Page 32 of Odin
Her hand squeezes mine. I must be pale. Stunned. Maybe I look like I’m going to pass out or puke. I have no idea, but she’s clearly reassuringme.
“I know that we didn’t mean for this to happen. I had plans and dreams. I didn’t even see myself having kids until my late thirties. I’ve never had a scare and now this. My birth control fails, with my ex-fiancé’s dad, at the worst time.” She wraps her other hand around mine, but even both of her hands together can’t cover it. “That’s only one way to look at it.” My eyes shoot to her face. “But another way of seeing it, is that it was an accident, not a mistake. The baby is already growing. I want him or her. I know that this happened to you once already, with Preston. I know how messed up it sounds just to put that out there. I’m not here because I want to use you as a bank account. I don’t need you to set my life up for me or make it nice and orderly. I’m not looking to be taken care of. I’m telling you because I want to give you the choice. You’d make a great father.”
My heart knocks around the cage of my chest, slamming into my throat. I can only stare at her dumbly. It’s always at the moments when I need words the most that I’m at a loss for them.
She fills the silence for me. She comforts me by tracing small circles across the top of my hand with her thumb. “You’re kind. You’re sweet. You care. You have a generous heart, even if you don’t see it. I’m not saying we should be together,but we could raise a baby between us. I could stay in Hart. I could make it work. When I want to go back to school in a few years, I could move to Seattle. It wouldn’t be that far for you to commute. We can co-parent together, and maybe that will make us better people all around, not just a better mother and father.”
None of that was done for me. I was an unwanted child and I wasunloved. Neglect? That’s not nearly a strong enough word. It was that chance meeting with Zale Grand at exactly the right time in my life, when I was getting older and wondering what the fuck I was even here for, that changed my whole life. It was this place, this club, the men who belong to it. They taught me kindness. They showed me what it is to belong. I would never have known family if it wasn’t for them.
I would have made a terrible father to Preston if I had been in his life. I wouldn’t have had any idea how to be one. Could I have kept a child from harm? I probably could have. I could provide one thing at the time, and that was money, so that’s what I did. Could I have been constant? Provided love, advice, or actual guidance? I don’t think I could have.
No matter where I am now, or what kind of man I am right this moment… a baby?
A child at my age?
Conceived on my fuckingbirthday?
Willow is a strong woman. She’s here, baring her soul, offering to stay connected for life, to give me a chance because she believes in me in ways that I can’t.
Fuck. I need…
Air.
It should be simple to breathe. Automatic. Something I don’t even have to think about. No one does, until they can’t. I physically suck a breath in. Breathing through a straw would be easier than the air refusing to enter my nose or throat.
My throat.
I claw at the airway from the outside, as if my frantic hands can tear it open and force oxygen down into my lungs.
“Shit. Odin? Oh my god.” Willow knows. She’s had enough medical training to recognize a panic attack, even if I’ve only realized that’s what’s happening. Or maybe it has nothing to do with her schooling.
She just gets it because she’shuman.
Her hands fly up to mine. I don’t realize that I’ve drawn blood until I see it smeared all over my nails. She covers them with real force, far more than she should be able to exert as such a tiny figure compared to me.
How could I have done this to her? She’s so brave, wanting to raise a child she didn’t plan on, putting her dreams on hold, uprooting her whole life.
What kind of man am I that I didn’t even think of the consequences? She wanted me and I wanted her. We knew what we were doing, and it was enough in that moment, but why the fuck didn’t I think beyond it?
“Odin. Look at me.” Willow captures my face between her palms. Despite the black spots swimming sickeningly in front of my vision, I lock my gaze with hers.
Bright blue eyes. Violet haloes. The sun swimming in all that blue even though it’s nowhere to be found. Golden. So beautiful. So pure.
I dirtied her. I sullied her.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
What I did was sick and disgusting.
“Stay here with me. Look at me, okay? Everything is going to be okay. I know this is surprising. I was scared shitless when I took the test and saw the results. It’s going to be okay. Ipromise, it’s all going to be okay.”
“Wrong,” I wheeze, but she hears me.
She shakes her head so wildly that her golden hair snaps me across the shoulders and chin. “No. We havenothingto be ashamed of. You let that gorightnow. There is no guilt in this. I havezeroregrets. The world can think what it wants, but it canfuck off. Nothing good ever came from listening to other people’s misguided judgments and hatred.” Her words come out harsh, but only because she means them so emphatically. As rough as her voice is, her touch is equally gentle. She caresses my cheek, her fingers the softest velvet.
I trust in her calm.
Even though my stomach swims and my head is nothing but a curtain of black, she’s there, a grounding presence.
