Page 50 of My Song for You
The bathroom was decorated in a soothing blend of earth tones, but it wasn’t enough to help with the turbulent emotions inside me. I slid down the wall and pulled my knees to my chest.
Yesterday, after I’d told Jared what had happened to my family, I’d thought that I’d be dealing with a drought of tears for the next twelve months, after almost drowning Jared with how much I’d cried.
I was wrong.
Chapter 21
Jared
“What’s going on with you and Callie?” Nolan asked as soon as the back door shut behind him.
I slipped my lucky guitar pick from my pocket and toyed with it. Everything was going to shit and I had no idea what to do about it. “There’s nothing going on. She’s a friend, that’s all.” A friend who, until her betrayal, had felt like something more than a friend. Thoughts about her—some X-rated—had constantly paraded through my head ever since the kiss.
Even after I’d discovered the truth about Logan.
“Right. So why are you takingherson to Disneyland without discussing it with her first, and then making it clear that she isn’t welcome to join you guys?”
“I told her she could come if she wanted.”
Nolan’s eyebrows arched up in that you’ve-got-to-be-fucking-kidding-me way of his. “I’ve dealt with blizzards warmer than how you just treated her. And again, why are you takingherson to Disneyland?”
I checked to make sure Logan was busy. I had no idea how I was going to tell the four-year-old that he was my son, but this wasn’t when and how I’d planned for it to happen. He was still running around the lawn, throwing the ball for Rocky, then racing after it, giggling. He wasn’t the only one enjoying himself. Rocky was having as much fun with the game as Logan.
“That’s the thing,” I said, keeping my voice down so he couldn’t hear me. “Logan isn’t her son. He’s mine.”
For a couple of seconds Nolan and Hailey just stared me, at a loss for words. I knew the feeling.
A crow cawed from a nearby tree, eager to share some unwanted advice. It was Nolan who finally broke the silence between us. “What the hell are you talking about?”
I briefly told them about Alexis and what she had told me, and then how I’d discovered Logan’s birth certificate. I also pointed out that Callie had known all this time and had kept the truth from me. “The DNA test came back. He’s my son.”
“Sounds like she was only trying to protect him,” Hailey said, her expression suggesting she would’ve done the same. “You can’t blame her for that. But anyone can tell that she cares deeply about you. Maybe she thought she was doing the right thing for him and for you.”
I scoffed. “Callie doesn’t care deeply for me. We hadn’t even seen or talked to each other for five years until I bumped into her and Logan in the grocery store.”
“You’re wrong. I’ve seen how she looks at you. Even after everything that’s going on between you two when it comes to Logan, she looks at you like you’re the world to her.”
“That’s crazy. I was fooling around with her sister back when I was in high school. Callie and I were just friends. Nothing like you and Nolan. She was more like a little sister.” Except now the last thing I would have considered her to be was a little sister, especially my own. Far from it.
“What’s going to happen now that you know Logan’s your son?” Hailey asked. “Will Callie still be his mother?”
“She’s not his mother. She’s his aunt.”
“As far as Logan is concerned, she’s his mother. What are you planning to do? Tear him away from the only mother he remembers?”
“Well…no. Callie can still visit him.”
“As his aunt?” Nolan said. It wasn’t really a question.
“Of course as his aunt,” I said, a little more forcefully than I had meant to. “His biological mother is dead.”
Hailey reached for Nolan’s hand, her face pale. “And so is Callie’s mother. And so are her father and sister. What about her grandparents or other relatives? Do any of them live in L.A.?”
“No. Her grandparents died years ago.”
“So you’ll take away the only family she has left. How do you think she feels about that?”
“She’ll still get to see him.” But even as I said it, I knew Hailey was right. Family had always been important to Callie, like mine was to me. She could have given Logan up for adoption right after his mother had died. It would’ve made her life simpler and she wouldn’t have been forced to give up everything she had worked hard for. But she had sacrificed everything—for the only family she had left.
