Page 4 of Kane's Awakening
Chapter Two
Ryker
“Daddy, can I stay home today? I don’t wanna go to school,” Isabella asked as she sat at the kitchen table picking at her breakfast.
She was eight and growing up way too fast for my liking. It seemed like just yesterday she and her brother were in diapers, and now they were in third grade and already learning math problems. Good thing they got their mother’s smarts in that area.
“Izzy,” I said. “You have to go. Now finish your pancakes or y’all are going to be late.”
That was probably her goal.
“I’m excited to go,” Theo said after taking a drink of his chocolate milk.
“Well, you’re a nerd,” Izzy responded, rolling her eyes.
“Hey, no name calling.” I shook my head. “You know better.”
Twins. They fought a lot, but they were also really close. When they were younger, they even had their own language and finished each other’s sentences. Both had dark hair like their mother, but they had my blue eyes.
Izzy certainly had my aversion to school, too, unlike Theo who loved it.
After they ate, I carried their plates to the sink to rinse them. I told them to wash their hands, which were sticky with syrup, and then they grabbed their backpacks.
It was their first day back to school after Christmas break, and the two weeks off had spoiled them. And me. They lived with their mother, but I was able to get them on the weekends. During the break, I got to see them more often because they’d been out of school, so it was bittersweet to send them off that morning.
At least I had a great relationship with Anna, their mother.
She’d been my best friend all through high school and we’d even dated. When we were juniors in school, she had asked me out, and I’d said yes. I hadn’t known I was gay at the time. I’d had suspicions, but I hadn’t dwelled on them much.
Some people knew their sexuality for a fact, but it had been a little blurred for me.
We’d gone to college together and were pretty much the perfect couple. Things never felt right, though. Not really. However, I’d thought it was expected of me. That I was meant to be with Anna for forever. Her family had taken me in years before that because of my bad home situation, and I loved her… even if the physical aspect of that love never quite fit.
So I’d pushed my doubts to the back of my mind.
One day, Anna told me she was pregnant, and we both cried. Happy tears, of course. I’d always wanted my own family. But… things shifted after that. Urges I’d suppressed began to surface, and I’d started questioning everything about myself. I couldn’t make love to her anymore, and one time when she’d asked me why, I burst into tears and told her I thought I might be gay.
It was difficult coming to terms with myself, and for a while she was mad at me, but we made it work. What saved our relationship was the fact we’d been best friends growing up. Just because we were no longer romantically involved hadn’t meant that I was abandoning her and our baby… which we then discovered wastwobabies.
The day they were born was the best day of my life.
Once the twins and I were in the car and buckled up, I drove them to school.
“Are we going back to Momma’s today?” Theo asked from the backseat.
“Yeah, buddy,” I said, stopping at a red light. “She’s going to pick you up from school, and I’ll drop off your bags later this afternoon when I get off work.”
“‘Kay.”
Pulling into the drop-off area of the school, I turned in the seat to look at them. “Have a good day, guys. I love you.”
“Love you more, Daddy,” Izzy said, unbuckling her seatbelt and leaning forward to kiss me on the cheek.
“That’s not possible because I love you two most.”
Theo grinned and grabbed his backpack before waving and getting out of the car.
He’d told me on their eighth birthday that he was too old for kisses anymore. That had been like a punch to the gut, but at least Isabella was still in that phase.
