Page 16 of Masquerade Mistake

He knocks the wind right out of me with that answer. It’s not even sugarcoated. He just rips the Band-Aid off and offers me the biggest dealbreaker I have.

“Y-you don’t?” I stammer. He must notice how much his answer affects me because he looks stunned as he studies my face. But he can’t be more stunned than I am.

“Sorry, I should have said something a little less serious, like, I don’t like Pop Tarts.”

“You don’t like Pop Tarts?” Damn it, why doesn’t he want kids?

“Nope. Not even a little. I think they’re highly overrated. Every time I have one, I expect so much more out of it. Like, I’ve put all this work into preparing it, from unwrapping it to toasting it. Then my reward is this dry sawdust thing with a tiny smear of filling. And the flavors? Don’t get me started. Their idea of strawberry is nowhere close to what the real fruit tastes like.”

“I think that’s true of anything with artificial strawberry,” I point out. My burger grows cold in front of me, but my appetite is gone.

“Let me guess, you like Pop Tarts,” he says, grinning before he takes a huge bite of his burger.

“I love them,” I say. “I don’t think they’re overrated. In fact, I think they’re underrated. More people should have Pop Tarts. They should be the main course, and not some second thought food when you have the munchies.” I’m not even sure I’m still talking about Pop Tarts. I’m so angry that things have turned out this way. He was perfect. And then, he wasn’t.

“Wow, you’re really passionate about your Pop Tarts,” he says with a laugh. He finishes his last bite just as the waiter comes back to the table.

“Did you want to see a dessert menu?” he asks.

“No,” I say before Ethan can respond. Then I realize I’m being rude. “Sorry, did you want anything?” All right, Claire, he doesn’t want kids. It’s good I know that now and not later down the road when I might have feelings for him.

“Nah, I’m stuffed,” he says. “We’ll take the check, and a box for her.”

I reach for my purse as the waiter leaves, but Ethan stops me by grabbing my hand. I know I should remove my hand from his, but then he’s holding it and I can’t quite bring myself to break away. I can only imagine how this would feel several weeks in. I don’t even know what it’s like to kiss him, and I’m having a hard time separating myself from his grasp.

“I got this,” he says. I start to protest, but he shakes his head. “Tell you what. If it means that much to you, you can treat next time.”

There won’t be a next time, though. I want to tell him as much, but then he flips his arm over, pulling my hand with his. It’s supposed to be playful, but I’m focused on the faint outline of an old tattoo underneath the tangled geometric shapes of a much newer one. I lose sense of what I’m supposed to say or do, including the boundaries I should be placing, as I run my finger over the shadow of a shape.

“I covered that one up years ago,” he explains, though it’s as if I’m hearing him through a layer of fog. I’m too busy trying to tell myself I’m not seeing what I’m seeing. But there it is. The faint outline of a hand with an eye in the center of it.

It’s him. Finn’s father.

This whole time I’ve been across from him, and I can’t believe I didn’t recognize who he is. I look into his eyes, searching for the guy I met seven years ago. His deep brown irises are filled with confusion, and I realize I’m being strange. I also realize it can’t be him. Finn’s father had green eyes. I knew that much to be true.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

And that’s when I know it’s him. It’s the same words he said to me that night, seven years ago, said in the same voice. And even if the eye color is different than what I remember, I suddenly see my son in his expression.

“Um, I’m fine,” I say, dropping his arm and clasping my hands in my lap to hide the fact that I’m shaking. He’s saying something, but I’m lost in a flurry of decisions I need to make without enough time to make them. I need to tell him he’s a father, but I don’t know if I can.

“Claire.”

I look up, and I’m frozen as I see the pieces of Finn even more clearly. The shape of Ethan’s nose. The crooked way he smiles. Even that goddamn crease in his cheek. It’s just like Finn’s. It’s him.

“I’d like to see you again,” he says.

I should say no. I should stop this now before this goes any further. I don’t know if he’s a good guy or not. I don’t know much about him at all, except for the fact that he doesn’t want kids. What am I supposed to do with that? He already has a kid, and he doesn’t even know it.

I look back into his eyes, searching for the answer. I don’t see it. What I do see is a possibility. He could be the man I never thought I needed.

I’m not the same girl I was when he first met me. Raising a son on my own did a fine job of erasing fantasies about Hemsworth brother lookalikes. Okay, fine. Maybe not. But my fantasies involved imaginary book characters over the real thing, because men were too much of a disappointment in real life. Still, I never lost hope that I’d feel that jolt of electricity again, the one I felt when I first looked into his eyes. The one I’m feeling now as he holds my gaze, his expression full of hope as he waits for my answer.

“Is that a yes?”

I take a deep breath, and when I release my air, a smile comes with it. Relief floods his face as I reach over and take his hand.

“Yes,” I say. “I’d love to see you again.”

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