Page 92 of I Loved You First

“Yup.”

“Why do you want to spell mom?” Ally asked.

“Because Fiona’s my best friend. And these words say, ‘do you want to be my mom?’” He pointed to the Ds and plus signs all over the page as if he were reading words in a book. “When I asked her to be my best friend, she said yes. When I ask her to be my mom, she’ll say yes again. That way, she can be my mom even when she’s at Seattle.”

Ally swallowed as she looked at Cam.

He stared back, worried that he couldn’t tell if she was more hurt or angry. Because nothing good happened when Ally was upset.

“Do you like my surprise, Dad?”

Cam nodded. “It’s a super big surprise.” Because he’d been oblivious. At no point did he have any idea that Brady’s thoughts were veering in this direction.

Ally stood. “I should probably head out.” She started back down the hall.

He hurried after her. “I’m going to walk Ally out. You stay put in here.”

“Okay,” Brady said. “But I still need to know how to write mom.”

He chased Ally down the hall, keenly aware that he was losing control of this entire situation, as she snatched up her sandals and hurried to the door. “In a minute, bud.”

She yanked on the knob, moving to her car as Cam caught up with her.

“Ally—”

She whirled. “So, it’s still Fiona, then? Even after all these years? I thought you introduced her to Brady as a friend.”

“I did.”

She rolled her eyes, clearly not believing him. “What is it about that woman? Because I don’t get it. Even my son is obsessed with her.”

He sighed because Ally had never been rational when it came to Fiona. For as long as he could remember, Ally had loathed everything about the woman he adored simply because Fi was amazing. “Our equation—you, me, and Brady—has nothing to do with Fiona.”

She huffed out a laugh as she reached for the door. “Right.”

He snagged her by the elbow before she could get in her seat. “This scenario is only about Brady.”

She turned, facing him again, the mutiny in her eyes apparent.

“Are you truly interested in getting to know him? Because I’m not fucking around with this. We’re not playing games with Brady.”

She stared at the house for several seconds before she nodded. “I want to know my son.”

He nodded, needing to believe that she meant it. But in all the years he’d known Ally, he’d never entirely trusted her. “Then we need to take this slow. I want to get a psychologist involved to help us navigate this.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

“Give me some time to wrap my head around everything. I’ll call you tomorrow, and we can talk next steps.”

She nodded again, getting behind the wheel. “Thank you, Cam.”

He exhaled a quiet breath, slightly relieved that she seemed to be settling down a bit. “Yeah.”

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” she said as she turned over the ignition and put the car in drive.

He waited for her to accelerate and disappear down the driveway before he clenched his jaw and let his head hang, trying to breathe when it felt like the wind had been knocked out of him.

Hadn’t everything been hunky-dory when he woke up this morning? Didn’t he make breakfast with his son and the woman he loved a few short hours ago? Because it was suddenly hard to remember something so wonderfully simple when the last thirty minutes had just changed everything. A shit grenade had just detonated in his life.