Page 27 of Second Chance Fate (Hope Falls: Brewed Awakenings #5)
Caleb had an internal clock running in his head all day long, counting down the minutes until he could see Taylor and Owen.
He’d been trying to relax and not hyper-fixate and overthink the dinner tonight, but it had been an exercise in futility.
All day he’d been on edge about what tonight would be like.
Normally, he was a go-with-the-flow, relaxed guy.
He never felt nervous or had any anxiety attached to hanging out or having dinner with someone, not even Steph Curry.
The basketball icon came to Hope Falls to work with the charity actor Kyle Austen Reed founded with his wife, Aurora.
Kyle met Aurora when he visited the hospital; she was the single mom of one of his fans.
Their story was like a Hallmark Christmas movie come to life.
Caleb checked his watch again. Only two minutes had passed.
Both he and Taylor agreed that it would be best if he hung out with Owen before they broke the news to him that he was his biological dad.
Owen just started school again, and another big change could add too much stress to his life.
Since they were holding off on telling him, it meant Caleb had to hold off from telling anyone.
Thankfully, his parents were still out of town on their cruise.
They were the only people he felt guilty about keeping in the dark.
If they were in town, it would be ten times worse.
The second the clock hit four forty-five, Caleb popped out of his chair like it was spring-loaded.
He wasn’t due to show up at Taylor’s for another fifteen minutes, and the drive over would only take five, but he couldn’t stay in the office a second longer.
He powered down his computer and patted his thigh, giving Minnie the cue that it was time to go.
She stood and leisurely bowed into a downward dog pose.
Once she’d stretched and shaken her head, she walked past him into the hall, and he shut his office door.
“See you tomorrow.” He casually waved as he passed Judy’s desk, hoping to make a clean exit.
“Where are you off to tonight looking so dapper?” Judy spun her chair toward him.
Dapper? He wasn’t going for dapper. He wasn’t sure what he was going for.
How was someone supposed to dress to hang out with their eleven-year-old son who didn’t know that he was their father?
He assumed Judy’s comment was referring to the haircut he’d gotten today at The Beauty Spot, since his clothing was as basic as you could get.
He was wearing a white t-shirt and jeans, nothin’ fancy.
He didn’t want to wear anything too formal or even semi-formal since this was just a dinner.
“I don’t have anything on your calendar.” Judy tilted her chin as she peered through the bottom of her glasses and read the computer screen, which he was sure had his calendar pulled up.
She knew his schedule better than he did.
Typically, she was the one telling him where he needed to be and when.
And she always knew where he was so he could be reached in case there was an emergency.
Privacy was a luxury he’d never experienced, so he couldn’t say he missed it.
Usually, he had no problem with sharing his whereabouts, but this situation was definitely one that he could firmly put in the extenuating circumstances column.
Since every move he made was under a microscope, he and Taylor had discussed coming up with a cover story of why he would be hanging out with them.
He suggested saying they were dating. He pointed out that if they did, when Owen’s paternity was revealed, it would come as less of a shock.
Unfortunately, Taylor hadn’t been on board with that.
To him, it made perfect sense, but he had to admit he might have had ulterior motives.
He wanted to date Taylor. From the horrified expression on her face, his interest in her was not reciprocated.
He couldn’t blame her for not wanting to jump back into a relationship; from the little he heard about her ex, she’d been through hell.
This situation was delicate in nature. He had no clue how to navigate it.
One thing he did know was that secrets didn’t stay secrets in Hope Falls.
Keeping his relationship to Owen private until Owen knew and was comfortable with other people knowing was the most important thing to him.
Even though, if it were up to him, he would take out a front-page ad, post it on every website, and scream it from the rooftops, both virtual and brick-and-mortar.
Still, he had to do what was best for Owen.
Ultimately, Taylor and Caleb decided not to hide anything and not to create a backstory. They were adults who were spending time together; people could think what they wanted to.
So, he told Judy the truth. “I’m going to a friend’s for dinner.”
“A friend?” Her eyes twinkled. It was the same twinkle she’d had when he got back from Sue Ann’s yesterday and she asked him how his coffee date was. “Have fun.”
Caleb gave her a quick nod and headed out the back to his Jeep. He opened the door, and Minnie jumped inside and settled into the passenger seat.
“We’re gonna go meet your brother,” he explained as he pulled out of the church parking lot.
He hadn’t been able to tell anyone about Owen, so he’d spent last night talking to Minnie about him. She was laying curled up beside him on the couch as he cast the Dropbox of photos and videos Taylor sent him to his big screen TV.
The first photo was of Owen as a newborn, bundled tightly in a striped hospital blanket and blue beanie on his head with only his tiny, bunched-up face peeking out.
The next dozen pictures chronicled his first couple of years as he morphed into a toddler with thick brown hair and large brown eyes.
There were shots of Owen’s first Christmas—Santa hat askew, gleam of tinsel stuck to his chubby cheek—and then more Christmases, Thanksgivings, Halloweens, and birthdays.
Caleb clicked through an Easter egg hunt on a sunlit lawn, a summer in a pool with swim goggles and a kickboard, and a fall afternoon at a pumpkin patch with a photo on top of hay bales.
He clicked through photos in folders titled ‘First Time on a Bike’ and ‘First Trip to the Dentist.’ Each picture documented not just a boy growing up, but a tapestry of normalcy and joy stitched together with care despite his health limitations.
While he and Minnie sat on the couch the night before, witnessing his son’s life in 2D, Caleb was struck with two very strong impressions.
The first was that the only people in the photos were Taylor and Owen, no other kids or adults, with one glaring exception.
Martin was in some of the photos, but no one else.
The second was that woven between the typical photos were ones with hospital gowns and medical equipment.
Some were birthdays and holidays spent in the hospital, celebrated with a singular balloon and/or cupcakes.
There were other candid moments. A shot of Owen and a nurse locked in an intense Connect Four battle, both mid-laugh, a line of I.V.
stands in the background. A photo of Owen getting a nebulizer treatment while he and his respiratory therapist watched the Cubs play the Cardinals, both wearing hats supporting their respective teams. A photo of him being wheeled down the hall on a bed with an oxygen mask and surgical cap covering his hair, giving two thumbs up to the camera.
Caleb studied the photos and tried to memorize every single one. In almost all of them, even the ones where Owen had I.V.s in his arms and oxygen tubes in his nose, he was smiling. There was pain behind it sometimes, but also this spark—an irrepressible light.
He watched the videos, too. One was a school talent show where Owen took the stage and did a ten-minute stand-up routine, consisting mostly of material surrounding his illnesses.
The jokes were sharp and clever. In the video, the teachers were hesitant to laugh at first, but the kids seemed to get it—they laughed with him, not at him.
By the end, he’d won over the entire audience.
In another clip, Taylor and Owen were making homemade pizza. The kitchen was chaos, flour everywhere, Casper circling the kitchen island for crumbs, and Owen laughing so hard he started to wheeze, and then they had to stop.
Whenever Caleb thought about everything he’d missed, he felt guilty, angry, and sad, but it was tangled up with something else too—pride, gratitude, and a sense of awe at just how incredible Taylor was as a mom and how fiercely she’d protected Owen’s health and happiness even in her darkest moments.
Owen was still young, but Caleb had already missed out on so much of his life. He felt cheated. Robbed. Not by Taylor. He didn’t blame her. How could he? She was so young, and it’s not like she’d intentionally kept Owen from him. If anything, he felt horrible for not being there for her.
Her ex was not just an asshole; he was dangerous and violent.
Caleb looked into him today and discovered he was currently out on bail and awaiting trial for several felonies, including attempted murder and kidnapping.
The thought of his son being raised in that man’s house, thinking of the hell he put Taylor through, made Caleb want to take a trip to Illinois and have a talk with Martin.
The kind of talk that only one of them would come out alive.
He wasn’t going to do that, and it wasn’t because he knew it was wrong or a sin to kill someone.
The only thing holding him back was the promise he’d made to Taylor and the look he’d seen in her eye when he told her she and Owen wouldn’t be alone again.
He wouldn’t be any good for Owen or Taylor if he were in jail.