by Laura Brown
“How was your first day?” he asked, a smile on his face. He held himself in a lighthearted manner she feared she’d destroy in minutes. She also knew she had to.
“Fine.” Oy, look at her, all short and curt. “I appreciate you helping me get set up today.” As far as being a supervisor went, Nolan was great. He’d reviewed the tasks he needed her help with and got her set up on her computer in the assistant/intern area. She kept glancing at him now, disbelieving she’d really found him, and feeling a little starstruck by his handsomeness.
The man was eye candy. Izzy already caught the college students in the corner glancing his way, even before the novelty of two adults signing had been introduced.
“Happy to help.” He looked so carefree, a sensation Izzy hadn’t felt since before her pregnancy test sported two little lines. A part of her wanted to wipe that carefree aura off him, his turn to deal with the reality of their one night. Another part of her wanted to let him keep it. After all, it had been her decision to raise their child whether or not she ever found him.
Their child. Words she hadn’t thought until now.
Among the usual coffeehouse chatter, giggling hit Izzy’s ears. She turned, checking out the sound, finding the college-aged group not only the culprit, but also staring her way. Or rather, Nolan’s way. Izzy wanted to grumble. She was maybe two or three years older than them and it felt like ten.
A tap on the table had her facing Nolan again. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
She thumbed behind her. “You have a fan club.”
His eyebrows lowered as he glanced over her shoulder. “I’m sure they’re interested in the ASL, that’s all.”
Izzy shook her head, amused despite herself. “Nope. I caught them staring before I arrived.”
She expected Nolan to look at the group again. Instead those brown eyes studied her. “You were watching me?”
She raised her hands but didn’t sign. Crap. She had been, and she’d admitted it. Her cheeks heated and she willed them not to. This wasn’t a date, not in any sense of either of their imaginations.
It felt like one.
They hadn’t been able to chat like this last time, not that either of them wanted to do anything resembling talking. On that thought she really needed to pull this conversation back around. She had a baby to get home to.
She prepared to do just that, rip off the Band-Aid, tell Nolan the real reason she wanted to meet with him, when two shadows hovered over the table. She looked up at the man and woman standing there, as did Nolan.
“We…learn…ASL,” the woman signed.
Oh boy. Izzy wanted to hide her face. Not now, ASL students! And it occurred to her that that had been the extent of her abilities when she first met Nolan. How did he deal with her newbie signing?
Nolan smiled and gave the pair a thumbs-up. “Nice to meet you.”
Huh, he had slowed his signs down, and probably had for her, too, that fateful night. And she still hadn’t been able to catch his rapid-fire fingerspelling of his name. If she had, they wouldn’t need to have this conversation.
“You…deaf?” the man asked.
Izzy forced a smile when she wanted to shoo them away.
Nolan didn’t seem to mind. “Yes, I’m deaf.”
The students turned to her. “Hearing,” she signed.
The pair nodded. They didn’t appear to have anything else to say, shifting on their feet. This day didn’t need any more awkward. “We’re going to talk now,” she signed, amazing herself that she slowed down her own signs, when she’d been signing for only two years herself. It helped having a Deaf future brother-in-law and knowing she needed to sign if she ever met Nolan again.
The students waved and left, and Izzy tried to collect herself and get back on topic.
“Always nice to see more people learning ASL,” Nolan signed, taking a sip of his drink as he did so.
Izzy nodded and then decided, screw it, she needed to jump in with both feet, an Izzy specialty. “I meant what I said, I tried to find you. I had to find you.”
Those blond eyebrows lowered.
This should be a flirting thing. She should be reaching across the table, brushing his hand. Another time, another place. They were beyond that now, in more ways than one.
“I don’t know how to say this.” She tried to come up with the words all day, and right about now she wished she’d figured something out.
“Would writing help?” Nolan asked.
Izzy shook her head, ready to kick something. She signed better than those students, dammit! “No it’s not a language thing, it’s…” Her hands flailed, and she needed a few more moments without his gaze on her before she messed things up even further. “I need a drink. Excuse me.”
And then she scurried away to order a coffee—nerves or not, a latte had become a necessity. As far as impressions went, Izzy once again failed spectacularly.
…
Nolan chuckled as Izzy headed for the counter, amused and intrigued by her behavior. She hadn’t been a fan of the interruption, and if Nolan were honest, he could have done without it, too. He meant what he’d said, though. He appreciated more people taking an interest in ASL, because it meant more people he could communicate with.
Izzy’s ASL skills had improved greatly. Not fluent, nowhere near fluent, and her grammar was a mix of English and ASL. But she could carry a conversation, and he found himself as intrigued by her personality as he was by her beauty.
Wrong train of thought. Unfortunately, the allure still held.
Izzy returned with a to-go cup in hand. She took a deep breath and blew it out and his curiosity peaked again. “O.K.. I need to jump in or I’ll never do this. I missed your name when we met, and we didn’t exchange numbers. I tried to find you but couldn’t.” She wrung her hands together.
“I had taken a job out of state.” He had hoped their paths would cross again, but the out-of-state job had been an opportunity he couldn’t pass up. At least, it had been at the time.
Her eyes darted back and forth between his, and the hairs on the back of his neck rose. This wasn’t a “what a small world, how ironic we meet again” thing after all.
She lifted her cup, then put it down without drinking. “That night, you and I…I got pregnant.”
Nolan blinked. Blinked again. But no, those were the words she signed.
He shook his head. It was one night. They had used protection. Though his own existence was proof that protection didn’t always work.
“Pregnant?” he asked, in the off chance there was any possible way he’d misunderstood. He studied her, his mind full of questions. Did she have the kid? Did she abort or give it up for adoption? Did she lose it? Whatever happened, he realized with a sinking feeling, she’d had to do it all on her own.
She nodded. “We have a son. He’s nine months old.”
He. Had. A. Son. With the woman he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about. Everything he knew had changed in the span of the last two minutes.
Breathe, Holtzman, you’ve got responsibilities now.
Izzy woke up her phone and set it in front of him. The image of a baby with a few wisps of brown hair and two bottom teeth stared back at him. Could be any kid, with any parent. But the smile…that same smile existed in his own baby pictures.
“What’s his name?”
“A-R-C-H-I-E.”
His son had a name. He was looking at the boy’s face, even. And still, it didn’t quite feel real. When he woke this morning, he was a single twenty-five-year-old, living alone, with only his mother for family. Now he had a kid.
He shot his eyes from the baby photo back to Izzy. She’d been a college student when he’d been a recent graduate, so she had to be younger than him, and she’d opted to bring their child into this world and raise him. He was feeling too many things at once—shock, anx
iety, uncertainty, and a hell of a lot of respect for the woman sitting across from him.
The mother of his child.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t find you,” she signed.
“Not your fault.” He wanted to reach out and soothe her, tell her everything would be fine, but he didn’t know how to be a father. He’d support the kid, that much was a given. He wasn’t an asshole like the man who created him. But beyond providing material necessities? He had no father figure. Not a fucking clue how to fill those shoes.
“Father” was a meaningless word to him that could mean sperm donor, and considering Archie’s creation, the same could be said about the next generation.
Damn condoms. Virility must run in his genes.
Nolan had been known as the screw-up around here. Part of the reason he left town after that night with Izzy was to get a job away from where he’d grown up. And now that he was back he had one chance, this new job, to prove he wasn’t the kid who evacuated the high school.
Accident. Of course. And not the cool smoking behind the bleachers way or pulling the alarm as a prank. More in the science experiment gone wrong way. The model rocket worked great, in an outdoor area, but inside the gym it turned into target practice with his classmates.
He’d been a freshman, and the event was famous enough that his sign name had been changed—“rocket” with an N shape instead of an R.
He hadn’t grown out of being awkward, either. Case in point, this moment. He sat there, not signing a word, captivated by Izzy’s brown eyes. Somehow, even with this bombshell dropped at his feet, she still drew him in. He still wanted her.
The screen turned black and Izzy pulled her phone away. “I know this is a lot and unexpected. Trust me, I know. If I need a new job or…” Her hands trailed off. She signed a hell of a lot better now than when they first met, but English was her first language and it showed.
“No. It’s fine. We’ll work it out.”
Izzy nodded. “I don’t need anything from you. I just wanted you to know.”
Why did that hit him low in his gut, a sucker punch on top of the initial shock of having a kid in the first place? “I don’t know what’s right here, but I can pay child support.”
Something changed, the warmth in Izzy’s eyes closed off, a fierceness shone in the set of her jaw. “Fine.”
Crap. He didn’t know what he did wrong, only that he’d done it again.
Once a screw-up. Always a screw-up.
And now he had a kid.
Chapter Three
Izzy parked in her spot at her future brother-in-law’s house, exhausted after a long day at work and an emotionally draining meeting with Nolan. The secret she’d been forced to keep for far too long had been revealed. Relief should be her first feeling. But it wasn’t.
Disappointment was.
Her dream of Archie’s father falling in love at first sight and scooping him up and never letting him go had faded to dust right there in the coffee shop, and father and son hadn’t even met.
For a brief moment Izzy wondered if it would have been better never to have found Nolan at all.
No, scratch that. This was better. Archie would at least know who his father was, even if the man earned the title of birth father. Health concerns, genetics, lineage, all that mattered more than finances.
She’d give Nolan time, he deserved that much, and chalk her unrealistic expectations up to wish fulfillment.
She got out of her car and collected her belongings, ready to enter the house she was fortunate enough to call home. She would have preferred to get a place on her own, but it was either move in with Gaby or go back to her mother’s house in Connecticut, where Izzy knew she’d never find her child’s father. Or finish college. She wanted to stand on her own two feet, but she had been lucky to graduate on time, and her sister’s help was the reason why. This job, she hoped, would open the door to being independent, and one day she’d get a little two-bedroom apartment for her and Archie.
Not on this income with housing prices in the area, but each step forward was a step in the right direction. And bonus, her sister hadn’t set a wedding date yet, so she still had hope of moving out before she infringed on newlyweds.
Her sister had been lucky, finding the right man to share her life with. Levi would be thrilled to start a family. That pesky fantasy wish, of finding Archie’s father and having him drop everything to love the child he never knew he had, lingered. Her hopes may have been unrealistic, but tell that to her ever hopeful heart.
One day, maybe, Nolan would come around. Or she’d find a different man to be Archie’s father.
And he’d be handsome and wealthy and would love her family more than she did. Because unicorns were real and elections weren’t rigged.
Izzy pushed through the front door, more than ready to see her son.
“How’d it go?” Gaby asked as she came into the room. She signed as she spoke, something both of them did most of the time, a habit whether or not Levi was in the room.
Izzy lit up at the baby on Gaby’s hip, clapping and reaching and bouncing. She gathered up Archie and held him close, breathing in that baby scent.
“Where’s the alcohol?” She mumbled the words, her face still mushed into her son’s neck. She tended bar briefly, before her pregnancy had stopped her; she could whip something together to pack a punch.
Gaby took the bag off Izzy’s shoulder. “That bad? Do you really want to pump and dump?”
Izzy shifted Archie so she could sign as she spoke. “No. Well, maybe.”
Gaby took Archie from Izzy’s hands and placed him on the floor with a cloth book. “Okay, baby’s occupied. What happened?”
Izzy shook her head, hoping the tears threatening to fill her eyes stayed at bay. She hadn’t realized how much she wanted the fantasy of a happy family until the whole thing went up in smoke. “He offered to pay child support when a kid needs more than a bank account!”
Gaby rubbed Izzy’s shoulder, signing with her free hand. “Financial support will be a good thing.”
Izzy sucked in some air. “I know. I know. I need it and you and Levi have been so helpful. But a kid needs a father. Life is so short and he’s already lost so much time.”
Gaby’s hand continued the slow, soothing pace on Izzy’s arm. “The man just found out he’s got a kid. You have to give him time to adjust. You sprang the little cutie on him.”
Archie crawled over to Izzy, then used her knees to pull to a standing position, bouncing on his feet as he grinned up at her. Her heart melted, as it always did when she looked at him. “Who can resist this little face?” She picked up her son and held him close.
“I sure can’t. Give Nolan time. He might surprise you.”
Izzy wasn’t so sure, but she breathed in the baby scent of her son as she absorbed her sister’s support. Regardless of Nolan, Archie already had a family, a small but loving one.
They’d make do. Like they always had.
…
Nolan pressed buttons on the controller, thumbed the D-pad, and did his best to beat the crap out of the character his best friend played. Bodhi, with his trick fingers, did a move Nolan had never even seen before, and Nolan’s character hit the ground, defeated.
Damn old-school games.
Nolan threw his controller on the couch at the themed bar. The entire room held various video game equipment, ranging from old-school to current, and patrons drank and played. Nolan’s idea of the perfect bar, when Bo didn’t decimate him. “What the fuck was that?” he signed.
Bo stretched out his fingers. “Magic.” He glanced around the moderate-sized bar crowd. “Are we meeting here because you’re tired of me picking on you for your half-empty apartment?”
Nolan shrugged. He needed out of his head, and the distraction of the bar held far more appeal than staying home. Nothing had settled
right since Izzy’s reveal hours ago. He had a kid. A son. The concept didn’t seem real, not yet.
“Because I know you haven’t made any changes even without being there. It doesn’t look like you live there, know what I mean? At the very least put some of your artwork up on the walls.”
Nolan’s apartment suited his needs. Sure, it had bare walls and could be an Airbnb for all the personality he put into it. Did he really need to hang up his drawing of a sunset when he lived alone and could see the image on his computer? “You want to be my decorator?”
Bo grinned. “I’m not that kind of queer. Though you need some color; have you heard about anything beyond beige?”
Nolan narrowed his eyes and glared.
Bo’s teasing smile faded at Nolan’s inability to tease back. “What’s got you all tied up? Find something new to mess up?”
Nolan scrubbed a hand down his face. Once a screw-up… The answer was a clear, “Yes.”
Bo leaned forward. “The new job? You worked hard at that place in New York, the blowup wasn’t your fault.”
He had a history of starting off good then turning to shit. Case in point: New York and the social media fiasco from hell. “Not the job.”
Bo waited and Nolan knew he’d wait him out. Always had. They’d met in kindergarten and struck up a fast friendship. Good thing, too, since a small school meant if relationships went sour, there weren’t many options to run to. But Nolan and Bodhi were at each other’s sides from day one. Heck, Bodhi tried his best to run interference when the rocket went out of control, and still had the scar on his hand from the noble attempt.
Therefore Nolan didn’t try to hide. Bo knew all his mess-ups and hadn’t judged a single one. He leaned forward, grabbing his beer and taking a swig. “Remember that woman, the ASL student?”
“The one you obsessed over?”
“I don’t obsess!”
Bo rocked his hand from side to side. “You obsess.”
