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“WHAT?!” both men yelped in shock, staring at him.
“I married her,” he repeated simply, treasuring how good that single statement felt and remembering this morning’s events. It felt so good to hold her close, to kiss her, and that small miracle that came with having a family around him. He’d been alone for much too long now and was more than ready to share his life with someone.
“Dude, you two just stopped talking,” Alec retorted. “She ghosted you, remember? Has she got a good reason for doing something like that? I mean, you were devastated – or did you forget that?”
Colton opened up the phone and clicked on the photo of Zane, turning it around to show his friends, and he saw both chins drop, right before they closed their mouth.
“That’s not cool,” Alec said grimly.
“Is that your kid?” Lance chimed in, stunned.
“We’ve got a lot to talk about – yes – but I married her to tie her to me. I’m not losing contact again,” Colton explained bluntly. “That’s my son, and he’s going to have my name.”
“Oh, I get it,” the other firefighter retorted. “I’d have done the same – because if she ghosts you again, I’d want to file an Amber Alert or something. That’s seriously messed up that she had your child and never said a word. Bro, she stole those moments from…”
“Alec,” Colton interrupted, realizing the man was saying the same things he’d already thought. “Please? Please, listen. I know – and you are right – but to have a chance to know my son, includes mending some fences with his mother. I don’t like what she did, but we’ve already talked about it some. I’m sure we’ll talk more now that we have a chance to do so. Sometimes you have to be the bigger person in order to move forward – and I’m choosing to do that.”
“I’m not sure I could.”
Alec sounded so bitter, and Lance was surprisingly quiet, just staring at him in shock. Colton understood. It was a shock to the system, and he had once felt the same as the other man – until he looked into his own eyes on the face of a child. In that very moment, all those old hurt feelings didn’t matter because he wanted to know that little being, and that fascination, admiration, and love for Zane was overwhelming in a way that no one would ever know or understand.
That was his son.
Sure, Eris had run from Colton. She’d hidden her pregnancy. There were some rough spots to heal from between the two of them; but the chance was there to build something greater – and he recognized it.
He wanted his son to grow up knowing him and having a relationship with him, and that feeling was more powerful than anything. A blind, unconditional love that a parent had for his child made him capable of forgiving everything and stepping forward to put the past behind them in a way he never imagined.
“I don’t expect you to understand,” he said quietly, as they pulled up to the station, meeting their eyes. “But if Zane and Eris ever come to the station, please be kind… for me. That’s my boy, my wife, and they are my choices.”
“No worries, Fischer,” Justin said from behind him. “That’s something we are working on – all of us becoming a family, and y’all are in for a treat. Chad?”
Chad, the engineer, turned in his seat, grinning.
“My wife made a big pan of lasagna, a loaf of fresh bread, and brought it to the station… we’re eating good today, fellas!”
“And Mrs. Justin, my sweet Faith, made a German chocolate cake,” Justin volunteered – bumping knuckles with Chad before smiling back at them. “Heads up, she used double the coconut and no pecans in case Andy gets a hold of it. Not sure how it’s gonna taste, but she found a recipe for it and was all excited, so I volunteered you guys as guinea pigs.”
“Aww, man,” Alec retorted. “You mean it might be nasty?”
“How exactly do you screw up cake?” Lance blurted out.
“By leaving out the pecans and substituting stuff…”
“I had no idea Mrs. Justin would dabble in the black arts like that. To sacrifice perfectly good cake, mixing all sorts of stuff together. Does that make her Voldemort?”
“Dude! Right? Evil genius and…”
“Hey!” Justin snapped. “You two knuckleheads can’t have any cake then! My wife… my precious wife… baked it for you to try, but if you are going to be ungrateful little turds about it or hurt her feelings? Then you cannot have any cake!”
“I’m grateful and can’t wait to try it,” Colton grinned, seeing two sets of eyes swing toward him and Chad’s easy laugh. “Mrs. Justin is amazing.”
“Hey…”
“What gives, bro…”
“Seriously?”
“Cake is cake,” Colton chuckled at the duo talking over each other in protest, putting his hand up toward the cab of the truck and bumping knuckles with Chad, then Justin, in solidarity. “And Mrs. Justin is family to our team. I would eat sawdust to make any member of our family happy.”
