Page 12 of On The Run

No, he was definitely not, which baffled me even more about my infatuation. I’d known I was bisexual since I was fourteen years old. Though I was attracted to women, I’d always tended to prefer men. I’d been with three females my entire life: my high school girlfriend, who I broke up with amicably our freshman year of college, one of my classmates in grad school, who I dated for about a month before we realized we weren’t compatible, and Gray’s mom. I never even dated her. I had my one and only one-night stand with a pretty woman at the bar after a rough week. I still didn’t know what happened exactly. We used a condom, but somehow, she ended up pregnant. That was why I insisted on a DNA test, but yeah, Gray was definitely mine.

Besides them, I’d always dated men. And they were always about the same age, professionals like me, and usually way too busy for more than a few dates and some missionary sex. I knew you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but Aiden did not strike me as a missionary man.

“I’m aware of that,” I said stiffly, over this damn conversation.

Finally, Mom took pity on me and made Laura drop it. She called Gray up for ice cream, and thankfully, the rest of the night, no one brought up Aiden or my love life. If only I could get him out of my damn mind.

Chapter6

Aiden

“Hi, Aiden!”I was shaken out of my trance by a young voice on the other side of the counter. Today had been rough. I’d barely been able to keep my eyes open my entire shift. Pops had another rough night last night. He wasn’t sick anymore—well, at least not with the lung infection and cold—but sometimes he just had bad days without anything extra. He spent most of the night alternating between puking his brains out and nightmare-fueled delusions, making it impossible for me to get some sleep.

Pops had been convinced last night that the sperm donor found us, all the way to the point that I caught him packing to try and run again. I managed to convince him otherwise, but it wore me out and had me all the way paranoid again. I checked our security system, that we splurged on for our own sanity, 47 times last night, just in case. The sperm donor had lost a lot of the pull he’d had when he was the governor back when I was little, but he still had enough to continually track us down and find us over and over again.

Even today, as Anna and I bustled through yet another shift, I’d been on edge, waiting for the asshole to just walk through the door. It’d left me snippy and distracted and, apparently, nearly falling asleep standing.So much for being extra alert.

Grayson stood on the other side of the counter clutching a five-dollar bill, his eyes wide as he watched me. He was so adorable that it was impossible to be in a bad mood when I saw him.

“What’s up, little man?” It’d been about two weeks since I saw Max in the wild outside of this café, but nothing had changed about our relationship. I wasn’t sure what I thought would happen, but he hadn’t even mentioned seeing me at the college. Which was fine. What else would happen?

“Daddy said I can buy a cake pop before we leave because I got kid of the week at school! AND I could come up here all by myself!”

Gray was beaming. I wasn’t sure what kid of the week was, but I knew it was a big deal to him. My smile was real as I held out my fist to fist-bump. “That’s awesome, Gray.” I glanced behind him to where Max was sitting at the table, his eyes glued to his son. He was looking good as usual, pulling off the dorky professor look and making it hot.

“Which cake pop do you want?”

I led the little boy to the counter with our five different options. Our baker had been into making different shapes and flavors lately. He was a gruff man but clearly had a soft spot.

Gray’s eyes widened as he saw the dinosaur cake pop in the middle. “Can I get that one?” He pointed to it, practically vibrating in his skin.

Fuck, this kid was cute. “Great choice. Dinosaurs are awesome!”

“Halmeonitook me to the library and I got to pick out five books! I got twoAvengersbooks, a space book, a monster truck book, and a dinosaur one! They were so cool!”

I grinned. I didn’t know whoHalmeoniwas, but the kid’s excitement was contagious anyway. I wrapped up a dinosaur pop and handed it to Gray, and he gave me the money. I didn’t even want to take it, but I knew he felt like a big kid paying for himself, so I did. I might try to slip it back to his dad if I could do it without him being insulted.

I thought Gray was done, but he didn’t go back to his dad. “Do you want something else, little man?”

Gray looked behind him at his dad, who seemed to have gotten distracted by something on his phone. Then he stood on his tiptoes and held on to the edge of the counter to make himself taller. Getting the idea he wanted to be quiet, I leaned toward him, my concern building. What could he possibly want to tell me that he didn’t want Max hearing?

“Do you like my dad?” he whispered once he was close.

I was so taken aback by the question that I didn’t answer right away. I couldn’t even imagine what my face looked like, and I hoped Max couldn’t see it. What would even cause Gray to ask that question?

The poor kid was waiting for an answer, so I managed to squeak out, “Of course I do, Gray,” hoping my tone inflected as a friend. “What made you ask that?”

Instead of answering, the little boy just grinned. “Great. Come with me!” he yelled and then ran off back to his dad.

My logical brain told me to stay right where I was, safe behind the counter. But the other part of my brain, the one that always got me in trouble, was too curious to stay put, wondering what the kid was up to. I followed him like an idiot.

Max’s eyes narrowed with concern when he saw me. “Is everything ok?” he asked. I couldn’t imagine what I looked like right now, still shook by the question.

“Dad, Aiden likes you!”

Oh my god.What was happening? Mortification spread through me, and if I wasn’t rooted to the spot, I would’ve run. But apparently, my body had other ideas and I couldn’t move a step.

Max just seemed confused and a little amused. “Gray, bud, what are you doing?”

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