Page 47 of Rematch
“I tried to find you too,” he confessed.
She grimaced. “You didn’t buy a ticket for the party. I called the inn, but no one named Preston had purchased one.”
“I didn’t have a ticket at all,” he admitted. “My buddy, Elio, runs the inn with his wife, Gianna. They invited me to come, since I had an afternoon game in Philly that day. He was the one I called and talked to, to ask about you.”
Chelsea leaned back, her shoulders slumping. “The front desk clerk I spoke to—her name was Tory—didn’t know you.”
“She wouldn’t,” Preston confirmed.
“And the clerk at the Rittenhouse Hotel was an asshole. Completely refused to give me your name.”
It sounded like she really had been searching. “Why were you looking for me, Chelsea?”
Chelsea fell silent as her gaze slid down to the baby in her arms. She pulled the empty bottle from his mouth and set it on the table. As she did so, the blanket shifted. The baby wasn’t a newborn. Preston didn’t know a lot about babies, but his buddies—Elio included—had kids, so he could tell this baby was likely a couple, three months old.
Preston leaned forward, gently tugging the blanket down so that he could see…
Large gray eyes darted in his direction.
The same color eyes Preston saw in the mirror every morning.
“Chelsea,” he whispered.
“I swear I tried to find you!” There was a desperation in her tone that gave Preston the answer to the question he hadn’t asked.
“Mine?”
She nodded, glassy tears shining in her eyes. “I wanted to tell you, but…”
Preston couldn’t stop staring at the baby in her arms. “He’s mine.”
“Yes.”
“A son,” he murmured, stunned.
Holy.
Fuck.
He had a son.
“What’s his name?”
Chelsea’s lips tipped up in a small, tremulous smile. “Lennon.”
“Jesus Christ,” he whispered. “That’s the best name I’ve ever heard.”
She laughed, but it was a shaky one, more nerves than joy.
Preston rested his elbows on his knees, shock taking over. His entire body went numb as a million truths crashed on his head at the same time.
He had a son named Lennon. With Chelsea, the woman of his dreams.
He was a father. He was a father. He was a father.
It was that realization that started playing on repeat as if his brain was trying to force the rest of him to catch up and get with the program.
While shock rendered him speechless, nerves were impacting Chelsea differently as she suddenly started talking fast. “He was born on September first. A Virgo.”
