Page 22 of Unrivaled

She stares up at me for a moment, her lips parted, her blue eyes wide and fathomless. Then she steps back, dropping her gaze and breaking that brief breathless moment where I thought she might believe me.

“I have to go,” she mutters. “Miss Kate hates it when parents are late. And Ben will be worried. I have to go.”

Stepping around me once more, she practically jogs away. I jog after her, catching up easily and keeping up with my distance-eating stride. She didn’t tell me I couldn’t come. And she’s going to pick up Ben.

I have a son, and his name is Ben. What’s his middle name?

I’m going to get to see my son for the first time in just a few minutes.

Holy shit.

I follow her inside a building I’ve never paid much attention to before. Never had a class here, and I guess I wouldn’t because it’s apparently dedicated to the preschool. Maybe if I were in Early Childhood Education I’d know about it, or if I had a kid … that I knew about before now.

I wait in the hall while Tiffany unlatches the lower half of the Dutch door and enters the classroom, watching as she bends to scoop up a kid with dark hair that’s getting long, curling at the ends. Reaching up, I run a hand through my hair, tugging on the ends where it curls above the collar of my jacket.

His piping voice comes out in a rapid tumble as he tells his mother about his day. She briefly speaks to a woman in a blue apron who’s apparently the teacher, sets the little boy down, and bends to write something in a binder on the low table.

I tear my eyes away from the fabric of her leggings stretching across her round, squeezable ass, focusing instead on the child who runs to the other side of the room and gathers a coat and a tinyToy Storybackpack from a cubby on the wall. I watch as he carefully spreads his coat out on the ground so the hood points at him.

Over his shoulder, he calls, “Mommy, watch!” When he’s certain she’s looking at him, he sticks his arms in the sleeves and flips the coat over his head, turning to face Tiffany with a giant smile on his face.

And my breath freezes in my chest. Because Jackson’s absolutely right. That face is identical to the one that smiles out of a photo frame on my parents’ living room wall.

That kid is definitely mine. If there was any doubt, it just got erased.

And while Tiffany clearly isn’t thrilled about me showing up and butting in now, she’s going to have to get over that. Because I’m not going anywhere.

CHAPTER TEN

Tiffany

I keep the smile glued to my face throughout my interactions with Ben and his teacher, clapping for him when he does the trick that Miss Amber taught him to get his coat on.

Tongue caught between his teeth in concentration, he squints his eyes and tries to get the zipper started himself. He gets the open side inside the zipper, but can’t manage to hold it there while he pulls it closed. After a few tries, he stomps his foot in frustration, his mouth puckered in a pout.

“Can I help you?” I ask, crossing the room to him.

He nods, his lower lip still stuck out. “It’s so so frustrating!” he says as I kneel in front of him.

“It’s tricky, huh? Let’s do it together. Here, you put it in, and I’ll hold it while you pull on the zipper, okay?”

He nods, then gives me a smile when he pulls the zipper up to where he wants it, wiping his wrist across his face to get rid of a stray tear.

Pulling him close, I give him a hug. “Thank you for telling me how you’re feeling. And thanks for letting me help. You’re getting so big that pretty soon you’ll be zipping your coat all by yourself. We just gotta keep practicing, okay?”

“Okay, Mama,” he says, his arms wrapped around my neck.

“Do you want to carry your backpack or do you want me to do it?” I ask as I stand.

“You do it,” he says, then takes off running for the door.

My steps slow as I follow Ben to the door, dread pooling in my gut at the prospect of facing Grayson Kilpatrick again. I can just see his profile as he lingers outside the door while other parents go in and out, waiting patiently.

His vehement words echo in my brain.“I would never abandon my child or his mother. Never.”

Is that really true? Did he really not know?

Part of me wants to believe him. The foolish, hopeful, naive part of me that has secretly always wished he would’ve stuck around and been supportive and part of Ben’s life, and deep, deep even farther down, that maybe we would’ve had some kind of fairy tale ending.

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