Page 6 of Just One Kiss

The phone on his desk buzzed, vibrating off the glass and disrupting the quiet. He looked down and saw Carly’s name lighting up the screen.

To his dismay, his ex only called him for one reason: Jaden.

Josh’s mind raced. With the launch of the app, and juggling a fair amount of new clients, he’d been so busy, but every promise he’d made to Jaden went into his phone with a special alert so he didn’t miss anything. He hadn’t missed anything, had he? He’d been so vigilant.

He had to be—he had a lot to prove.

“Carly, hey,” he said as he tapped the button to answer. “Everything okay?”

On the other end, he could hear people talking. “Car?”

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey.”

His heart rate kicked up a notch. Why was she calling? It had been so long since they’d had a conversation. And yet, hadn’t he wished for the day she called him just to talk?

Even after all these years, he’d never quite gotten over her . . .

“Josh, it’s Jaden.” She interrupted his thoughts.

“What about Jaden?”

His heart lurched, mind spinning with endless possibilities of things that may be wrong, the stuff his nightmares were made of. Only nightmares were usually fiction—his were filled with real memories.

The screaming baby. The high fever. The day he realized he was more like his father than he cared to admit.

Her voice pulled him back to reality.

“We’re in the emergency room. He collapsed during the Memorial Day parade.”

“Is he okay? What happened?”

“They’re doing some tests now. They aren’t sure.”

He paused, unsure what to say. He’d always felt so helpless in these situations. He didn’t have a way to fix it. What words would make it better?

And Carly had always been the kind of person who had everything under control. Still, he was Jaden’s father—he wanted to be there for his son whether they wanted him there or not.

“Is it serious?” he finally asked.

She paused. He could practically picture her, chewing the inside of her lip, her brown hair pulled up into a messy bun on the top of her head. He hadn’t spoken directly to Carly in a long time, in spite of his renewed relationship with Jaden over the past year. She left most of the planning to their son, which he supposed was best. But sometimes he wished for a reason to talk to her.

Not this, though. This wasn’t the kind of reason he was hoping for.

“It could be,” she finally said. “It could be serious. It could be nothing. He could be dehydrated or maybe he overheated. But they mentioned that something could be off with his protein levels. They aren’t sure.”

“I’m going to head up there,” Josh said matter-of-factly.

“No, Josh, don’t,” she said. “It’s not necessary. It might be nothing.”

“But it might not be nothing,” he said. “And I don’t want to take the chance.”

Carly sighed.

“You can’t seriously think I’m going to stay here while my kid is in the emergency room.”

He could practically feel her biting her tongue. He knew what she was thinking. How many other things had he missed over the years? There had been plenty, and he was well aware of that, but he’d made a promise to Jaden over a year ago. He was late to the party, but he was in for the duration.

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