Ashlyn stops looking at her nephew and turns to me. “I felt like an enormous fool when Alexandra confronted me outside your bedroom. She called me a slut. And that’s exactly what I felt like—a stupid, drunk slut. Because isn’t that who sleeps with a guy only hours after meeting him? Whores?”
“You were a virgin, Ashlyn. Not a whore.” Alexandra is the one who fucked the baseball team. A lot of room she has to call anyone a slut.
“Regardless of what she labeled me, I left there believing you were someone else—a liar, a cheater, an asshole. A guy hopping in and out of bed with countless girls, using them for anything you could get from them.”
I have been with more girls than I care to admit, and that’s a conversation we’ll need to have at some point, but not now. She brought me here for something entirely different.
“I thought you were a terrible guy.”
It breaks my heart to think Ashlyn believed I was a dickhead who used her to get laid. She must have been so hurt when Alexandra told her those lies.
She continues, “You’ll never know how sorry I am that things played out the way they did. We should have been together all these years.”
Ashlyn looks back at Jacob again. “Look at him, Owen. Take a really good look and you’ll know in your heart why I brought you here. I won’t have to say the words.”
I guess this will all make sense when she’s finished but it’s confusing the fuck out of me right now. The other boys in the dugout are goofing off, but not Jacob. He’s standing at the fence watching his teammate bat while rolling a ball in his hand. Very serious for a kid so young.
“Jacob, you’re on deck after Garrett so go ahead and put on your helmet and get your bat.”
He turns and grins when he notices Ashlyn. “Hey, home run hitter. You gonna knock it out of the park for me?”
His pale blue eyes widen as he nods. “Sure am.” Confident little guy to be only four.
Look at him, Owen. Take a really good look and you’ll know in your heart why I brought you here. I won’t have to say the words.
She tells me I’m supposed to look at him. I have no idea why but I do as she says since it seems to be so important to her.
The boy’s tall, lean, and has dark hair. He reaches for his bat and I can’t help but notice how tanned he is despite the time of year. Most people don’t turn that color until midsummer. That didn’t come from the sun. It’s natural. I know because my skin tone is the same.
He looks up, studying me. We make eye contact and that’s when I see it. The reason she brought me here. The reason she wants me to look at Jacob. Pale blue orbs fringed by long, thick lashes.
Those. Are.My. Eyes.
I lean in and grasp the fence with my good hand to hold myself up as I look at the tiny version of myself. I can’t take my eyes from him as he steps up to bat. He’s left-handed—just like me.
Am I jumping to conclusions to think he could be my son?Our son?
I don’t think so. She said I’d know in my heart why she brought me here. And I do. Jacob is ours. “He has my eyes.”
“Jacob has your everything. He’s nothing like me.”
There it is. Confirmation. He is mine.
“I want to meet him.” Now. Right this second.
“You can. Whenever you’re ready is fine.”
She doesn’t understand. I’ve already lost the first four years with him. I don’t want to lose another second. “Tonight. I’m not waiting.”
“How would you like me to introduce you to him? The relationship, I mean.”
He’s four—and completely unprepared to hear this—but I can’t stand the thought of being introduced into his life as anyone but who I am. “I want you to tell him I’m his father.” I think about how formal that might sound to a boy his age. It’s almost cold and robotic. “No. I want you to tell Jacob I’m his daddy.”
Jacob swings and hits the ball deep into the outfield. She’s right. He is a natural. Just like me.
Ashlyn’s eyes tear up again. “I need you to be sure about that, Owen. I can’t have you come into his life and then bail in a few months if the role doesn’t suit you.”
She’s out of her mind if she thinks she’ll ever get rid of me. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m in his life to stay. And yours too.”