Her gaze slices up to me, and I wink. She laughs and shakes her head.
“Are you cooking breakfast or do you want me to whip something up?” she asks me.
“I’ve got it. In fact, I’ll be fine with Caleb most of the morning. I just have to go in this afternoon to review film.”
“That’s fine. I have a date with my coffee and The Today Show. Don’t you two bother me.”
She tries to walk away, and Caleb clings to her leg.
“Has anyone seen Caleb?” I ask, starting to turn in a circle as if looking for him.
He erupts into a fit of giggles.
“Caleb? Caleb?”
He lets go of Donna and runs over to tug on my pajama pants, trying to get my attention.
“Cay-yub. Cay-yub,” he says, trying to alert me to where he is.
I make a big show of being shocked when I discover him standing right beneath me.
“There you are.”
Donna shoots me a conspiratorial smile on her way out of the kitchen with her coffee mug in hand, and I lift Caleb up to strap him into his high chair. At this age, he’s fine sitting in a regular chair, but breakfast runs a lot smoother when he’s strapped in and has no chance of running around the kitchen like a wild banshee.
After I cut up some fruit and drop it onto his tray, I scramble some eggs for the two of us then blend up a smoothie that he drinks down in three big gulps.
He has a green mustache, and I tell him he looks handsome.
He really is the cutest kid I’ve ever seen, and I don’t care that I’m biased; it’s a fact. He has dark skin and hair and eyebrows and these long lashes that highlight a pair of huge hazel eyes. He’s all cheeks and big smiles and curly hair. Shelby says he looks just like me, and I’m starting to see it.
“Where should we go this morning? The park?”
“Daddy,” he says, pointing to me.
“Yeah, I’m staying with you.”
He grins and looks back down at his fruit, smashing a good bit of strawberries into his pudgy palm then shoving it all into his mouth in one go.
“Small bites, Caleb. Small bites.”
He completely ignores me and goes right back to acting like a Hoover vacuum.
I set more food down on his high chair tray, and he gobbles up every morsel of it. I think he’d keep on going forever if I didn’t stop him.
“Trying to outgrow your dad?” I tease.
Once he’s done eating, I lift him up and carry him to the sink to rinse off his hands and face. After, I dress him quickly. It’s a no-brainer on what he wants to wear: it’s Lightning McQueen or nothing in this house. I grab his hat, some sunscreen and bug spray, and extra diapers and wipes. When I’m with Caleb, I can’t leave the house without a whole damn arsenal of supplies, but I’ve learned it’s better to just take everything. I have a black backpack I use as a diaper bag, and I toss it into the front seat of my Range Rover as Donna buckles Caleb into the back seat.
“I’ll have lunch ready for you both if you call me on your way home.”
“Okay, I’ll let you know. We might eat out. I don’t have to be with the team until 1:30.”
Out on my driveway, two security guards nod at me then hop into their respective SUV. They know to follow me. They’re always with me, especially when I have Caleb. I’ve had to keep security even tighter than usual since he was born. I don’t post images of him online, and I’m careful where I take him. If I had it my way, I’d keep him safe and sound at home at all times, but I know that’s no way for a kid to live, so today, I go out on a limb and decide to take him to my gated neighborhood’s private park. Paparazzi and press can’t get through the gates that surround my neighborhood, but there’s always the chance that helicopters could be circling overhead. I check the skies, anticipating them, but I think we’re lucky Caleb likes to wake up at the crack of dawn. We might have a little peace and quiet this morning.
The park is deserted and my security guards hover near the street, giving me some privacy with Caleb. Even still, Caleb can’t resist picking flowers and running them back over to the guys.
“Dunk-Dunk,” he says, holding one up for Duncan, my head of security.
It’s pretty hilarious to see a guy with about three hundred pounds of muscle accept a tiny yellow daisy and tuck it into his suit pocket.
“Thanks, Caleb,” Duncan says, all business, before he scans the perimeter of the park.
After we’re there playing alone for a while, going up and down the slides, I glance up to see a woman pushing two toddlers in a stroller. I recognize her from around the neighborhood, and she’s always been polite and distant. Caleb has played with her son before, and he’s as eager as ever when he sees the little boy climb out of his seat and run toward the playground. Caleb trots right after him.
Duncan looks to me for input, and I shake my head. I don’t think we need to have a discussion with the boy’s mom. She doesn’t have her phone out, and this neighborhood is filled with people who value privacy. There’s a reason we live behind two gates and multiple guard houses. Everyone is here for the same goal.
I take a seat on the park bench after waving at the woman. She waves back but gives me distance, which I appreciate. I’m not really in a talkative mood. I like watching Caleb chase the little boy around to the stairs, climb up, and then slip down the slide. They go one after the other, over and over again before settling in the grass babbling to each other.
I grab my phone out of my pocket, telling myself I’m going to check my texts, but I actually click on the maps icon, typing in the address to the Cahill Center and checking to see how long it would take me to drive there from Beverly Hills. Half an hour. That’s nothing.
I consider it, and it fills me with a complicated combination of anxiety and excitement. I stuff my phone back into the pocket of my jeans and lean forward, dropping my forearms on my thighs.
It would be insane, right?
Showing up to see her?
What the fuck would I say?
I laugh out loud to myself, and the woman looks at me from across the playground like I’m utterly crazy.
Guess what? Apparently I am. Because fuck. I’m doing it.
I just have to figure out how.
I can’t drive over to see Raelynn right now on a whim. For one, I have Caleb with me. I haven’t thought about how I want to introduce him to women I’m seeing—I’ve never had to deal with that issue—but it’s not the sort of thing I want to spring on him, or Raelynn. He shouldn’t be involved when I go to meet her for the first time. Second, I have to contend with my celebrity. As much as I wish I could, I can’t just walk freely onto a college campus. Not even my security detail would be able to keep the crowds at bay.
In Pine Hill, I could get away with pretending to be a normal person, but in Los Angeles, there’s no way. Maybe if I dropped my security, I could blend in better, but then I’d be on my own, and things tend to escalate quickly around excited fans no matter how well meaning they are.
I could never admit it aloud because it would be misprinted and misinterpreted a thousand different ways, but at this point in my career, more than appreciating my fame, I feel imprisoned by it. Every simple act from going to the grocery store to running through a drive-through line is impossible. I can’t live outside of a tight set of parameters, and part of me wonders if that’s why Texas was so memorable. With Raelynn, it was like I could press the reset button. To her, I was just Ben, and looking back, those few weeks seem too good to be true, like maybe it was all just a dream. I want to press the issue. I want to see her now, here, in California.