“Got it.” I shake my head and murmur, “Chill out, Mom and Dad.”
Sophie snickers, and it’s like I’m the troublesome older foster kid in this family.
I climb the stairs and make a right, knowing exactly where his room is. I push open the door, and the smell of baby powder makes me smile. Fresh. Clean. Pure.
Unlike me, whose soul is forever stained.
In his crib, J.P. puckers his lips coated with a trickle of drool. Tears well up behind my eyes, seeing hardened, pale green crusts around his nose. Poor little guy has a cold. And I can’t make it better.
I cover my mouth and shove my other hand in my pocket just to give my limbs something to do. When all I want to do is haul him into my arms, inhale his smell, and kiss his sweet, innocent little head. As if that will erase what I did.
As if loving him harder could earn me more than moments like this.
“Cor,” Darragh whispers from the doorway. “You okay?”
“I’m okay, Dar.” I bite my lip and nod.
Facing him, the look of sympathy in his eyes guts me.He signals for me to step out of the room. I get it. He wants our nine-month-old son to sleep.
Once I’m in the hall, he closes the bedroom door.
“It’s okay,” Darragh whispers.
“What’s okay?” I ask.
“What you’re feeling.”
“What am I feeling, Dar?”
He cocks his head. “Confusion? Regret?”
“I’m not confused.” I was in denial about Ana’s pregnancy when I was an addicted asshole. “But I have plenty of regret, Dar. And I’m working through it. But I don’t regret J.P. I could never regret him.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Darragh says and checks his austere Rolex watch.
My G.Q. brother is a model of perfection, while I feel like a fraud.
But for some reason, he and Ana love me. They’ve forgiven me and welcomed me into their lives. And they want J.P. to know I’m his father.
One day. They say when he’s old enough to understand, they’ll tell him the truth.
But will they tell him the whole truth?
Jeez, this is all too much for seven-thirty in the morning.
“We should get going.” Darragh turns, and I follow.
At the bottom of the stairs, I catch Ana in front of the entryway door kissing Sophie goodbye. A car idles in the courtyard with her nanny waiting inside to take her to school. My niece hugs Ana like a little girl hugs her mommy. Ana isn’t Sophie’s mom. But you’d never know it.
Yeah, this family has been through hell.
At least it isn’t all my fault.
Just most of it.
Chapter 9
Cormac