I smiled and kissed him. “Okay. We’ll work out the details.”
“What about Jace?”
“What about him?” I asked.
“Can we tell him?” he questioned. “If you don’t think it’s a good idea, I understand. I’ll wait.”
“No, I think we should. He deserves to know.”
“When?” he asked.
I could hear the eagerness in his voice. “When would you like to?”
“Tomorrow? The following day? The weekend. You say when and I will be there.”
I smiled. “Tomorrow works for me. How about you come over for dinner?”
“I’ll be there.”
Chapter 73
Nash
I sat at the bar and drank my club soda. I wanted nothing more than a stiff drink, but I couldn’t. I was not going to start my new fatherhood role as a drunk. I needed to set a good example for Jace. Showing up sloshed for dinner was not the way I wanted our first day as father and son to get started.
“All right,” Davin said. “Tell me what’s going on. I don’t know why it’s so damn busy in here today. Like I’ve got time to be serving all these customers.”
“Very funny.”
“Why are you sipping that little girl drink? You don’t want a big boy drink?”
“Not today. I need to be on my best behavior and stone-cold sober.”
“Why? Since when is that a good thing?”
“I’m telling Jace I’m his father today,” I said.
His brows shot up. “No shit?”
I nodded. “We talked and I love her.”
He reached out a hand and tried to touch my head. “What the hell are you doing?” I asked.
“Are you feverish?”
“No,” I said.
“You love her?” he asked.
“I do. She loves me. We love each other.”
He was grinning. “You’re in love.”
I shrugged. “I guess I am.”
“That’s a good thing. You’re going to be a family?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “We’re telling Jace tonight. I’m assuming he’s going to be okay with it, but I am not going to push myself on him.”
“I bet the kid is going to think he won the dad lottery,” he said with a laugh.
“I hope so. I’m not sure I’m quite dad-of-the-year material, but I’m going to try. I’m going to take him fishing and teach him how to ice skate.”
“Ice skate? That’s random.”
I laughed. “When I first moved to New York, I didn’t know how to ice skate. I’m a California boy. I wished my dad would have taught me. It would have saved me a lot of trouble and a bruised ass.”
“Ah, I understand,” he said with a laugh.
“We’ll have to get together one of these days,” he said. “We can do family friendly activities.”
“Are we really that old?” I asked.
“You are. I’m not.”
“How’s the baby-making machine?”
He rolled his eyes. “If you ever say that to her face, she will castrate you. Know this. She seems to be getting through the morning sickness. And now we are moving into hyper-sexual stage. The doctor told me about this.”
“I think that sounds like a good phase,” I said.
“You would think but having sex with your pregnant and showing girlfriend several times a day is slightly strange. I’m kind of weirded out by the baby moving inside her when I’m inside her.”
“That is weird,” I said.
“There is no way I can do it when she gets as big as a house,” I said.
“I’m not going to pretend to know about this stuff, but I’m guessing she would want to castrate you if she heard you refer to her as a house.”
“Probably not, but she won’t find out.”
I finished my drink and checked the time. “I should get going. I don’t want to be late.”
“Good luck,” he said. “And congratulations.”
Nervous did not come close to describing how I felt. Never in my life had I been this nervous. There were so many variables. Saige assured me there was nothing to worry about, but I couldn’t stop worrying. I didn’t know the right words to use to tell a little boy I was his father. Again, there wasn’t a Hallmark card for that either. That was a good idea for a new business. I could start a company that made cards for all those awkward moments that no one liked to talk about.
I pulled to a stop in front of their house and looked up at the door. I wanted to take a moment to appreciate this moment. This was the moment before my life changed. Before Jace’s life changed. It felt like it deserved some recognition.
I gripped the steering wheel so hard my knuckles turned white. “Okay,” I said as I stared out the window. “You can do this.”
I got out of the SUV and slowly walked to the door. I knocked and waited. Jace opened the door. When he saw me, his eyes lit up. “Nash!”
“Hi, Jace.”
Saige walked up behind Jace. “Let’s invite him in,” she said.
“Come in,” Jace said and opened the door.
“Jace, can you go pick up those dirty clothes?”
He took off down the hall. Saige turned to me and gave me a quick kiss. “How are you?” she asked.
“I’m good. Nervous. Like really nervous.”
“Relax. We’ll take it slow. Do you want me to tell him?”
I shook my head. “I think I have to do this.”
“All right. I’ll be right here. He might have questions. We agree to be honest?”
“Yes, to a point,” I said. “I don’t want him knowing all the dirty details.”
“I agree,” she said. “I made dinner. Why don’t we eat and kind of ease him into the situation?”
I shrugged out of my jacket. “That works for me.”
We sat down at the table like a normal family. It was still a little foreign, but I knew I would get used to it. Dinner was spaghetti and meatballs. “Do I dare ask?” I teased.
Saige laughed. “I made this. It’s actually something I made up ahead of time. Every once in a while, I get a wild hair and do the whole freezer meal thing. Not often but sometimes. That’s what this is.”
“You work a lot,” I said.
“She’s going to work from home again soon,” Jace announced.
I raised an eyebrow. “Is she?”
“We’ll talk later,” she said.
“Yes, I think we will,” I said.
I couldn’t be upset about her quitting. It was always the plan. Now that I knew she was mine as well as him, I wanted to take care of them. I wanted her to have all the time in the world with him. That was a conversation for another day.
After dinner, we moved into the living room. “We want to talk to you,” Saige said to Jace.
“Am I in trouble?” he asked with concern.
“No,” Saige and I said together.
“What’s wrong?” Jace asked.
I hated that he was worried. Saige looked at me and nodded. I took a deep breath. “Jace, your mom and I used to know each other a long time ago,” I started.