just far enough away and had a nice swinging door, where the rest of the house couldn’t easily eavesdrop. Not that I honestly thought that would stop my gramps.
He didn’t say a word as I closed the door behind us and waved him again to follow me down the long hallway. I didn’t glance over my shoulder to see if he looked into the living room, where my two favorite men and my favorite girl were still hanging out, like the nosey asses they were. And if he slowed down to look at the baby playing with her toys on the floor, I had no idea either.
It wasn’t like it mattered.
He was here, trying to talk to me, and that’s what we needed to do.
Only seventeen months late.
I waited until the swinging door shut before I gestured toward the stools around the island. Then I went for it. “You said you had questions. Ask.”
I could have said that a little nicer, but… I didn’t feel like it. Not when this uncomfortable feeling settled in my chest as I confirmed that his eyes were puffy. I still couldn’t stand him.
The Prick straightened in the stool he’d taken, his chest expanding with a deep breath before he set the stuffed animal down on the counter, laced those long, solid fingers together and set them on the island in front of him. The damn bear had on a tiny T-shirt that said HOUSTON on it, and I had to force myself to stop looking at it. Those eyes, which were beautiful regardless of how hard I’d punch him in the kidneys if our lives weren’t so entwined, met mine and he asked, very, very calmly, very, very quietly in that way I had liked when I had first met him, “Who did you reach out to? To tell me.”
We had already covered this, I thought. But okay. Here we went again.
“I reached out to your brothers and your sisters to get in contact with you. None of them responded to me, even though I sent them each a couple of the pictures I had with you.” I kept going. “I can pull up phone records if you want. I got a new phone six months ago, but I can still turn on my old one if you want to see the messages I sent. I didn’t delete them. I tried contacting you. Maybe not as hard as I could have, but I did try. I reached out to Arnie and Akira, and they promised to pass my message along to you but....” I tipped my head to the side.
Jonah visibly winced, and I sure as hell didn’t imagine the way he swallowed hard before saying, “Akira played for Japan this past season, and Arnie went back to Dunedin. They boxed my things and left them at the team’s office. I haven’t seen either of them since.”
Since his Achilles shit? I pressed my lips together and raised my eyebrows. “That’s convenient. But you can ask them if you want. I’m not lying about any of it. Maybe your brothers and sisters remember my passive-aggressive private messages on Picturegram.”
“Yeah, nah,” he replied quietly, his palm already centering over the middle of his forehead. “I believe you.”
That’s why he’d asked again? Okay.
“How old is she?” he asked after a minute.
“Eight months old.” She’d been conceived toward the end of when we’d known each other.
He must have had his questions ready in his head because he shot one out right after the other with only a bob of his throat. “What day was she born?”
“May 2nd.”
If he was trying to figure out the dates in his head, I wasn’t going to overthink it. I mean, I would ask too if our roles were reversed. I already thought he was a dickhead.
“Her full name?”
“Madeline Hema DeMaio.”
That he reacted to. I could see it by the way his fingers flexed and by the way those round, wide eyes flicked to me in surprise. “Hema?”
If he hadn’t come here, and the day came that she asked whom her dad was, I would have told her. I wouldn’t have hidden his name from her, or the fact she shared it. It was just everyone else that I was keeping that secret from. “She’s yours,” I explained, only barely managed not to add “dipshit” to my answer.
The hand he’d had on his forehead fell away. “Not Collins?”
“You weren’t around. If you decide you want to be part of her life, I’m not