SEAL Baby Daddy Page 18

  Or had that been the other part of what she wanted to tell me? I thought about the fact that she hadn’t called me all week. I doubted Ava had been sick for that long. And I knew Harper was busy, but she could have at least called to tell me that she was busy. Maybe she hadn’t told me Ava was mine because she was never intending for me to stick around.

  She didn’t trust me. And sure, the guy that she’d met in Kuwait hadn’t been the most reliable dude. I had disappeared on her that first night together without even saying goodbye. I still felt guilty about that. But all the same. This was something bigger.

  I was still more angry with myself than I was with her, though. I knew it must have been hard for Harper to tell me that Ava was my daughter. If nothing else, then because she must have been worried that I was going to be an ass. And now she probably thought that I had proven her worst fears. I hadn’t handled the news well; I had stalked out of there.

  I remembered what she had said the other night, that for someone who never wanted kids, I’d make a good dad. She might have thought that then, but after what I’d just done, I knew she was probably rethinking it now. Maybe she wouldn’t let me near Ava ever again.

  Could she do that? I had to wonder. I knew I could probably take her to court, sue for custody. But I couldn’t really do that. Ava was Harper’s whole world. She had given up her whole life for the sake of that child.

  I felt guilty just thinking about that. Harper had had to give up everything. And she had never once asked me for anything. Except maybe to stay there, at the restaurant, and talk with her about Ava. About our daughter. And I had stormed out of there.

  I swallowed hard, fingering my phone. I should call her, maybe. But I knew I was still too upset to handle talking rationally to her. No, I should wait until I had calmed down more.

  But I still felt guilty about the whole situation.

  31

  Harper

  By Saturday, I still hadn’t heard anything from Ace. Not since he had stormed out of the restaurant.

  That whole situation hadn’t gone the way that I’d expected it to. I had wanted to just ease into it. I hadn’t realized that he already knew. And I felt terrible the way that he said it. Sadie had made the mistake of thinking that Ava was Ace’s daughter.

  Wasn’t that all this whole thing was? Just a giant mistake. Or rather, one mistake after another. Getting pregnant had been a mistake; not telling Ace had been a mistake.

  Or had it? I’d expected this anger. This was exactly why I hadn’t told him when I’d first found out that I was pregnant. It was exactly why I hadn’t told him even when he’d come back into our lives, there in Boston. Because I’d known that he didn’t really want to have kids.

  As much as I’d tried not to get my hopes up, though, I realized that I’d started to picture a future together with them. Him and Ava. It had been surprisingly easy to picture that future together.

  We’d move into a place together, the three of us. Ace and I would trade off chores and work schedules. Once Ava was in school, Ace would sit down with her and help her with her homework while I cooked dinner in the evenings. Or else I could picture Ace teaching Ava how to ride a bike or how to rollerblade. All the things that a dad was supposed to do.

  I sighed and scrubbed a hand over my face. “Mama feels yucky?” Ava asked, padding out into the living room, where I was curled up on the couch in my pajamas despite the fact that it was nearly afternoon.

  “Mama feels yucky,” I agreed, letting Ava think that I was sick, just like she had been. In reality, my ailment was much worse and more difficult to cure, but I needed to wallow. I just wished I had thought to have the cab driver stop at the store on the way home from the restaurant. I could have used some chocolate or ice cream or other junk food.

  Not that I deserved it. I had done a shitty thing in refusing to tell Ace the truth. He was exactly right when he’d accused me of lying to him the whole time that we’d been dating. I deserved for him to be angry at me. If he never spoke to me again, except where Ava was concerned, I deserved that. This was my penance.

  There was a knock on the front door, and I groaned. But with Ava watching me with concern, I knew that I had to answer it. I padded out there in my bare feet.

  It was just the mailman, but he had a package for me. I scribbled my signature on the line and accepted it, trying to think what it could be. I didn’t think I had ordered anything recently. The box wasn’t very heavy either. Maybe Mom had ordered something when she’d been staying there? Something that she’d noticed I needed?

  I took the box inside. It was addressed to me, so I’d better just open it and see what it was.

  I swallowed hard when I saw: it was a DNA test.

  I sank into one of the seats at the kitchen table, just staring at the thing. It felt worse, holding that package, than it had felt to hold the pregnancy test with the lines indicating that I was, in fact, pregnant. At least then, I’d had options. The DNA test just felt like a slap in the face.

  First of all, I couldn’t believe how quickly Ace had had it sent to me. And without even talking to me. Didn’t he believe me? I knew that Ava was his. I hadn’t slept with anyone else in a long while before I’d slept with him, and there had been no one else between sleeping with him and finding out that I was pregnant. Ava was definitely his; that had never been a question.

  Maybe he thought I wasn’t sure, though. Maybe that was his reasoning for why I had never told him. For a moment, I wanted to pretend that that was it. I wanted to invent another guy who might have been Ava’s dad. I wanted to tell Ace that I would have told him if only I’d been sure.

  But I knew I couldn’t do that. The truth would come out eventually. And anyway, it was lies that had gotten me into this mess, even if they were lies of omission. I couldn’t do any more lying.

  Not least of which because I still, regardless of what Ace was thinking right now, regardless of the fact that he had sent me this DNA test, knew that I was in love with Ace.

  I opened the package with trembling fingers and scanned the instructions. They were remarkably simple, actually. It took hardly any time before I was putting the package back together, ready to be mailed out on Monday.

  Of course, I could take it to the post office and get it sent out that day, but I didn’t have the energy for that. I’d have to get dressed, and I’d have to get Ava ready to go as well. I’d much rather just hang out around the house that day. Maybe watch a movie or two. Order takeout so that I wouldn’t have to cook anything. It’s not like there was any rush anyway.

  I went back to the couch, and Ava crawled into my lap, holding out her stuffed dog. “He made me feel better when I was yucky,” she said, in the infinite wisdom of a toddler. Of course, her stuffed dog would make me feel better.

  I gave her a tired smile, wishing things were that simple. If she only knew what was going on inside my head right now. If she only knew that Mr. Ace was her daddy.

  But I couldn’t tell her that. I didn’t know if Ace planned to stick around. I had no idea what he was thinking now. I checked my phone again, hoping to see that he had called me, but there was nothing. I sighed and set it down on the side table. Then, I put on a kids’ movie and settled in to watch, hoping it would cheer me up at least a little.

  Halfway through the movie, it suddenly hit me. There was a hurry. At least in Ace’s eyes. I suddenly realized exactly why he had sent the box. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe me. It wasn’t that he refused to believe that Ava was really his. It was because he needed proof of parentage. He needed something that he could take to court and have them believe.

  Because that was the first step of proving his right to have custody of his daughter.

  I felt sick to my stomach. Even though I’d considered it as a possibility, I hadn’t really wanted to believe that Ace would try to take Ava away from me. To be honest, even though I hadn’t wanted to let myself think along those lines, I’d kind of thought that if Ace decided he was ready to h
ave kids, that he was willing to have kids, then he and I would continue our relationship and we’d raise Ava together.

  I hadn’t really thought that he would be willing to take Ava away and try to raise her on his own. But then again, he had been pretty mad at me the other night. After all the time that I’d kept her away from him, he deserved to take her away from me.

  I swallowed hard, tempted to throw the box away. No DNA test, no way to prove that he was actually the father. No way for him to sue for custody of her.

  But that wasn’t fair, and I knew it. No matter how upset I was, I knew that Ace deserved to know his kid. And if he wanted to take her away from me, he had every right to do so. I hadn’t exactly been the world’s best mother. I knew the only reason I hadn’t told Ace about her sooner was that I selfishly wanted to keep Ava to myself and because I wanted to continue my relationship with Ace without worrying about things being too complicated.

  For the rest of the day and all of the next day, the box sat there on the counter, haunting me. I wanted to call Ace. Or text him, at least. To ask him what he was planning. I wondered if he had a lawyer already and if I needed to get a lawyer. How did you even do that anyway? Get a lawyer. I supposed I could research it online, but doing that would make it all so real.

  I felt horrible enough anyway, without finding out what my chances were of getting to keep Ava to myself.

  Finally, on Sunday afternoon, I couldn’t take it anymore. I got dressed and got Ava ready to go out, and we drove over to Mom’s place. Mom could tell immediately that something was up, from the moment she answered the door.

  As soon as Ava was playing contentedly in her playroom, Mom cornered me. “What happened?” she asked. “Did you and Ace break up?”

  “Not exactly,” I sighed. I put my head in my hands. “I tried to tell him about Ava. But he already knew.”

  “That’s a relief, isn’t it?” Mom asked, sounding confused. “If he knew she was his the whole time, he clearly wasn’t too upset with you.”

  “I don’t know, he was pretty mad,” I said. “He accused me of lying to him the whole time we were dating. And he wanted to know why, and I just didn’t know what to say. And then he stormed out.”

  “Yikes,” Mom said.

  “That’s not the worst part,” I told her. I bit my lower lip and then exhaled noisily. “He sent me a DNA kit yesterday. He wants proof that she’s his.”

  “Well, that makes sense,” Mom said matter-of-factly. “He probably needs to have that proof so that he can sort out child support and things like that. If the two of you were married, it would be a different thing. But since you’re not, the law requires certain things.”

  “But I haven’t asked him to pay child support,” I said, shaking my head. “You know I don’t need that. I have a good job.”

  “I know that,” Mom said. “And I’m sure Ace does as well. But he probably just wants to contribute his fair share.”

  “Maybe,” I said doubtfully. “I was thinking more that he needs that proof if he wants to sue me for custody of her.”

  Mom was silent for a long moment. It wasn’t the response I was looking for. Not that I’d wanted her to deny that that was a possibility. If she had, I wouldn’t have believed her, and that would have bothered me even more, but I’d expected some empathy maybe.

  Instead, she shrugged, folding her arms over her chest. “You knew that that was a possibility,” she reminded me. “And I’ve been telling you all along that hiding the truth from him wasn’t going to help anybody. You needed to give him the chance to decide what he wanted to do. How he wanted to be involved in your lives. Or not.”

  “I know that,” I said impatiently. “Whose side are you on anyway?”

  Mom sighed. “I don’t like this any more than you do,” she said flatly. “This is my one grandbaby that we’re talking about here. Don’t think I don’t realize how this affects me, too. If he sues you for custody and is granted it, I won’t get to see her any more often than you do. But I understand where he’s coming from.”

  “It’s not fair, though,” I said, shaking my head. “Ava’s more my daughter than his. I mean, I know, genetic makeup and everything. But I had to carry her for nine months, and I had to give birth to her. And then I raised her, for three years, all by myself. He can’t just storm in here and take her away from me.”

  Mom was silent again, and I felt like I was going to burst into tears.

  “I don’t know why I even came over here,” I said. “You’re not helping anything.”

  “Neither is that attitude,” Mom said tartly. “Now why don’t you stop trying to blame people, and we can start figuring out what we’re going to do to get through this?”

  As much as I hated to admit it, she was right. There was no point thinking about how things could have been different, if I’d only told Ace about Ava sooner, or if I hadn’t ever run into him in Boston, or if…. There were a thousand different ways that things could have played out, but this was the reality, the current situation. And the only thing to do was figure out how to fix it as best we could.

  “I really love him, though,” I said quietly.

  For the first time since I’d gotten there, I saw a flicker of compassion on Mom’s face. “I know,” she said quietly. “And if he really loves you, too, then he’ll do what’s right by you. You just have to trust him.”

  I only wished it were that easy.

  32

  Ace

  I didn’t hear from Harper all weekend. And even though I wanted to call her, to talk about the Ava situation and what we were going to do, I needed to get my thoughts straightened out first. Half the time when I thought about it, a life with Harper and Ava was exactly what I thought I wanted. And the other half of the time, it terrified me.

  Not least of which because, if things didn’t work out between Harper and me, where would that put me with Ava?

  I went to work on Monday, but my head was still fixed on Harper and Ava. I should have handled things better. I should have reached out to her, told her that it was okay. Explained that I was just really shocked. Like Nancy had suggested, I should have explained to Harper about my own childhood, about my fears when it came to having children.

  Instead, Harper probably thought that I was having second thoughts about having children, that I had decided to revert to what I had foolishly said back in Kuwait, about how I never wanted to get married or have kids, about how I wanted to devote the rest of my life to the military.

  In the end, that hadn’t been sustainable. I’d reached a certain point where everything with the SEALs was too much for me, where I was ready for the next chapter.

  I still hadn’t told Harper about all the progress we were making with the new training facility, and I hated that. I wanted to share those things with her. I wanted things to go back to the way that they were.

  But I knew that was impossible. Now I knew for sure that Ava was my daughter. Before I talked to Harper again, I had to figure out exactly what I wanted. But the more time went by before I talked to her, the more I felt like that decision was being made for me. She must think I hated her. And I hated the thought of that more than anything.

  Now, I was worried that if I saw her again, I would start to get angry all over again. I had missed so much of Ava’s life already. How dare she keep all of that from me? And how dare she not let me have a say in any of it or help out with any of it? I was so determined to not be my asshole of a father, but she had made me into something worse. She had let Ava believe that, what, her father didn’t love her, didn’t care about her?

  I would have cared about her if only I had known about her.

  All day, I thought about Ava. About her cute little smile. My smile. My eyes, and my smile.

  I had to make things right with Harper. I didn’t want to miss out on Ava’s childhood, not anymore. I knew that was true. Whatever might happen between Harper and me, we had to figure out a way for us both to be involved in our daughter’s life.<
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  I thought about calling Harper that night and inviting her out to dinner. The dinner that we were supposed to have on Thursday. We would sit down and actually talk, like adults, about what we were going to do. I wanted to know everything about Ava. What her favorite color was, what kinds of things she liked, other than dogs. I knew she liked dogs.

  I wondered about getting her a dog. I knew that Harper wasn’t sure that they could take care of a dog, but maybe I could help with that. Even if it wasn’t one of the training dogs, one of the dogs that would eventually go on to someone else, maybe it would be okay for me to bring Ava’s dog into work. That would mean Harper would only need to handle feeding the pup dinner. And I could imagine a little puppy sleeping there at the foot of Ava’s bed, growing up alongside her.

  It was such a cute image, but I knew I had to talk to Harper about all of this first. Figure out what kind of role I was going to play in Ava’s life before I started doing things like buying her puppies.

  It was busy at work that day anyway, though, and I knew that Harper wouldn’t be able to get a sitter on a moment’s notice. Or at least, she would probably feel guilty if she needed to. Better to call her another day and plan ahead.

  I was stalling; that was part of it. I was worried that this conversation wasn’t going to go very well. That Harper would maintain that Ava was hers and hers alone.

  I didn’t know why I thought that. I doubted that Harper had kept Ava from me out of selfish reasons. She probably really didn’t think that I wanted to have kids. I hadn’t thought I did either, after all. And on top of that, she had probably been worried about Ava getting hurt, about me being one of those parents who drift in and out of their kid’s life, unreliable and distant.

  I couldn’t exactly blame her. I was still angrier at myself than I was at Harper.