Page 58 of Love is a Drum Beat
But eventually, this bubble would end. She’d have to take care of herself and the baby on her own. And Dax would move on, figuring out he didn’t need the complications.
That was all she brought to his life. Deadbeat parents. A fatherless child. And risk. That was the big one. Dax couldn’t risk his identity getting out.
Jo refused to be the reason his life fell apart.
18
Dax
A month was a long time to live with someone.
It was even longer when that someone was pregnant.
Especially when tasked with the duty of keeping them in bed.
“Mom, I don’t know how to stop her anymore.” Dax ran a hair through his hair.
His mom’s sigh came through the phone. “How old are you, son?”
“Mom, you barely know Jo. I’m sure she tells you all the right things about staying in bed and whatnot, but trust me, she’s devious.” He lowered his voice and looked at the porch where Jo sat watching the dark clouds roll in. “She made me buy her ice cream.”
“Made you?” She laughed.
“Okay, fine, I got it on my own.”
“Did she also make you punch Blake Coleman?”
“Sort of.”
“Dax…”
His mom had always been able to read the truth in his words. “Fine. I just find the guy pretty awful.”
“What have I always taught you?”
“We are not defined by our worst actions.”
He could practically see her nodding with a giant smile. “Fame gets to some people, making them act in ways that would make their momma’s cringe.”
He suspected his mom had always been secretly pleased with his decision to remain anonymous, but she’d never pushed him in one direction or another. Music decisions had rested solely with him, even as a kid.
His mom and stepdad trusted him, they were there for him.
And Jo hadn’t had that. It was hard to fathom her growing up the way she did. “Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“What makes someone abandon their kid?”
She was quiet for a long moment, the only sound coming through the phone a deep sigh. “I don’t know, Dax. I just don’t. I have always loved you with my whole heart. I cannot imagine any mother or father not loving their children so much it hurt.”
“It hurts to love me?” He shook his head with a laugh and grabbed his keys on the hook by his front door. He was late getting to the studio, but the always punctual Dax couldn’t bring himself to care.
“Yes, Dax. It does. Children make mistakes, sometimes big ones, and we have to let them. That hurts, but I suspect you have a reason for asking.
Dax locked the front door and eyed the waiting Uber. He nodded in hello to the man in the front seat and climbed in.
“I don’t make mistakes.”
