He doesn't run. Doesn't move. Just watches me approach with something that looks almost like relief on his face, which only makes me angrier.
“Tiff—”
“Stay. Away,” I hiss, keeping my voice low but sharp enough to cut through the noise outside. I'm close enough now that I don't need to shout, and the last thing I want is to wake Ella or cause a scene. “What the hell are you doing here? Are you stalking me now?”
“What?” He blinks a few times, genuinely confused, which only pisses me off more. “No, I'm not—”
“Jamie.” I take another step forward, and he raises both hands in surrender.
“I promise. I wasn’t here for you. I had a meeting at student services. I wasn’t—I didn’t know you’d be here. I swear.”
“Student services?” I laugh, bitter and disbelieving. “Right. What would you need with student services? You go to Southern Collegiate. In California.”
“Not anymore.” The words come out quiet but firm. “I'm transferring.”
The world tilts sideways.
No. No, he did not just say what I think he said.
“Transferring,” I repeat numbly. “Here. To St. Michael's.”
He nods, and I see something flicker across his face—nervousness, maybe? Hope? I don't know and I don't care because my brain is too busy short-circuiting.
“You can't—” I start, then stop, shaking my head. “Why? Why would you transfer here?”
His eyes drift to the stroller, to Ella's sleeping form, and the answer is written all over his face before he even opens his mouth.
“You know why.”
“No.” The word comes out strangled. “No, you don't get to do this. You don't get to just show up and upend our entire lives because you suddenly decided you want to play daddy.”
“I'm not playing anything,” he says, and there's an edge to his voice now, a crack in that careful composure. “She's my daughter, Tiff. I want to know her. I want to be here for her. For both of you.”
A harsh laugh escapes me. “Both of us? You don't even know me. You gave me a fake name when we slept together.”
He flinches. “I know. I know I fucked up. That's why I'm trying to—”
“Trying to what? Fix it?” I shake my head, feeling tears burn behind my eyes. I will not cry. I will not give him the satisfaction of seeing me upset. “You can't fix this, Jamie. You can't just transfer schools and think that makes up for four years of nothing. For three of those years with your family trying to destroy me in court. Four years of—”
I cut myself off, swallowing hard against the sob threatening to break free.
His jaw tightens. “I didn't know. About the lawsuit, about Ella, about any of it. My parents—”
“Oh, don't.” I hold up a hand. “Don't you dare blame your parents. You're an adult. You could have looked for me if you'd wanted to.”
“How?” The word bursts out of him, frustrated. “You think I didn't try? I searched for you, Tiff. But all I had was a first name and a vague memory of a party I was too drunk to remember properly. Do you know how many Tiffs there are in the world?”
“Then maybe you should have thought about that before you—” I stop, glancing down at Ella, making sure she's still asleep. When I look back at Jamie, I drop my voice even lower. “Before you slept with me and forgot I existed.”
“I didn't forget you.” His voice is raw now, stripped of pretense. “I've thought about you every day since that night. Every. Single. Day. And when I found out about Ella, when Irealized what my parents had done, what I'd done by not being there—”
“Momma?” Ella's sleepy voice cuts through the tension like a knife.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
I immediately crouch down, blocking Jamie from her view as much as possible. “Hey, baby. We're almost home, okay? Just close your eyes.”
“Where are we?” She rubs at her face with one small fist, her tiara slightly askew.