Page 69 of Cherish

I was going to tell him to fuck off, but his last words soften me. Though not enough for me to start talking. “That’s between me and my future wife.” I sip the coffee, the liquid bitter on my tongue.

“I know that look, Jason. I’ve seen it on my own face. What has you so scared of losing everything?”

“I’m not going to lose anything. We’re getting married. That’s the opposite of losing.”

He drives through the intersection without responding to my last words. I relax my shoulders, relieved at his lack of response. Unfortunately, my relief is short-lived.

“When’s the wedding?” It’s a simple and reasonable question, but coming from him, I know it’s nothing less than part of his interrogation.

“Soon. Wednesday. We’ll have a bigger wedding in a few months.”

“Mm-hmm,” he says, turning his eyes from me to the street. “You get engaged a few days after her first party blew up in your face, which was just a few days ago. You manage to get her to agree to marry you, but you’re rushing her to city hall instead of giving her the wedding she deserves.”

“You’re not listening,” I say a little bit more loudly than I should have. “I just told you we’re going to have a wedding in a few months.”

“I heard you. What’s the rush then? And don’t skirt around it, please. I’m a man who fell in love with another woman while I was married. There’s nothing you can tell me that will shock me or make me judge you. Consider me a friend.”

I scoff at that. “Do you interrogate all your friends? I’m not like you. I never and would never cheat on Alex. I have a past, and I did things I’m not proud of.”

“I know what that’s like. And no, I’m not ashamed of my time with Mariah and creating Alex. I’m ashamed I let Mariah go.”

“Well, your son was sick, and you didn’t know she was pregnant. No one will blame you for your choice.”

We’re quiet, and as he approaches an intersection to make a right turn, he looks at me waiting for me to speak. I’m not sure if this is his good cop routine, but I know the look of tenacity when I see it. He won’t stop, and if Natalie is telling the truth, there will be no hiding what’s to come.

“Natalie, my ex, she turned up at my house the night of the first party. Pregnant. She says it’s mine. To make things even more complicated, she’s married.” It’s a relief to say those words out loud to someone whose sole purpose is not to tell me that everything will be okay.

To his word, he doesn’t appear to be fazed by my confession. His facial expression doesn’t change at all, and after several minutes, he lets out a long whistle just as he pulls up and parks across the street from the hospital.

“I love her, sir. She’s agreed to marry me, regardless of what the paternity test says.”

“But you want to lock her down just in case. It’s harder to run when the law’s involved.”

I nod.

“Listen, I won’t be a hypocrite and give you a lecture about being with a married woman. But I don’t think Alex is a runner.”

“Natalie wasn’t married yet, but I suspected she had someone. And Alex did run after it happened. I didn’t know where she was for four days. Each day was like ten years off my life.”

“But she came back and agreed to marry you. She needed time and space. And there’s nothing wrong with that. She loves you too. I can see it. Her mother used to look at me the same way she looks at you. Families come in all varieties these days. It’s not like when I was your age, but she deserves more than a courthouse wedding in the middle of the week. Is she trouble? Your ex? Will she harm my daughter?”

“She’s not dangerous. She’s manipulative, but she won’t physically hurt anyone.”

“Good, otherwise I’d rain all kinds of hell on her. I still might. Figure it out, Jason. Get a DNA test. If you’re the father, be a father. Let Alex help you. Make her feel included. If you’re not, you cut all ties with her, otherwise you and I will have a problem. I meant what I said about us being friends. I’ve made all kinds of mistakes in my life, son. You’ll never get any judgment from me.”

I leave his car and cross the street. When I turn around, his car is gone. It’s not until I’m changing into my scrubs that I realize I never told him which hospital I worked at.

CHAPTER 45

ALEX

“You have to relax, carrot cake. He’s fussy because you’re tense. Here, let me show you.” My father takes three-month-old Owen from my arms and cradles him. Instantly, the fussing ends and he coos.

While my father rocks him back and forth, I find his pacifier. He opens wide when he sees it and I push it in slowly. I catch my dad’s eye and we both smile as the baby rubs his eyes.

After my father left our house on Saturday, I saw him again first thing Monday morning. He was waiting for me when I left the house to go to work. He drove us to a lab where he paid extra to have the DNA results rushed. Twenty-four hours later, I had a father, a brother, a sister-in-law, a sister, a brother-in-law and two nephews.

Tina has everyone over at her house in Watertown for dinner. While everyone gushed over the baby, I kept a safe distance until my brother insisted I hold him.

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