Hesitantly, I move closer and come to a stop at the edge of the couch. And I don't know if his soul recognizes mine, but his eyes slowly open as he comes out of one of his naps. I watch, smiling brightly, as he smiles and smacks his lips. I do the same thing, I can't help but think.
When he breathes in, I gasp and my mouth falls open as I jerk my eyes to Harloe, seeing her nodding her head. Maverick does the same snoring-gasp thing I do almost every freaking time I'm coming out of a deep sleep.
"Get me chocolate milk, JJ." I freeze at the sound of his sleep-logged voice.
"Holy shit," I breathe, watching him huff and fall back against the pillow. "He's just like me."
He must hear me because within a second, his hateful gaze peer up at me. He's quiet, deathly so. Eyes just pegging me from head to toe, taking all of me in. This goes on for several minutes, and all I want to do is squirm under his gaze.
But that’s weird, right? He’s like three-feet nothing, but the presence he carries lingers in my body. He’s a force to be reckoned with. My soul recognizes his on an unheard-of level.
Then, he says something that rocks my goddamn world on its axis. It causes Harloe to nearly faint, and Jenna to burst out laughing.
"'Bout time, Daddy."
My mouth falls open and I have to grab onto the side of the couch to keep from losing balance. Harloe is across the room and pulling him into her lap before he can chastise me with his heated eyes a moment longer.
It's like, if he was old enough, he'd be cussing me out right now.
"What did you say?" she inquires, and we both know that neither of us heard him wrong.
He called me daddy.
Maverick looks at her, cocking that eyebrow—the same way I do. It's like a tic for us or something. Jesus fuck, I'm already saying “us” like it's a done deal.
"I said Daddy, Momma." This kid has a killer monotone.
"How—Where did you even hear that?"
The little hell child slowly sits back, giving her a you really wanna go there? look. "Unky Dunky." Then his expression evens out when no one confirms nor denies my place in his life, and this innocent one slides over his face. His big, mismatched eyes, so eerily similar to mine, grow even larger. "Did he lie?"
Okay, even I can hear the condescending tone in his voice. Is this kid really two?
"You're definitely a Prince," I mutter under my breath, once again earning his ire.
He dismisses his mom, asking me in an accusing tone, "Where ya been?"
My eyes flick between Harloe and him several times. I can see she wants me to stick to the script and brush it off easily, but even I’ll admit this is harder than I thought. Honestly, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I came in here. But now, I’m sure of it. This little boy is an innocent, and it's not his fault that the adults in his life can't get their shit together, but he’s a freaking firecracker.
"I'm a ... friend." My tongue grinds against the roof of my mouth like sandpaper, knowing I've just committed my first, knowledgeable sin against him, and even the breath of relief from Harloe doesn’t make me feel better.
The kid … he just stares at me with this unreadable expression. Eyes narrowed and searching, like he’s waiting for me to slip through the cracks with a lie. It feels like a thousand degrees in this apartment. Sweat begins to slide down the back of my neck at his scrutiny. There's so much I want to say, but no words to say them. They've all left my brain, and the only thing I have left in there is mush.
"Friend?" He snorts.
He actually snorts, like he's an average adult and he calls bullshit.
I never thought a two-year-old could bust my balls, but apparently this miniature version of me is doing a swell job of it.
Everything I'd always imagined unravels right before my eyes.
The day after Hunter met Maverick, and they spent most of the evening getting to know each other, we went to the nearest doctor's office and did that blasted paternity test. I knew it was for a good reason, but still.
It was so embarrassing.
Women were looking at me like they just knew why we were there. And since many of them live here, while I haven't since high school, they knew exactly who Hunter was. So, they gave him enigmatic smiles and flirted with their long, mascara hardened lashes, while I sat there holding Maverick in my lap and got frost bite from their frigid glares.
The entire time I was trying to fight Maverick into staying still, even while he tried to fight to get in Hunter's lap.
Everything, and I do mean, everything, has turned on its head. Especially since my brother deemed it necessary to keep Maverick updated on what his last name means, who his dad is, and why he wasn't there with us to begin with.
Only a two-year-old would fall for the lie that Duncan spun into gold.
My brother told my son his daddy had to “get his head on straight before he came home.” It took several minutes to get that out of Maverick, but when I did, I was stunned silent. Hunter looked like he'd just eaten a lemon, and Jenna's eyes filled with glee, while she muttered, “I love this kid,” over and over.
The entire process of actually swabbing for the test was the easiest part. Maverick was a good boy, since Hunter held him—I sense this is going to become a problem—and he opened his mouth just as his dad and took it like a champ. The entire time, I felt eyes burning into the back of my head. As it turns out, the nurses there didn't think too fondly of someone “trying to pawn their baby off on a Prince.” The bitches.
Sitting quietly on the sofa as I do homework, I watch from the corner of my eye as Hunter and Maverick lie on the floor playing bumper cars with little Hot Wheels. A pang pulses in my chest as I watch them both cackling, and making vroom, vroom noises under their breath.
No matter how old a guy gets, they still act like kids when the Hot Wheels come out.
"Daddy, 'gain!" Maverick cackles, causing a smile to form on my lips.
Hunter hasn't had the heart to correct him, even though he shouldn't in the first place. Maverick is calling him exactly what he should be. However, with the intimacy of that sentiment, I'm terrified for Maverick as well.
I'm terrified of what this means if Hunter decides he doesn't want to be here when we get the test results in a few days. I'm even more terrified of what it means if he does decide to stay. Can I really co-parent with the man who stole everything and gave me so much more in return?
"What about pizza, little man?" I hear Hunter ask, knowing good and well he shouldn't have said a word. We've had pizza two nights in a row now.
"Hunter," I groan, fully looking in their direction.
I get two innocent expressions that wreak havoc on my resolve in return. They both give me pleading looks, dramatically widening their mismatched eyes.
"P’eas, mommy," Maverick's tiny little voice drifts through the room.
Oh, Lord.
"Yeah," Hunter says, imitating his son. "P’eas, mommy."
Hunter's version has a completely different effect on me than Maverick’s, and it's instantaneous, like a feverish sickness hitting me marrow deep. So much so, I have to move, get farther away from them, because I'm getting too antsy.