Page 7 of Perfect for Her

“Sweetheart, I need you to come again. I need it more than my next breath,” he murmurs against my ear, causing shivers to rake over my body.

Just as I’m about to go over the edge once more, small little footsteps pierce my ears and my eyes snap up to see Ethan standing at the bottom of the stairs.

“Mommy?” Ethan’s sleepy voice breaks through my lust as my body stops, my eyes taking in my little boy standing in the doorway, his stuffed dinosaur hanging from his small fingers as his tired eyes dart between Mark and me.

Shit.

Mark

He looks exactly like Max and I did when we were his age.

That’s the only thought that goes through my mind as my eyes dart between the little boy and Harlow as my body catches up to what the hell just happened. Harlow swears under her breath, climbing off my lap, pulling her shirt down to cover the fact that I just ripped her boxers off and threw them across the room.

“Ethan, honey, why don’t you go back upstairs? I’ll be up there in a minute to tuck you in, okay?”

I can’t stop looking at him, knowing who he is and what that means for me. He gives a small nod to Harlow and then carries his stuffed dinosaur up the stairs before Harlow lets out a long breath.

“So, you’ve been busy,” I mutter, getting up off the couch and making my way toward the door because the anger that’s seething under my skin is commanding every part of me right now, and I have no idea how that is going to manifest, and I don’t want to be around her while I feel like this.

“Mark,” she starts but I shake my head, not having the capacity to listen to her excuses right now.

“I’m going to go,” I say, placing my hand on the doorknob when her soft hand reaches out and grips my elbow, stopping me. “I don’t know if I can be around you right now, Harlow. I’m so fucking angry.” I turn on my heels, facing her and that’s when I see the tears filling her eyes. “He looks just like I did at his age. Those same light eyes and dark hair.”

She nods, not denying what I’ve been thinking.

“He’s my son.”

She nods again, a single tear falling down her cheek. She opens her mouth to say something but nothing comes out.

“I need to leave.”

Her intake of breath echoes around me as her nails dig into my skin, holding me in place.

“Please don’t go. I want to talk; I need to talk to you about this, but I need to go upstairs and put Ethan to sleep. Will you wait for me?”

A part of me wants to tell her to fuck off and leave right now. A part of me wants to go home, drown myself in a bottle of Jack and try and forget that I spent the last four years oblivious that I had a son. But then there’s this sliver of sympathy that’s growing the longer I look at Harlow’s pleading eyes and so I nod, conceding.

“I’ll be outside when you’re done,” I mutter, opening the door and closing it behind me, not waiting to see if she heard me.

The second my lungs fill with the warm night’s air, I lean against the porch railing, my head hanging as my chin hits my chest and heaving breaths leave my lungs. How did this happen? How did I go about my life for the past four years not knowing I had a son in the world? How could Harlow have knowingly kept him from me?

Maybe because you told her nothing about yourself. Maybe because all she knew about you was your first name and the town you lived in?

I shake the thoughts from my head, knowing they have a sliver of truth in them, but the woman had connections galore; a rational part of my brain is telling me that she had the means to find me if she really wanted me to know.

I don’t know how long I’m out here alone, but eventually, I sit in one of the patio chairs next to a porch swing that looks eerily similar to the one I grew up falling asleep on as a kid. My fingers itch to take my phone out of my back pocket and call Max, knowing he’s the only one that I can call with something like this. As twins, we’re close, closer than most realize, to the point where we can be sitting in a room filled with people and have a silent conversation with just our eyes. When we were kids, we made a language that I still know to this day but would never admit to in public. Max is the only person I can go to with anything and not feel like he’s judging me, and right now I need that more than my next breath. But just as I’m about to get up and do just that, the front door opens and Harlow steps out, looking exhausted and scared out of her mind.

“I thought you would have left by now,” she whispers, walking slowly and sitting on the edge of the porch swing, her feet rocking her back and forth.

“I told you I would stay. I meant it.” The words are clipped, filled with as much anger as I can push her way at this moment.

Her fingers are playing with the edge of her shirt and I notice that she put on some sleep shorts, covering up the evidence of what happened earlier. God, the way she felt against me was heaven and yet that feeling is marred by the fact that she’s been hiding Ethan from me for four years.

“I didn’t mean for this to happen like this.” Her eyes don’t meet mine as I sit back in my chair and take a deep breath, wondering how I want to handle this.

On the one hand, I have every right to be pissed at her, but there’s a small piece of my heart that still wants her, and it’s that piece that is telling me to tread lightly.

“Oh yeah?” The sarcasm falls from my lips with ease. “And how, pray tell, did you think this was going to go?” My voice clipped as she recoils from my words.

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