Page 9 of Just One Kiss

“May I help you?”

“I’m here to see Jaden Collins-Dixon.”

“And you are?”

Josh hesitated. “I’m his dad.”

Why was it so hard to say it? Because he’d been a crappy father? Because he’d never done right by his own kid? Because now, faced with a crisis, he wasn’t the one they were leaning on?

And he should be.

He drew in a stunted breath and forced himself not to go there. He’d been over this with Jaden. It had been a little over a year ago that his son reached out to him, when it should’ve been the other way around. Josh had been trying to work up the courage, but Jaden beat him to it.

“Hey, Dad,” Jaden had said over the phone. “I’m coming to Chicago for a conference with my church. Thought you might want to meet up with me or something?”

Josh’s stunned silence might’ve caused Jaden to stutter, or maybe it was a little bit of his nerves showing through. He started to backtrack, but Josh quickly cut him off.

“I’d love that, kid.”

Turned out, the youth conference was a huge deal—thousands of people were there—and Josh felt completely out of place. The whole night kicked off with music, like a concert, only one in which the words were up on a giant screen and everyone was invited to sing along. Josh looked around, bewildered by the way everyone seemed to throw their hands up and join in like there was nobody else in the massive auditorium.

Some of them sang. Some danced. Some cheered. Some prayed.

And as the night went on, Josh felt more and more like a person who didn’t belong there.

Then a man came out and spoke. He wore jeans and a T-shirt and there wasn’t a single thing about him that seemed phony. He openly talked about his mistakes and Josh twitched while thinking about his own.

But you didn’t leave your family. You didn’t bury the truth from them and everyone else. You don’t know the things I’ve done.

As if the man could read his mind, he said, loudly and into the microphone, “It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. Jesus already paid the price for all of it.”

Josh tried not to roll his eyes. Jesus hadn’t paid the price forhim. He might’ve paid it for better men, but not for Josh.

I’m not good enough to be here.

Jaden leaned back in the seat next to Josh, and Josh fought the urge to stand up and run out the back door.

“If you’re done trying this all out on your own,” the man on the stage said. “If you’re ready to give God a chance in your life, if you want to be forgiven for the past and you’re ready to let Jesus into your future, I’m going to ask you to pray this prayer with me.”

At his side, Jaden bowed his head and prayed the words aloud, but Josh had the feeling he’d already prayed this prayer. He had a feeling he’d been set up by a son who was a little too smart for his own good.

And he had a feeling that everything that man on the stage was saying was meant to break down the wall he’d built around his own heart the day he left Harbor Pointe.

And it worked.

He said the prayer, and he meant it. And he left that night certain that nothing would change.

Buthe’dchanged.

He found himself replaying the man’s words, wanting what he promised. He found himself curious and desperate to be forgiven.

And maybe that was why Carly and Jaden were on his mind all the time. Maybe they were the one thing he wished he’d gotten right. So while he didn’t regret leaving, he did regret the circumstances that forced him to leave—and he so badly wanted to change now.

Where was the time machine when you needed it?

The past year with Jaden had been a second chance—and it wasn’t surface-level stuff either. Jaden had this natural, easy way of talking about God. And while Josh didn’t know a single thing about religion or Jesus or most of what he’d experienced that night right alongside thousands of other people, he did know he needed his son’s forgiveness.

No, he couldn’t explain everything to Jaden—maybe not ever—but it turned out Jaden didn’t ask for explanations or reasons. He simply said, “Let’s start over, Dad.”

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