Ten minutes later, after numerous corners turned and streets sped along, I told him to stop.
Once again, he didn’t bat an eye. Just directed the taxi into a space on the side of the road and waited. If I wasn’t so messed up, I’d have been impressed.
“Thanks, mate,” I said, handing him a collection of notes before climbing from the back seat. I had no idea what kind of tip I’d given him, but whatever it was, it finally elicited a response. He smirked at me through the driver’s window and then took off, leaving me on the sidewalk. Dumping my bags at my feet, I unzipped my gym bag, pulled out the first shirt I saw inside and yanked it over my head. I had no idea where I was, let alone what emotional state I was in, but being fully dressed was a start to getting back on track.
The heat bore down on me, oppressive and suffocating. I closed my eyes and lifted my face to its blazing intensity. Stood there motionless.
I was a father.
Christ, I was a father.
I didn’t for a second suspect it was a lie. What purpose would Amanda have for lying? I was a guy on the other side of the world with a student loan that included more zeroes than the new letters behind my name, and a looming business loan about to be added to my debt. Who would try to pin a paternity claim on a guy in that situation?
And given how Chase reacted, how Amanda reacted, I knew it was the truth. I was a father, I had a son, and Amanda had kept it from me for eighteen months. Eighteen months without a word. Eighteen months without telling me.
Christ, I was a father.
My knees buckled. I staggered sideways, catching myself before I could bump into any of the unsuspecting people walking past me on the sidewalk. Dull rage knotted in my gut. Straightening, I dragged my hands through my hair, watching the cars move along the road. I had no real idea where I was. It didn’t matter. I just wasn’t where Amanda was.
Christ, she’d kept the fact I was a father, that I had a son, from me for eighteen months. How did a person do that? How was I supposed to deal with that?
I didn’t know. I couldn’t fall back onto my default roll-with-it response. Nothing in my twenty-five years had prepared me for this. I’d set out a game plan, goals. I had a bank manager and a personal training business ready to go as soon as I finished my Master’s. I didn’t own a SUV. I had no clue how to change a nappy.
And while we were at it, Amanda Sinclair had fucking kept the fact I was a father a secret from me.
My knees crumpled again, but this time, I caught myself before I could stumble. Stumbling was weak. I wasn’t weak. I was angry. Furious. I could hardly draw breath. My fists were clenched into painful balls. My head roared.
And yet, even with the incensed rage boiling inside me, I was . . . I was . . .
An image of a baby – softly squishy and bald – filled my head. Wrapped in a blue blanket, the same blue of the bath towel I’d last seen Amanda wearing. Eyes closed. Healthy lungs letting me know in no uncertain terms he was not that impressed with the situation. Tiny hands balled in fists, chubby legs kicking with enthusiasm . . .
What would it be like to hold that baby? My baby? My son?
An invisible band clamped around my chest and I pulled in a sharp breath. What the hell was I doing? What the hell was I feeling?
I couldn’t decipher it. I had no hope. I was on the other side of the world, away from everyone I knew – friends, family, and I’d just discovered I was a father.
And then I’d run.
The vice around my chest squeezed tighter. I’d run. Jesus, I’d run. And I didn’t even know my son’s name.
Fingers balling in my hair, I watched the cars stream by. I needed to talk to someone. Not to get an answer; I didn’t seek out answers to my problems from other people. Other people didn’t know the solution to my problems because those problems were mine, not theirs. I just needed to talk this through now.
Flicking my watch a glance, I bit back a curse. I had no idea what time it was in Sydney. I could ring Heather, but I’d already woken her at a ridiculous time once today. I couldn’t do it again.
Which left me . . .
Pulling my iPhone from my hip pocket, I scrolled through the numbers in my contact list. There. Hitting dial, I waited, my heart beating fast. It had been a few weeks since I’d spoke to Maci Rowling. A Skype conversation had been our last interaction, during which she’d flashed her engagement ring at me and made gooey eyes at Raphael whenever he wandered through the room. I rolled mine every time she got sappy, even as joy flowed through me for my two friends. When a guy is happily entrenched on the friend bench, he’s allowed to roll his eyes at the soppiness of any engagement announcement.
Who would have thought I’d be standing in the same country as Maci and Raph such a short time later, wishing to hell they’d answer their phone so they could listen to me . . . listen to me . . .
What the hell was I going to say? G’day, guys. So I’m in the States because that girl I followed here over two years ago, the one who never followed me back, called out of the blue, we had sex in her shower, and now she tells me I’m the father of her eighteen-month-old baby?
No. I wasn’t going to say that. I wasn’t going to say anything. Not to Maci. She wasn’t who I needed to talk to right now. I needed to talk to Amanda.
I needed an explanation. For why she’d kept our son a secret from me, for why she’d contacted me after so long. For why she’d joined me in the shower. Before I could explode with rage, or wallow in self-pity – emotions that I was neither familiar nor comfortable with – I needed an explanation.
And I needed to meet my son.
I’d work out what happened after that and make sure whatever it was, it was okay. Good. Gravy.
It wasn’t until I went to cancel the call I realized my phone hadn’t even dialed. I’d been standing on the sidewalk, pondering my future as I waited for a connection on a phone that didn’t work in the US.
The realization knocked the breath from me. I couldn’t continue the delusion I was handling this whole thing. So much for being chillaxed. It was time to admit I was blindsided. But I wasn’t a chicken. I wasn’t running.
Hitching my bag up onto my shoulder, I turned and began walking back the way my indifferent taxi driver had come. I had no idea where I was – Old Town San Diego, I think – but I had to get back to Amanda’s. Flagging down a taxi was easy. Telling the driver where to take me, not so much. I had no idea of her address, nor even the suburb her apartment was located.
“Just drive back this way a bit,” I said, hoping he wouldn’t think me some kind of weird nut job. “I don’t know where I’m going, but I’ll know it when I see it and tell you when to stop.”
I got a skeptical snort from the man behind the wheel but, much to my surprise and gratitude, he pulled from the curb. Maybe he’d had more than one Australian who’d just been blindsided by the fact he was a dad in his cab before?
I focused on the view outside the window as he drove. I didn’t let myself think about what I was going to say to Amanda when I arrived back at her apartment. Didn’t rehearse anything. Sometimes you have to surrender completely to gut instinct.
I was starting to think I was never going to find where Amanda lived again when I spotted a familiar gum tree on the corner of two streets. I’d noticed it on our drive in, when Amanda was filling me in on the state of the American education system as she saw it. I’d thought it looked homesick in a bizarre way, like it was missing the feel of cockatoos and kookaburras in its branches.