Written with Regret (The Regret Duet #1)(10)

After that, I moved on to the selfish phase where I obsessed about all things Caven: thoughts of losing my mind while listening to a baby scream all day, juggling work and dirty diapers, toys covering my apartment, and never being able to have sex again. It was a pity party of epic proportions.

In the middle of those manic moments was a lot of moral introspection after I’d considered giving the child up for adoption. There were good parents out there who desperately wanted children. There were also shitty ones like my father who were nothing more than wolves in sheep’s clothing. How would I ever be able to tell the difference?

I might not be a good father, but I wanted to at least ensure that she’d always be safe. Which was far more than I’d gotten growing up.

This thought process led to me texting Ian at four in the morning to offer him a hundred million dollars to adopt her if she ended up being my daughter.

The bastard didn’t even try to negotiate before texting me back with a blunt no.

To say I was floundering was an understatement. Most men had nine months to come to terms with the idea of having a child. God was not an idiot. He knew we’d need every minute of that time to prepare. But, apparently, he also had a twisted sense of humor, because I was only given thirty-six hours.

During that time, I went through each of the seven stages of grief. It wasn’t until a thought struck me that I landed somewhere in the realm of acceptance. I’d been adamant about not passing on any part of my father to a child, but that meant I’d never pass on any of the pure and intrinsic good that was my mother.

So, no, I didn’t know how to take care of a baby. But knowing that even a tiny piece of my mother was lying in a hospital across town, living, breathing, and more than likely still crying broke me in unimaginable ways. It had been over twenty years since I’d had anything more than two pictures of her and a necklace that Hadley had stolen to remind me of my mother.

But, now, there was this little girl.

By eight that morning, the window of time from the genetics lab had expired. I knew the results when no one had called or texted. Bad news was an arrow best delivered in person.

She was mine.

My stomach twisted and the weight in my chest became suffocating as the knock at the door sounded again.

I didn’t move. Not even a muscle. I was dressed, showered, and shaved. Shoes on, wallet and phone sitting on the coffee table in front of me. But I wasn’t ready.

That’s the thing about life though. It operates best on the element of surprise.

There were no choices left. No options. No outs.

There was just me and a baby girl who had no idea the quicksand she had been born into.

Ready or not, it was time.

Sucking in a deep breath, I rose to my feet, tucked my wallet and phone in the back pocket of my jeans, and headed to the very same door where this had all started. I didn’t know the first thing about diapers, cribs, or bottles. But I knew to the core of my soul, with an absolute certainty, that I was going to be a better parent than Hadley. And that was based on nothing more than the fact that I was going to be there for that little girl.

Ian and Doug were standing outside when I opened the door, their somber faces confirming what I already knew.

“Hey,” Ian started. “We need to—”

I didn’t let him finish. There was only one thing I needed to know. “When can I pick her up?”





CAVEN


I was ninety-percent sure the hospital staff thought Ian and I were a gay couple adopting our first child. I was a nervous wreck, and in true Ian fashion, he was utterly unfazed. To his credit, he never left my side—not even when we were guided into a small room with four new moms in hospital gowns and forced to watch a video that boiled down to “don’t shake the baby and always put it in a car seat.”

Ian, and at least two of the other mothers, scrolled through their phones the whole time. I, however, had never been so engrossed in a film in my entire life. I needed all the help I could get.

After I miraculously passed the pop quiz they’d passed out after the video, we were escorted into an empty hospital room and handed a stack of papers thicker than when we’d sold Kaleidoscope. Like a good little husband, Ian whipped out a pen, settled in the only chair in the room, and got busy on the paperwork. He knew everything about me anyway, right down to my social security number and mother’s maiden name.

While he made himself useful, I made myself useless, alternating between nervously sitting on the corner of the bed, crossing and uncrossing my legs before giving up and getting up to pace. I couldn’t count how many times I checked the hall to see if the nurse was coming with the baby as promised.

It was the strangest feeling during those few minutes waiting for her. My stomach was in a million knots, but it wasn’t close to anything I would describe as excitement. It was more like an ominous dread.

Dread for what was about to happen.

Dread that I had to wait for it to happen.

Dread that it would eventually be over and I’d be faced with eighteen-plus years because it had happened.

I was considering flinging myself from the room’s fifth-floor window when the door suddenly opened. A nurse came in, rolling a little basket on wheels behind her.

My heart stopped and my lungs momentarily forgot how to process oxygen. I’d seen that little girl in Ian’s arms when we’d first found her at my door, but that was before I’d known she was mine.