Page 57 of Tripped By Love

I sat on the floor with Chevelle, drew him into my lap, and inhaled the soft scent of his baby shampoo. “Do you remember Clayton Hardy?”

Dad frowned. “The law professor? I remember what an ass…”

His eyes grew, widening as he took in Chevelle and then me. Mom hadn’t figured it out yet even when she was the one to normally see everything about me first.

“He moved to Harvard, right? I think I heard something about him covering a course here at Wilson-Jacobs this summer,” she said.

I swallowed. “He’s…” I looked up at Marco, and his eyes softened, as if speaking to me. Encouraging me. Giving me strength. “He was the sperm donor.”

I couldn’t say he was Chevelle’s father because he wasn’t. He didn’t have anything to do with raising my son, or loving him, or being there for either of us.

Mom gasped. “What?”

She sat down on the sofa next to Dad as if she’d lost all muscle control. As if she was the one with hypotonia instead of me.

“Cassidy!” My mom looked at me with surprise and disapproval but also worry.

I shrugged. “We met up a few times. What else do you want me to call it? What I told you before was true. He wanted me to get an abortion, and I refused. It was the end of my discussions with him.”

“But now he’s back?” Dad prompted.

I nodded. “He says he wants to get to know Chevelle, but really…really, he’s playing at something else I don’t understand yet. He doesn’t want a child. He made that very clear.”

Silence filled the room.

“People change,” Dad said quietly.

“Not this one.” It was Marco who spoke. Deep and gravelly. Anger in his voice that had been there when he’d all but tossed Clayton from my restaurant. When Marco had promised that if Clayton came near me or Chevelle again, he’d clean the streets with him.

Dad and Mom both looked at Marco with surprise.

“You know something we don’t?” Dad asked.

“Trevor and I are digging, but at the moment, it’s more instinct than facts,” Marco said with a slight shrug. “He threatened Cassidy at the restaurant today.”

Mom gasped again. Her hand reached for Dad’s, and they squeezed each other tight. A unit. They may have disagreed over Brady and me in the past, over the way Mom had overprotected me and held Brady accountable for things he should never have been when it came to me and my health, but at the end of the day, they were always there for each other, holding each other up.

My heart ached. I wanted that so badly I could almost taste it. Someone on this journey with me. Next to me. Balancing me.

I was surprised when Marco joined me on the floor, as if he’d read my thoughts.

“I promise,” Marco’s voice was deep again, holding layers of emotion that I wanted to crawl under like a blanket. “He won’t be able to take Chevelle.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Mom’s voice snapped at him, and it drew our eyes back to her. It was what she’d nagged Brady about the most—the promises he’d made and then broken. At least, she’d felt like he’d broken them when it was really just him living his own life as he should have been. I’d never wanted my brother to give up his world to hover around me.

Marco met Mom’s gaze with an even one. “I intend to keep that promise, Arlene.”

I jumped in before things got tense. “Brady’s having Lee find a family law attorney for me. I have… I have some pretty nasty messages from Clayton and a check for the abortion that I never used.”

Mom’s face twisted and fell. My father draped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her up tight against him.

“Why didn’t you ever tell us this?” Dad asked.

I looked down, hugging Chevelle. “It wasn’t exactly a moment I was proud of.”

It made me think of Marco’s words about his time in the military. It had wounded him in some way, turning something that should have been perceived as admirable into disgrace. I had my amazing son, and I’d never, ever regret him, but I could regret the person I’d let myself be in order to sleep with Clayton. Marco and I both had things in our past that were complicated. Twisted pieces of pride and shame hiding within us.

“I’s hungry, Mama!” Chevelle said, wiggling from my arms and freeing himself from my grasp.