Page 46 of Accidental Vegas Vows

I scrambled from Damien as he did the same, his head twisting toward the door as he put space between us. Noah stood in the open doorway, his blanket fisted in one small hand, clad in his matching pajama set. He scrubbed at his eyes with his free hand.

Damien was up before I could even process what had happened.

“What’s up, bud?” he asked, crossing the veranda with his bare feet before squatting in front of Noah, placing both hands on his shoulders. “Why are you awake?”

“I had a bad dream,” Noah said, the little squeak in his voice breaking my heart. I pushed the blanket from my body in case Damien wanted me to do anything.

“Oh, no. Do you… do you want to talk about it?” he asked. I couldn’t tell if the small shake in Damien’s body was from the cold or the unexpectedness of the situation, but as he took Noah’s blanket from his palm and wrapped it around his son’s shoulders, I assumed it was the cold.

Noah shook his head.

“Okay. Why don’t you get yourself a snack and calm down a bit, and then I can come up with you and read you a story?”

“Yeah,” Noah squeaked, wrapping his arms around Damien’s neck briefly before he released him and padded back into the kitchen.

Damien stood back to his full height as he grabbed the handle of the door, shutting it behind Noah and giving us a moment without the intrusion. But he didn’t turn to look at me — he stared at his hand, his body still shaking, his mind frozen.

“Are you okay?” I asked, pushing myself up from the sofa.

Slowly, he turned to me, his lips parted, his breath catching. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s just… that’s the first time he’s called me dad.”

Chapter 16

Damien

Lucas, eight years old and nearly twice the size of my son, bounced a basketball so hard against the ground that it shot up probably ten or so feet in the air — and somehow expected Noah to catch it.

Noah missed by a long shot.

“I can’t believe you moved her in,” my sister tsked, her head shaking as she passed me a glass of red wine from our spot on the railing of her balcony. The boys played below, two heads of curly hair moving at the speed of lighting. “Actually, scratch that, I can totally believe it.”

“I didn’t move her in to fuck her,” I clarified, rolling my eyes as I knocked back half the glass. “You were in Philly, remember? I needed help watching over Noah. And she agreed to help.”

“Does she have any childcare experience?”

“No.”

The look on Caroline’s face as she glared at me told me that I was being an idiot. The joke was on her, though — I was well aware of that. “Dame.”

“He likes her,” I added. “And she’s doing an amazing job. She took him to The Exploratorium the other day while I was at work and he spent the whole night talking about it.”

She took a sip of her wine and rested her chin on the palm of her hand, watching with a deadpan expression as Lucas tripped over his foot and slammed into the grass. He picked himself right back up and kept running. Is that tag they’re playing now? Where the hell did the basketball go? “That’s good, I guess. Has he seen his aunt? Marissa’s sister?”

I shook my head. “Not since she dropped him off. She hasn’t gotten in contact, but I imagine she’s knee-deep in paperwork,” I sighed. “Did I mention she’s decided to try to file for custody of him?”

Caroline’s brows shot up her forehead behind the thick red rims of her hyper-modern glasses. “No. You didn’t. How do you feel about that?”

“Like I’d rather throw myself off the Golden Gate Bridge than let that happen,” I deadpanned. It wasn’t even a question in my mind at this point — I fully fucking meant that. “She’s horrible, Carrie. I’m sure she’s probably nice enough to him, and I get why she’s upset, but if she had it her way, I would have never known about him. And I know it’s only been… fuck, six days that I’ve had him, but I can’t imagine him not being in my life now. Is that insane?”

She shook her head. “No, that’s not insane,” she grinned, giving my arm a quick squeeze before going back to her wine. “He’s your son. It hits pretty hard and pretty fast.”

“Dad!” Noah shouted, his arms waving wildly from the ground below the balcony, a smear of mud on his face. “I caught the ball!”

Every time. Every Goddamn time he called me that, it felt like a blow to the chest, a combination of the best possible feeling imaginable mixed with an ache of pain I couldn’t quite place. “Good job!” I called back, and he squealed his excitement before focusing back on Lucas. “I’m still not used to that,” I said quietly.

“What?”

“Him calling me dad.”

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