her?”

He shook his head. “I took the test, got the results with my ancestral background, turned on the part that allows family to find me and then never logged on again. I figured, if I had a kid out there and if the kid took a test and wanted to know me, it would be on them. I wasn’t going to search them out.”

“Why not?”

“Because whoever the mother was had chosen to go that route. The mother didn’t want to know me. They just wanted that part of me. So, why push into their life?”

The way he said it, as if he had nothing else to offer at the time, made her want to reach out and comfort him. It also made her evaluate what she’d considered when she’d chosen a donor. She hadn’t cared about the person, just their attributes. Who could give her a beautiful child with no involvement.

“Yet, here you are, in our life.”

“Do you regret that it’s me?” His expression revealed nothing, but she could feel the weight of the question. Was she going to push him away? Did she still only want his donation and not him?

She shook her head. “No. I mean, this isn’t going to be easy. Navigating this and having to tell the truth to everyone. People are going to talk. When school starts, rumors will get to Shania even faster. I don’t want her to be hurt.”

He stepped closer. “I won’t let anyone hurt her. Or you.”

“I told you we don’t need your protection.”

“I know you don’t, but I still want to give it to you. You’re part of my family now.”

The warmth that spread through her chest and wrapped around her heart brought a smile to her face. “What an unorthodox family we have.”

“Unorthodox doesn’t mean bad. We’ll make it work. Don’t you think so?”

“I hope so,” she whispered.

Their eyes met. The memory of his words, the promise to step in if Gregory and she broke up. The way he’d admitted to being attracted to her. She wanted to lean closer, breathe in the spicy scent of his cologne.

He leaned closer, or maybe she imagined that. Maybe she wanted that. She sucked in a shallow breath. Did she want that?

Shania came into the room, halting any wayward thoughts or unnecessary feelings. “Mom, you got the chips?”

Halle stepped back from Quinton. From a dream she wasn’t even sure she wanted to complete. She looked away from Quinton, from the look in his eye that wanted to hold her captive, and focused on her daughter. “Yeah, baby, let’s go watch the game.”

Sixteen

Quinton was setting up his classroom for the first day of school when someone knocked on the door. He turned away from hanging a poster of famous mathematicians and nodded when he saw Principal Heyward.

“Jeremiah, what’s up?” Quinton turned back to his poster.

Jeremiah came into the classroom. “Nothing much, just checking in to see how things are going.”

Quinton pressed the corners of the poster into the wall, before stepping back to make sure it wasn’t crooked. Nodding, he turned back to Jeremiah. The older man had been principal at Peachtree Cove High School for the past seven years. He was shorter than Quinton, with pale skin, thinning red hair and clear brown eyes. He always dressed professionally in a button-up shirt, tie and slacks, and today was no different.

“Things are good with me.” Quinton crossed over and sat on the edge of his desk. “Just getting the classroom set up.”

Jeremiah nodded and grinned. He ran a hand over his head. A familiar move he made when he was nervous. “I remember when you first started coaching,” Jeremiah said. “I didn’t believe you really wanted to teach.”

He’d known. They’d hired him to turn the football program around. When they’d learned he also wanted to help educate the kids off the field he’d been met with skepticism. “No need to waste the education degree I worked hard to get.”

Quinton hadn’t made it to college on a football scholarship like many assumed. He’d known he wanted to give back, and that football shouldn’t be his only plan for his future. He’d majored in childhood education and minored in math, a subject he’d loved in school.

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