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Suddenly, Matteo inserts himself between the two of us, immediately severing the tension. My hands fall from Carson’s and Matteo sandwiches himself between us, me on his left and Carson on his right.

“Come on, Mom and Dad,” he urges with a tug on both of our hands. “You guys are skating too slow.”

“Sorry, bud,” Carson chuckles. “You took off without us, so we were waiting for you to circle back around.”

I glance down at our son as the three of us skate together, hand in hand. “Sometimes you move too fast, it’s hard to keep up.”

“You’re a liar,” Matteo giggles, the sound penetrating my eardrums as his smile lights up his face. “You guys were just too busy talking to each other.”

“Maybe I like to talk to Carson.”

I glance up at him through my lashes. He’s already staring at me, watching me over the top of Matteo’s head. He doesn’t care that I’ve caught him staring at me. His mouth twitches and after a second, he winks and then directs his attention back to Matteo.

Butterflies flutter in the pit of my stomach as my heart thumps erratically in my chest. At this point, I may need to go see a cardiologist because I’m afraid I've developed an arrhythmia.

And Carson Ford is one hundred percent to blame.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CARSON

“Well, if it isn’t my son with the secret child who has finally decided to call me.”

I wince at my mother’s words. Normally, there would be a playfulness in her voice while talking shit, but not right now. All I can hear is the disappointment radiating from her tone.

“Cale told you?” I question her, gritting my teeth as irritation rolls through me.

It sounds like she blows a breath through her nose into the speaker of the phone. “He did.” She pauses for a moment. “He was adamant that he didn’t want to upset you, so play nice with your brother, Carson.”

My eyebrows pull together and I relax them. I shut my eyes as I roll my head from side to side to stretch the muscles in my neck. “I wanted to be the one to tell you and Dad.”

“Well, you’re on speaker phone now, so go ahead. Tell us.”

“Lise, be nice,” my father scolds. He comes through loud enough that I’m sure he’s sitting next to her. After Caleb lost Amelia, they moved to Aston to be closer and to help Caleb with Estella. They both retired two years ago and after some seriousinsisting from Caleb, they decided to spend this entire year traveling.

They’re on the west coast right now, which is exactly why my mother is calling me at eleven o’clock at night.

Andi and Matteo both went to bed a little over an hour ago, so I retreated to my bedroom. They’ve been here for two days now and I’ve been trying to give them some space to get settled in. Andi had a busy day today with virtual meetings for work, so I took Matteo to the park and kept him out of her hair.

She seemed stressed when it was time for dinner. I picked up takeout again because I haven’t had time to go to the grocery store since they arrived. Over our meal, she explained that there were some issues at the museum with some ancient scripts, but she didn’t go into much detail after that. It seemed like she didn’t want to talk about work, so I didn’t push the issue.

Although, I am interested in hearing more about what she does. Hell, I think I may just be interested in anything she wants to tell me.

“Carson, are you still there?” My father’s voice cuts through my thoughts. “Your mother went to get a drink real quick. She’s obviously upset by this whole situation, but you know how stubborn she can be. She’s not going to admit her feelings, so I’ll go ahead and tell you what it is now.”

My mother is the most caring, most pleasant person I’ve ever met. It takes a lot to make her mad and even when she does get angry, it’s like pissing off a preschool teacher, still sweet and gentle. When she feels hurt or betrayed is when she seems to be the most triggered.

I can understand why she’s upset with me right now. I mean, I would be upset with myself too. It’s been two weeks since I’ve found out about Matteo and this is the first conversation I’m going to have with my parents about him.

“It’s my fault. I should have come to you both before Cale did.”

“What did I miss?” My mother’s voice comes through instead of my father's. “Anything important?”

“He was just getting started,” my father tells her, buying me another second to collect my thoughts.

“I’m not sure what all Cale has told either of you, so I’ll just start from the beginning.” I take a deep breath before diving right into it. I start at the beginning, when Andi and I first met up to when I ran into them at the store. I don’t hold back a single detail and wrap things up with a neat little bow when I tell them that Matteo and Andi are temporarily staying with me.

“Well, that’s a lot of information to take in,” my father mumbles, almost as if he’s not sure what else to say.