Page 15

Carson

I’ll be there in twelve minutes.

Well, there's my answer. Twelve minutes is ultimately going to feel like twelve hours.

Turning around in the kitchen, I rest my hands against the counter behind me, my eyes surveying the space before landing on Matteo. He’s sitting at one of the chairs on the other side of the counter, his left hand moving across the paper in front ofhim as he focuses on coloring in between the lines. My footsteps are light as I walk over to him, looking down at the paper, only to find he isn’t coloring.

He flipped the paper over at some point and he’s drawing a picture of his own.

“What are you drawing,caro?”

Matteo looks up at me, his smile stretching across his face as his gray eyes meet mine. “It’s a hockey rink!” Matteo loves hockey and I can’t help but wonder if it’s in his DNA. He’s been watching with my brother since he was old enough to hold his head up. Vince insisted I put him in skating lessons when he was three.

He’s been obsessed with being on the ice since he got the hang of skating. This past year, we had him in a learn-to-play program, with the hopes of him playing on an in-house team this fall. “Do you think there is somewhere we can go skate here?”

I looked into rinks before coming here and found one that’s only about twenty minutes from here. From what I saw on their website, it looks like they have a great program I can get him into for the spring, but I didn’t want to sign him up for anything until I had a better idea of what things were going to look like here.

Staring at him and seeing the look on his face, I know I can never deny him what he asks for. “There is a rink that isn’t that far. Maybe we can go to one of their public skates to check it out.”

Matteo’s face lights up. “Did you bring your skates too, mom?”

“I did,” I tell him, nodding as I smile. It’s been a long time since I’ve figure skated, but I’ve been on the ice plenty of times with Matteo. I just haven’t really had the time to skate freely. When he was first learning, I was the one he clung to until he got his bearings. Now, he doesn’t need me like that, but there’s a part of me that’s afraid to try anything.

Especially after the nasty fall I had in college that shredded the ligaments in my knee. I know my limitations now and doing the things I used to do just aren’t possible anymore. It doesn’t take away the enjoyment of skating, but I just haven’t found the same love for it that I once had.

I’m more interested in nurturing Matteo’s passions and love for the ice than my own.

Just as I’m about to look up the rink schedule to see when they have a public skate, the doorbell rings, drawing my attention away from what I’m doing. My heart sinks into my stomach and there’s an uncomfortable tightening in my chest as my eyes widen.

“Mom, someone is at the door,” Matteo tells me, pulling me back from my momentary spiral into panic.

I look at him, swallowing roughly as I nod at him. “Thanks,caro. I’ll be right back."

“Okay!”

He’s content at the counter with his drawing, so I leave him be. I walk across the floor in my bare feet and step into the hall that opens to the foyer. I suck in a breath, holding it for a moment as I count to three and expel it. My hand shakes as I reach for the door handle, but I push through. When I open it, I find Carson standing on the other side of the threshold, holding open the screen door.

His eyes find mine in a rush, worry furrowing his brow. “Hey,” he says quietly, his voice almost sounding like a breath. He swallows and pushes his hand through his hair with a nervousness weaving into his features.

“Hi,” I reply, a gentle smile lifting my lips as I watch the anxiety warping him. To save him from himself, I quickly step out of the way. “Please, come in.”

His lips part. He doesn’t move and shakes his head. “I don’t know if I should right now.”

“Why?”

“I just—” he pauses, conflict knitting his brows together. “I think out here is a normal neutral space.”

I stare at him for a moment, a little taken back by the way he’s acting. I know all of this is fucking with his head, so I’m not really sure what I should expect from him. At the end of the day, Carson Ford may be the father to my child, but he’s also a stranger. A stranger I shared a mind-blowing moment with and nothing more.

Glancing behind me, I spy Matteo where I left him in the kitchen. Carson holds the screen door open for me to step out past him. The scent of his cologne infiltrates my senses as I do and I catalogue it inside my brain. He smells like the ice rink mixed with a hint of leather and bourbon.

Carson walks across the front porch and supports himself on the railing as he wraps his fingers around the edges. I study him, watching the way his body is rigid and stiff as he stares out at the front lawn. I slowly walk to him, not sure if I should approach or not.

As I step beside him, I see his chest deflates out of the corner of my eye, his shoulders sagging in defeat. He doesn’t look at me and the silence stretches between us before his gravelly voice finally breaks through.

“I would like to get a paternity test.”

My breath catches in my throat. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t for that to be his first sentence. “Okay.”