Finding Perfect (Hopeless, #2.6)(17)

“Well, you are.”

“I wonder what his name is?” she asks my father.

I take it upon myself to answer this one. “Matteo!” I yell down the hallway.

My father peeks down the hallway from the living room. When I see him, I open my door all the way. We stare at each other for a moment. He looks disappointed. I’d almost rather him look angry. “Well,” he says, motioning for us to come back to the living room. “Let’s see the pictures.”

We take a seat at our table and they all pass my phone around taking turns looking at the pictures. It takes a good ten minutes to sink in before my mother starts crying. “He’s so beautiful,” she says.

Six is squeezing my hand again. Then she starts to cry, because when Six sees anyone else cry, it makes her cry. “I’m sorry I let someone adopt him,” she says to my parents. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

My mother’s eyes swing to Six and she’s immediately out of her chair. She takes Six’s hands and locks eyes with her. “You have nothing to apologize for. Nothing at all. We love you so much, Six.”

They hug, and dammit if it doesn’t make me tear up. As much as they embarrass me, I really did get lucky when it comes to the parents I got.

Hell. I might have even gotten lucky when it comes to the sisters I got, too.

“I want to meet him,” Chunk says. “When can we meet him?”

“Hopefully you all will. But we think it should just be the two of us this first trip.”

Everyone seems to be in agreement with that.

“Oh, and one more thing,” I add, turning to my parents. “Could you buy us plane tickets to Connecticut?”





Chapter Eight


Three weeks later


We agreed to take an Uber to their house from the airport. Meeting our child for the first time in an airport seemed too stale.

We don’t speak much on the way there. It’s been the longest three weeks of both of our lives, and as much as we wanted to call them every day, we held off. We didn’t want to scare them away.

“Neighborhood seems nice,” I say as we grow closer. All the houses are decorated for Christmas. I look over at Six and she looks so nervous. Her skin is pale.

When we pull up to the address, we stare out the window for a moment. It’s a nice house. Bigger than anything Six and I would be raising him in. Not that the size of the house matters, but I can’t help but want the best for him.

“You ready?” I ask Six.

She shakes her head. Her eyes are red, and I can tell she’s trying not to cry.

This is a huge moment for us. It’s terrifying. But our Uber driver doesn’t get that because he says, “Hey, I don’t get paid for you guys to sit in my back seat and cry.”

That irritates the hell out of me. I bump the back of his headrest. “She’s about to meet her child for the first time, Dickprick! Give us a minute! Also, it smells like tacos in here. Get an air freshener.”

The Uber driver meets my glare in the rearview mirror and then mutters, “Sorry. Take your time. Didn’t know this was a big moment.”

“Well, it is,” I mutter.

Six rolls her eyes at me. “It’s fine,” she says, sniffling. “I’m ready. Let’s do this.”

We get out of the car and I go around to the trunk to grab our suitcases. One of them is filled with a week’s worth of our clothes. The other one is filled with toys and clothes from everyone. Sky and Holder, Karen and Jack, Breckin, both sets of our parents. Even Six’s brothers, who really did give me a hard time after they found out, pitched in a few presents before we left.

The Uber driver actually makes himself useful and helps me with one of the suitcases. When he shuts his trunk, he looks at me. “Does it really smell like tacos in my car?”

I shrug. “Yeah. But the good kind.”

“I had tacos for lunch. You have a good nose.”

I kind of feel bad for snapping at the guy now, but he shouldn’t rush his passengers like that. “I wasn’t trying to insult you. I love tacos.”

The driver shrugs it off. “It’s cool. And hey, I’m also an Uber Eats driver. I can actually go get you tacos if you want some. There’s this really great taco stand over on Jackson Street.”

I am hungry. “How good? I’m from Texas and we have really good tacos in Texas.”

“Dude, they’re the best tacos you’ll ever—”

“Daniel?” Six interrupts our conversation. She lifts a hand and waves it at the house behind her. “We’re about to meet our son in a matter of seconds and you’re seriously going to sit here and make me wait while you have a full-on conversation about tacos?”

“I... Sorry. I just love tacos.”

“Tacos are great,” the driver mutters. “Good luck with your kid and stuff.” He gets back in the car and cranks it. We look up at the house, just as the front door opens. A man walks out. I guess this is Graham.

“Shit,” I whisper. “He’s good looking. I don’t know why that makes me even more nervous.”

“His socks don’t match,” Six says as we make her way up the driveway. “I like him already.”

We meet Graham at the front door. He shakes my hand and introduces himself. “You must be Daniel,” he says. He looks at Six and hugs her. “And Six.” He pulls back and opens the front door. “How was your flight?”