No hesitation. No uncertainty in her voice.
“What the hell, Naomi?” My voice rose.
Naomi’s eyes flickered in the direction of the living room.
“If you’re so sure he’s mine, why didn’t you tell me this before now? It’s been nearly twelve fucking years.”
She let out a sigh, and in that moment, she looked so deflated that I almost felt bad for her. But instead of giving in to that, I clung to my increasing indignation. How could she have kept something like this from me?
“I know…” she said, her voice much quieter than my own. “It wasn’t easy to come here and tell you this, you know.”
“Then, why did you suddenly decide to show up on my doorstep after all this time? What is it you want? Money?”
“I don’t want anything from you,” she snapped, her own irritation showing. “Gavin needs to know who his father is.”
“Why now, after so many years? Surely, he asked about me before now?”
“We’ve been living in Illinois. I moved back to the town where I grew up when I found out I was pregnant. I just moved back here to Holbeck six months ago.”
“I need to make a phone call,” I said, turning and striding out of the room I passed through the living room, the boy was sitting with the phone in his hand, but he didn’t even pretend to play the game. Instead, his sharp eyes tracked my movements. I wondered what he was thinking, but I wasn’t going to stop and ask. I wasn’t ready to talk to him directly, not yet.
Was I ready to be a father at all?
I really didn’t know the answer to that either.
Once I was alone in my bedroom, I grabbed my cell phone off the dresser, calling Bear. He was the Road Captain in our club, and one of my closest friends.
“Hey, man. Where are you?” he asked as soon as he answered the phone. His smile radiated in the man’s voice. He was always smiling. “Did you sleep in?”
“No, but I won’t be able to come help set up. Can you guys handle it?”
“Sure, we got this. Is something wrong?”
Where did I begin? “You won’t believe what’s happening…”
As I told him about Naomi and Gavin, I realized I knew very little of this story, and I was still enraged that she’d kept this from me. I wasn’t the type of man to be a deadbeat dad, not even when I was a much younger man. I would’ve done right by the kid if she’d just told me.
When I got off the phone, I took a moment to sit on the edge of my bed, my head in my hands. Hiding out in here was tempting, but I knew it wasn’t really an option.
Gavin wasn’t on the couch anymore, and the bathroom door was closed. It was a relief to get back into the kitchen without feeling scrutinized.
Naomi stood at the window looking outside. The view was just an empty, fenced-in backyard, so I couldn’t imagine what she would be looking at. She didn’t react to my presence, so I figured she must have been lost in thought. Placing a hand on her shoulder to get her attention, I felt the warmth of her body heat radiating through the thin material of her cotton T-shirt.
She jolted and turned.
I realized I was standing too close to her. The scent of her perfume, a combination of roses and vanilla, filled my nostrils. I could see her light blue eyes had dark blue flecks and were captivating to look at.
Taking a step back, I cleared my throat. “Um, sorry about that. I had to cancel my plans for this morning.”
“Oh, right. I guess I didn’t really think things through before I showed up here.”
“I’m wondering if you ever thought any of this through,” I said. The mood in the kitchen shifted. Tension hung heavy in the air between us, but I didn’t feel guilty for causing it. I was the person wronged here. “Let’s start at the beginning. Why the hell didn’t you tell me about this twelve years ago?”
“Come on, Jay, be reasonable—”
“Smoke,” I interrupted.
She sighed through her nose, “Smoke, just think about it. You didn’t even recognize me. It took me weeks to track you down. We didn’t even know each other.”