Page 5

CHAPTER 5

The thought of day drinking at one in the afternoon was appealing. Except his gut was telling him something big was about to happen and he refused to have his reflexes dulled even a little bit.

"What can I get you?" the hotel bartender tossed a rag over his shoulder and asked.

"Just a Coke and a burger, please."

He didn't bother to look at a menu. Most bars had a burger on the menu and he wasn't particularly picky about what kind at the present moment.

He couldn't check into a room yet. The nice desk clerk explained there was a concert in town that was filling hotels up. He was lucky they had a room available at all, but he had to wait another hour for it to be cleaned before he could check in.

It was fine. Wasting the hour eating at the bar wasn't a hardship. Thinking about that letter and Michael, on the other hand? Well, that was an entirely different story. He couldn't get Michael's face out of his head. It was like looking in a mirror twenty years ago. The similarities were uncanny and there was no way Jasmine could hide his paternity forever.

One chance meeting and they both would've figured it out. Unless Michael believed in doppelgangers. He might not, but others did.

The bartender slid the glass across the bar just as his phone rang. As soon as he saw the name on the screen, he was tempted to reject the call. The only reason he didn't was because of what he just learned.

"What do you want, Shaun?"

There was no time for pleasantries. Not with his current mood.

"Michael is missing."

No way he could've heard Shaun correctly.

"I'm sorry, say that again, but much slower this time," he hissed.

"Michael's missing. He overheard us talking and knows that you’re his father. We talked a little about why Jasmine kept it from him and then he ran up to his room. I tried giving him some time to cool down, but when I went up to talk to him, he was gone."

Jayce pushed up from the bar and threw some money down before walking away. It would cover the meal he wasn't going to get to eat.

"You looked everywhere in the house?"

Shaun's home wasn't small but it wasn't that large either. It wouldn't take long to do a thorough search and it wasn't like Michael was a small child. He was a teenage boy who was barely two inches shorter than Jayce.

"I'm not an idiot, Jayce. Yes, I looked everywhere before I called you. I even reached out to his friends to see if they’d heard from him. No one has."

Shaun's statement had him stumbling for a second. Shaun knew Michael's friends. He knew who to call and who his son hung out with. Jayce didn't because Jasmine took that from him.

"Drive the neighborhood and work your way out. How long has he been gone?"

"Fifteen minutes. Twenty tops."

Jayce calculated how far a kid could make it in that time.

"I'll start on the outskirts and work my way in to you. Between the two of us, we'll find him."

He could barely remember the rest of the conversation. Jayce was running on automatic and using every ounce of knowledge he learned in the Army and the Secret Service to find his son. He started about three miles from Shaun's home and worked in a clockwise direction through the neighborhood. After an hour, he began to feel helpless.

His first day as a father and already he had lost his son. Not that he actually did the losing. That credit went to Shaun, but still. Michael was missing and he had the feeling it was partially his fault.

Jayce thought about what he would do if he needed time to get away from people. Normally sitting on a park bench helped.

That was it.

He pulled out his phone and looked for parks in the area. It turned out there was one about a mile and a half from the house.

Five minutes later, he was pulling up to the small park. It was more of a playground than an actual park but sitting at one of the picnic tables just staring aimlessly at the swings was Michael.

Jayce: I found him. Give me time to talk to him and then I'll bring him home.

He put his phone in his pocket and ignored the buzz a few seconds later. Shaun could wait. His son could not. Climbing out of the rust bucket, Jayce headed straight for the table area.

"Mind if I join you?"

Michael didn't look up when he answered. "It's a free country. From what I'm told, you had something to do with that."

Jayce settled on the opposite side so he could get a good look at his son. "I think it was men long before me who made that happen but I didn't mind doing my part in ensuring it stayed that way."

"My father." Michael shook his head. "Shaun told me that my mother didn't want me to be an Army brat and that's why she lied about who my father is."

"Shaun is still your father no matter what DNA says. He raised you the last fifteen years and I'm not here to take that away from him." Jayce was surprised to find he actually meant that. It wasn't Shaun's fault and he wouldn't blame the man. "As for your mother, yes, she didn't want to be an Army wife. Had I known how strongly she felt about it, I never would have mentioned reenlisting."

Little did Jasmine know, he decided against going career Army. He left after his next enlistment and joined the Secret Service. Four years. She only had to stay with him for four more years and then she could've had everything she wanted.

She got what she wanted though. She got out quick.

"My mother cheated on you with my father. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel about that."

"She didn't cheat. At least, not according to the note she left, and you don't need to feel anything. She was your mother. She might not have loved me enough to stay, but she loved you so much that she wanted a better life for you."

Michael tilted his head to the side a bit. "You don't think I would've had a good life if you were my father?"

Jayce let out a humorless laugh. "You sure know how to call a man out on his shit, don't you?" He slapped his hand upside his head. "Shit, I'm probably not supposed to say shit in front of you."

This conversation wasn't going as planned. "And I said it again," he huffed.

"Don't worry." Michael chuckled. A real one, unlike his. "My parents curse all the time. They usually follow it up by telling me not to swear like they do."

"Okay, good. Let's go with that, then. Don't swear like I do."

"Whatever you say . . . Dad." Michael scrunched up his nose.

"Feels weird?" he asked even while his stomach did a little flip-flop from hearing the word.

"Maybe a little, but not as much as I thought it would."

Jayce was quickly learning that Michael was a cool kid. He didn't have much experience with children, but so far, his son seemed down to earth.

"As I was trying to say, life with me wouldn’t have been bad. Sure, I moved around a lot but I never would've joined the Secret Service if I was still married to your mother."

"Wait, you worked for the Secret Service?" Michael's eyes lit up. "Did you get to meet the president?"

"I did. Two different ones in fact. Plus, vice presidents, senators, and a ton of dignitaries. It was pretty cool actually."

"That's awesome." Michael’s look was close enough to hero worship that Jayce actually cracked a real smile.

"So tell me more about you.”

“Well, I’m in tenth grade. I like school but some of the kids in my grade can be immature. I play basketball. Wait, no, I love to play basketball. I’m hoping to make it to the NBA someday. There’s this girl Katie in my grade that I think is cute. She cheers for the team but I have yet to ask her out. Mom always wanted me to but I don’t know.” Michael shrugged. “Ummm . . . I have a few close friends. Mostly guys on the basketball team.”

This went on for an hour; him listening as Michael spoke. He had so many questions but most got stuck in his throat. There were times it took a lot of restraint not to throw something or scream at the top of his lungs at the unfairness of the situation. He’d never hated someone as much as he did Jasmine, but he kept those emotions locked down tight, and soaked up the time with his newly found son.