As a single mom in a small town, there's only one thing I want. Another baby. When all the roads to getting what I want lead to dead ends, I turn to one of my best friends for help.
In my mind, Trent Castillo is the perfect baby daddy. He has good g...
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If you're interested in purchasing Rival Hearts (the first book in this series), it's up on Amazon and releases on October 4th.
We get deeper into June, and I'm still not pregnant, but after getting the news about Amir, I'm not sure anything can bring me down. I hadn't realized what an unconscious heavy burden the uncertainty about his medical future was until it was gone.
"Mom," Amir says, climbing into my car from the after school program, "I made something for Father's Day at school, and then we made something in the after school program today, too."
My heart seizes for a beat, and I'm at a loss for words. Are we taking those things to the cemetery?
"Oh?" I say, hoping he'll expand on what he's thinking before I make any wild suggestions.
"Yeah," he says, buckling his seatbelt. "I think Trent will like them."
Speech has definitely lost me. He knows his father died when he was a baby, but since Trent lives with us now maybe he's gotten confused.
"And some of the other kids were talking about how they make their dads breakfast in bed and stuff, and I want to do that too."
When I still don't say anything, he says, "It's this weekend. On Sunday, I think? Yeah, Sunday. I'm pretty sure."
Trent did help Amir in May to deliver me breakfast in bed for Mother's Day, but I'm stumped about the best way to approach this. Trent doesn't even want to be a true father to the baby we're trying to have, so asking him or making him take on that role for Amir seems unfair.
"You know," I say, carefully. "Trent and I might need to talk about this before we do anything."
"But I want it to be a surprise."
"But honey," I say, struggling to find the words, "Trent isn't your dad."
"Right, but he's like a dad."
He did make him breakfast, take him to do fun things, occasionally correct him when he was doing something wrong, and so I could see how all of that added up to "Dad-like" to Amir, but I have no idea how Trent would see it.
Even bringing it up to him makes my pulse jump with anxiety. Since I haven't gotten pregnant yet, we haven't had to revisit our earlier conversations around how involved he'd be, around who we'd tell, and letting Trent slip into such an important position in Amir's life seems like it warrants another discussion.
"I don't think this is something we can just spring on him," I say. "I won't tell Trent what you've made or anything, but I think I should check with him that's he's okay for you to treat him that way."
"Who else would I treat that way?" Amir asks. "My dad died. Grandpa died. Uncle Tyler is someone else's dad. Uncle Grady is nice, but he's not Trent. I want Trent."
