Page 12 of Home for Nathan (Secret Springs)

Chapter

Eleven

“ W hat the fuck do you want? Why do you keep calling me?” Don’s voice was just about as pleasant as he remembered it being.

Which, given that was one of the least pleasant things about him…

Nathan opened his mouth to answer, but Don never stopped talking.

“I don’t want anything to do with your asshole kid. I don’t want anything to do with you. I’m not going to get trapped in your bullshit, tortured artist nonsense. It’s not my fucking baby!”

Nathan didn’t have a choice but to blink. A tortured artist? Him? He really wasn’t all that tortured. In fact, he was kind of the anti-tortured. He loved his weaving and his blankets, his wall hangings, and they didn’t tend to cause him a lot of stress.

“Look, I’m just calling to?—”

“I said it’s not my baby, okay? I didn’t get you knocked up. I don’t care. I want to be left alone, and I’m going to file for a restraining order.”

“Dude, I just want you to terminate your parental rights. I’m getting married. I don’t have any interest in you.” He hadn’t ever had much interest in Don, to be honest, in any of this nonsense.

“So what? You found some other sucker to support you?”

“I just need you to sign your parental rights away. That’s it.

That’s all. I don’t need anything else. I don’t need to talk to you.

I just need a signature on a piece of paper.

” Another sucker? When had Don supported him?

The guy had rarely ever let him spend the night, and they’d usually gone Dutch.

“No.” The single word was flat and hard.

“What? Why?” It didn’t make any sense.

“I’m not signing anything. It’s not my baby, and I won’t admit to it on paper. This is just some kind of a trick.”

“A trick?” Abracadabra, poof, it’s a baby? Like magic! Lord.

He would swear he heard light, feminine laughter, and Torah woofed from where she lay by his feet.

“Yep, it’s a trick to get to my money.”

Okay, maybe Don had started shooting up heroin in the last eight months. Or he’d had a stroke.

“What money? What are you talking about? Did someone die and leave you some, because you never had any in your bank account.” It sure never did feel to Nathan as if Don had been rolling in dough while they were together.

They’d both had jobs. They’d both paid bills.

He’d thought Don was probably doing a little bit better than him, but he was still really getting started in his career, and waiting tables could be feast or famine.

He hadn’t worried about cash—it hadn’t been like they were living together, or they had made any promises to one another. He’d just needed to get the fuck out of town when he’d ended up pregnant. He’d needed to run away and panic in his own way.

Of course, that was when Don started screaming at the top of his lungs, and Nathan thought he sounded a little bit like some demented clown.

“I said no, you little fuck! I never wanted babies. I told you that. This wasn’t a relationship; it was a hard fuck, and you weren’t ever good at that.

I said no, and I meant it. You’re a lousy user. And I?—”

“Okay, that’s enough.”

I agree.

He blinked as Zion walked into the room where he was having his little discussion on speaker. He wasn’t sure who’d agreed with Zion, but it worked for him.

“Just hang up the phone, babe. He’s a dickhead.”

“He’s a fucking user!” Don screeched. “Run! Run while you still can!”

Zion rolled his eyes, making the universal hang-up-the-phone motion. Nathan thought it was an amazing idea, so he hung up.

“He’s pleasant. I can totally see why you’d choose to hook up with him.” Zion had on his best sarcastic snowboarder face.

“Oh, shut up.” Nathan rolled his eyes. “At the time, I thought he was cute, I guess. To be honest, I’m not sure. Maybe I was just having a moment. Totally heat sex.”

“That’s all right, baby.” That got him a wink and a grin. “I mean, so long as Rachel doesn’t look like him, we should be fine.”

“Oh, that was terrible. Fortunately for you, I have a type. Mr. Blondie with a hot bod. So if she comes out looking like the evil ex, everyone’s just going to think she looks like you.”

Zion stuck out his tongue. “Well, that’s a comfort, I suppose.” Then Zion came to sit in one of the chairs in the office and opened his arms so Nathan could come and sit on his lap. “Seriously, how did you two even?—”

He shrugged. “It was a work thing, believe it or not. He was a businessman, and I had made a wall hanging for the building where he worked. When I say businessman, I mean he’s like an investment banker dude or something, but, like, on the lowest level.

He’s not, you know, no one ever said oh, he’s super wealthy, more that he’s just a dude.

But anyway, he thought I was cute. I thought he was cute.

I was single. And to be honest, we had fun, at least in the beginning.

Just doing things. And then one day, bang.

” Nathan nodded and shrugged. “All of the sudden, I was pregnant, and he was panicked, and he broke up with me the day I showed him the test.”

“Oh, that’s fun.”

“Yeah, except not. I have to tell you, not fun. Though I did realize that wasn’t something I wanted to do forever—to be with him and listen to him yell at me.”

“Babe…” Zion hugged him tight, fingers warm on him. “Well, you don’t ever have to listen to him yell again. We can just tell him to fuck off.”

That was the best idea ever. “So what do we do? I mean. If he won’t sign the papers?”

“Well, I put my name on the birth certificate. Who’ll know? It’s not like we’re going to decide at some point we want him to take his parental rights and everything, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. I think. I mean, is that legal?”

Zion shrugged. “I don’t see how it couldn’t be, honey. We’re literally just raising a baby. He doesn’t want her. He doesn’t deserve her. I do. And if somehow he shows up trying to take her, I have way more money for good lawyers.” So fierce. That scowl on Zion’s face meant very bad things for Don.

“I can’t believe he was so awful. Seriously, we didn’t have a great breakup or anything, but it wasn’t like I stalked him. It wasn’t as if I’d asked him for anything.” He hadn’t ever asked Don for a single penny or any kind of support.

“This isn’t about you. This isn’t about you at all. This is about him, and what he would do, and what he thinks. You just have to remember that he’s a motherfucker, and the only way he can interact with the world is in an asshole way.”

“Perfect. So what does that make me? Because I had an affair with him.” Did that mean he was an idiot?

“It means you’re a little trusting, and maybe you were needing somebody right then. God knows, it happens. I’m not a virgin. I get how you can choose Mr. Right Now.”

He looked at Zion, his lips parting as he tried for the world’s biggest, fakest expression of shock ever. “No! You weren’t a virgin when we met? Are you sure?”

“Don’t make me beat you. It’s a bad look when a guy beats his pregnant omega.”

He started giggling hard. “True that. Well, if you think it’s okay, then we’ll just put you on the birth certificate. You’re going to be her dad.”

“I am. I’m already her dad, and it’s going to be the greatest thing ever. And if that son of a bitch ever dares come back and bother my baby or my husband? I’m gonna take him down.” Zion made a slashing motion with his hand.

Okay, that was not surprisingly hot. “I like that too.”

“All righty then.” Zion beamed at him, and he leaned in hard.

“Well, Mr. Stud, I think we’re ready for Thanksgiving and marriages and everything.” A weight had fallen off his shoulders with this being settled.

Zion nodded, chin on his shoulder. “Yeah, my folks will be here tomorrow. Your folks are coming in the day after, and then it’s Thanksgiving. It’s going to be perfect.”

“Well. It may not be perfect, but it’s definitely going to be ours.” That made them both chuckle.

“Hey, we’ve got turkey. No fish. All of the things for the totality of the parental units to make plenty of the whatever they want. My dad is prepared to make pie. We’re both going to look perfectly handsome for our wedding.”

“Our wedding in the fanciest house ever.” That still kind of blew his mind a little bit that Charlie and Kaleb had insisted on having the wedding at their mansion.

Charlie’s house was all decorated in harvest themes right now—cornucopias and pumpkins.

They were going to add sunflowers and mums to decorate the foyer area where they were going to have the ceremony.

Zion was going to wear black, and Nathan was going to wear a creamy tan, and it was going to be beautiful.

“Are you looking forward to seeing your parents?” Nathan asked.

“I am. I’m looking forward to this whole holiday season—the Christmas stroll? I’m so in. It’s going to be rad.”

Nathan chuckled at the look of pure excitement on his lover’s face. “Yeah, we may or may not have a baby by then.”

“Well, if we do, then she’ll be all wrapped up tight, and if we don’t, then she’ll be wrapped up even tighter. Because by then, that belly of yours, is going to be like snug.”

“Shut up.” He bumped Zion with said belly, and that made Rachel twist and kick at her father.

Privately, he just hoped that, no matter when the baby came, Zion was actually in town and not out having to do a signing or exhibition or something. The snowboard season was starting—had started—and Zion had responsibilities, prior engagements, and the snowboard design business starting up.

“You’re worrying again.”

Nathan shrugged. “I do that.”

“Let’s stop it. It’s not going to do anyone any good. Focus on the good stuff. It’s going to be the greatest Thanksgiving ever.” Zion tilted his head. “I don’t suppose you recorded that call?”

Nathan blinked at him, the change of subject making him work to catch up. “Recorded it?”

“Yeah, it would be nice to have gotten him saying that he wasn’t the baby’s father.”

“Zion, I’m pregnant, not stupid. Of course I recorded it.” He had the total dickhead insisting that Rachel wasn’t his baby and there was no way it could be Don’s. It was exactly what he needed.

It was perfect.

“Oh, my brilliant man. I do adore you.”

He blew on his knuckles. “What can I say? I’m super-Nathan.”

“My superhero omega. His kryptonite is fish, but he’s stunning.” Zion stroked his hair back off his face.

“I try.” He felt…settled. Happy. Don and his drama could jump off the proverbial cliff.

And he would swear he heard a couple of giggles that seemed to agree wholeheartedly with him.