“He's not family,” I said., trying to answer for mom, hoping she'd agree with me. “Why can't he come over another night?”
“Because he just got back in town and I want to see him,” Luke said.
“Well see him,” I said. “But he doesn't have to come to dinner.”
“Oh, okay. I'll just skip dinner with the family then –”
Mom finally spoke up, shouting above both of us, “Fine, yes, invite him over. No one misses family dinner.”
She left the room in a huff, leaving me with my obnoxious older brother who looked pleased as punch. He smirked at me, and I swear, it took everything in me not to smack that smile right off his dumb looking face.
No one missed family dinner. My mom said it herself. Nobody missed it without suffering some dire consequences – usually in the form of a never-ending guilt trip. So, I knew there was no way I could get out of the dinner despite the fact that I desperately wanted to.
I racked my brain trying to figure some way out of this mess but was coming up empty at every turn. Maybe if I pretended to be sick? Maybe that would work? Nah, she rarely bought illness as an excuse for anything. Her standard response would likely be telling me to suck it up and be there. I came to the inescapable conclusion that nothing outside of my death would get me out of this.
So, the only thing left for me to do was to talk myself down from the ledge.
It was going to be okay. There was no way Reese could know Eli is his son. Right? In fact, he probably wouldn't even look at me. He likely wanted to avoid me just as much as I wanted to avoid him. Just keep my head down and avoid speaking or making eye contact – just like I used to do when I was young – and hopefully he wouldn't ask about the child sitting next to me that happened to look just like him.
Shit.
Okay, so maybe I noticed the resemblance because I knew the truth of his parentage. It seemed more than obvious to me, but my family – not even Luke – had put two-and-two together. So, maybe Reese wouldn't either. After all, we'd had our one night fling four years ago. Maybe – if I was really lucky – he even forgotten we'd ever slept together. That would be good. That would be very good. In fact, it would be ideal.
As dinnertime approached, I found myself pacing the living room, a knot and a side order of butterflies battling it out in my stomach. Eli was playing on the floor and I was keeping an eye on him, making sure he didn't go near those damn birds again. But I was beyond distracted and couldn't focus on anything.
I listened for any sound that would signal Reese's arrival. I listened for a car pulling up. Footsteps on the front porch. The sound of his voice. Since he and my brother often came in through the back door off the driveway – through the kitchen – I felt relatively safe in the living room. At least, for the moment. I couldn't help but pace as I listened and tried to prepare myself for what was about to happen.
He'd be what, twenty-five now? Like my brother? He could have changed and grown up a lot since I'd last seen him. Maybe he was a completely different man. Perhaps life in LA had changed him. Maybe for the better. Maybe, he'd become a responsible adult who was putting his life in order.
Maybe, he had the right to know he had a son.
I looked down at Eli, at his sweet face, and it broke my heart that he might never know his father. Every little boy deserved to know who his dad was. But that competed with my belief that not every dad deserved to know who his son was. Some men wanted to be in their lives and others didn't. Would not knowing his father be better than the rejection of a man who wanted nothing to do with you?
And what kind of man would Reese actually be?
So many thoughts. So many questions. None of them had answers.
“Hey, Maya.”
Reese's voice surprised me, caused me to jump, and made a fist seemingly made of ice squeeze my heart painfully. I literally screeched when I heard him. I was facing away from the kitchen and somehow, he'd managed to slip inside without me hearing him. And there he was standing there, bigger than life, and was even saying hi to me.
I turned and put on a fake smile. “Hi Reese. How's it been?”
I didn't know if he noticed Eli at that point or not, because he just stared at me and smiled. That smile that always pulled me in and made my heart flutter. The one that had never been directed at me until the night I'd conceived our son. And yet, there he was, smiling at me again.
Oh, and he was still so gorgeous. Tall, dark and handsome as ever. He was no longer wearing the super baggy jeans and baseball caps he wore in his younger days. But he was still looking every bit the part of the big baller – just a little bit nicer. Nicer jeans, a nicer shirt. And he'd grown up a bit too. His face had stubble on it, just a light dusting of hair that made him look more like a man and less like the boy that he was before he left town.
“It's been good,” he said. “Glad to be home though. I missed Chicago.”
“Missed it here? While in LA?” I asked.
I was nervous, not really sure how to make small talk with the father of my child – especially given the fact that he didn't know he was the father of my child.
“Yeah, the weather is nice out there,” he said. “But it's just not the same as home, ya know?”
“Not really. I've never been,” I said. “But I guess home is where the heart is, right?”
“I suppose so.”