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"Or are you with him for his money?"
I stand up, clutching my arm as my mind races to understand what she's asking.
"You don't know, do you?" She scoffs, glancing down at my ring as if minimizing Kase's and my relationship.
When the first tears fall, I know I need to leave. “I’m sorry I ever came here.” Running out of the house, I catch Kase sitting on the swing with Reed, laughing.
The coldness left in my heart from Everly’s words, snaps and shatters in a million pieces.
I have the answers I needed.
This is where he belongs.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Kase
This is my punishment.
I left. I was a coward. Had I stayed and dealt with the consequences of my actions, I would have known I had a son. Taking a walk has only tormented me more thinking about all the what ifs? Each scenario playing in my head, ends with me being a failure as a father. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Maybe it played out how it should have.
As Everly’s house comes into view, Reed is out front throwing a football in the air. I step aside and lean on a tree to watch him. He grips the football, weaving back and forth, running to the end of the yard. He spikes the football and does a dance. I smile to myself; he gets that from his mom. I stroll toward him, studying his every move.
Our eyes catch when he notices me coming. I can’t believe how much he resembles me. “You’re with my mom’s clone, aren’t ‘cha?" I smack my head. Shit, I forgot about Ellie. I’m such an asshole for leaving her. I’m not the only one to have my world flipped upside down today. Reed stares at me while I berate myself internally.
“Is she inside?”
“Yeah. They’re talking girly stuff,” he reports using air quotes. “If she’s my mom’s sister, I guess that makes you my uncle?” That fucking hurts.
Running my hand through my hair, I grit my teeth. “Something like that. Can you throw?” I put my hands up, hoping he’ll forget this conversation and move on. His eyes light up as he squeezes the ball in his hands.
“Be prepared to be amazed,” he boasts, hopping backward farther away from me. I laugh at his overzealous distance. If he can throw that far, I will be amazed. He launches it through the air. It falls a good ten feet short of where I’m standing. Nice try, little dude. I run and pick it up, throwing it back to him so he doesn’t have time to feel like he failed. He’s a much better catcher than he is a thrower. As he darts around me, I pretend to chase him to the end of the yard. He hoots and hollers, spiking the ball again to signal he made a touchdown.
“Nice catch.”
“Thanks. I’m trying out for the football team this year. Mom says I’m too small, but she doesn’t see my potential.” I follow him up to the porch as he keeps talking. “I could be the next Tom Brady.” I try to hide my amusement as he turns toward me. “What? I just didn’t want you to have to go running for the ball, so I didn’t try very hard.” His confidence is twice the size of him.
“I think you should try out for wide receiver. You can catch and run fast. You’d be perfect for it.”
“Hmm. Did you play football?” He sits on the swing, so I sit down next to him. The tips of his toes scrape the ground. I spread my fingers across my leg and glance over at his, resting in his lap. I can’t stop looking for similarities. This intense, foreign feeling inside me is making me fixate on him.
A passing car is a welcome distraction. I’m going to scare the hell out of him if I keep staring at him and his body parts. “I did. Your—” I stop myself from spilling that his mom didn’t like me playing football either. He stares up at me, confused why I stopped. “You’re a lot like me when I was a kid. I played wide receiver.”
His smile widens and his eyes move up and down my arms. “I have muscles too,” he says, flexing his arm up.
I bite back my laughter. Squeezing his tiny muscle, I say, “Heck yeah, you do.”
“Why do you have a frog skeleton on your arm?” He points to my tattoo.
“It’s called a Bone Frog.” I stare at it wondering if I had known about Reed, would I have still gone into the military? I shrug. No matter the answer, I’m still proud as hell to say, “I’m a Navy SEAL.”
His lips twist and he peers at me through the corner of his eyes. “I guess you like animals?”
My whole body deflates against the swing. That’s not the response I was shooting for. Admiration. Idolization. Worship. Any of those would have been good.
I sit up tall and turn my body toward him. “You’ve heard of the Navy? Right?”
“Bennett’s grandfather was in the Navy.”
