His Little Boy

Chapter 6

It was easy to fall into a pattern. Let me rephrase, it was easy to fall into a pattern with him. He made it easy. And it sucked.

No, actually I lied. It doesn’t suck as much as it frustrates me. It’s hard for me to think about moving on with him right now, regardless of how eager I thought I was. I hadn’t lied when I spoke to him about my non-existent feelings towards my dead boyfriend, harsh I know. But I still hadn’t lied. I wanted to move on, but it wasn’t as easy to put yourself out there anymore. I was essentially used goods, scarred in more ways than one and no matter how hard I looked into a mirror, it wasn’t changing at all. I couldn’t see what Nickolai was saying, so it was making it harder and harder to get close to him. But I was trying, you couldn’t fault me that.

“So I was thinking…”, I smiled as I looked up from the paperwork on my desk to see Nickolai standing in my doorway, one leg crossed over the other and his arms across his chest. I let the glasses slip down on my nose to glance over at him, not overly worried about why he was here.

“What’s that?”

He pushed off the wall, propelling himself forward towards the desk. Instead of sitting in the chair across from me the way I thought he would, instead he sat on the desk in front of me, tugging my chair forward so I sat between his bent knees. I rested my forearms on his legs, allowing the light tugging of his fingers through my hair to calm me down.

“A date. You, me and Keenan. Tonight.”

My eyes flew open to look up at him, finding him completely serious. “You want Keenan to come?”

“Of course I do,” he frowned lightly. “He’s your son, it’s not like he’s your boyfriend or something. Besides, I haven’t had a good chance to be around him and I want to know the little guy.” His hand moved from my hair down to my hand where he held it tightly. “I want to be in your life, Sam. Keenan is a very important part of you and you’re very important to me.”

I felt tears brim in my eyes, shocked by his admission. I always knew that finding someone who would love Keenan like their own was going to be a hard task, but to have him say that after not even meeting my son properly was a dream come true.

“Hey, I didn’t mean to make you cry. What did I say? Please don’t cry, Sam.” He gathered me out of the chair and deposited me onto his lap, curling my body up and pushing my head into his neck. I took the time to gather my thoughts, rearrange my priorities and stop living in the past. I nuzzled further into his skin, letting his heady male musk calm me.

“I’m okay Nickolai. I’m just amazed that you accept a little boy you’ve never met.”

He shrugged and carefully moved some hair out of my mushy face, the same way he did after the escalator incident. “I accept him because he is a part of you. I’m sure the little man will have me wrapped around his baby finger by the end of the night, but until then…”

I laughed and leant forward to kiss his cheek, “That’s a promise, trust me. That kid will cast a spell on you and no matter how much you may want to walk away, you can’t.”

“Did you ever consider adopting him out?”

I sighed, “Yeah, I did. I was a single mother and Aaron was dead and I just didn’t know what to do. But my father came and stayed with me for the pregnancy and Aaron’s parents take care of him every now and then and it just makes things easier. I couldn’t imagine giving the little man up, and as soon as he was born that was the last thing on my mind. When you have a baby with someone you will know what I mean. It’s like you fall in love with them as soon as you see them, there’s no ifs buts or maybes about it.”