Fated (13 page)

Chapter Twenty

“I tried to find you when I found out, I even went and talked to Jack, but he didn’t know where you were either.” He just stares at me and I wonder what he is thinking, “I’m not expecting anything from this I just want you to know. You have the right to know, the right to decide what you want to do.”

“Soph, I’m not sure what to say.” His eyes fall back to her.

“Just take some time and process it. I’ve had a lot more time than you have to deal with it and I know that I just dropped it on you.” he nods his head letting me know that he understands what I am trying to tell him.

Kaylee sleeps for an hour before she wakes up and when she does almost immediately she looks over at Austin with the identical blue eyes, completely confused.

“It’s like looking into a mirror.” He says staring at her as she continues to look at him.

“I know
, she looks just like you.”

We don’t talk for the rest of the afternoon, but he sits with me until we are able to go home and then walks us up the stairs to our apartment.

“It was a pleasure to meet you Kaylee,” he says rubbing her head and then looks to me and says, “It’s really great to see you Soph, I’ll call you.” he says to me leaning over and kissing me on the cheek and I watch, leaned against my door frame, as he walks back down the hall. I can’t help but be reminded of the first night that I met him.

He doesn’t call. In f
act, a week goes by and it’s now a week and a half later, as I sit in my office; I’m starting to become grouchy.

“So, Sophie, I have been meaning to ask you,” I hear Sarah come into my office, “but how do you know Austin?” I knew that this question was going to come up, but I was expecting it last week after the whole concert incident. I sigh and reach into my drawer where I keep a picture that we took on New Year’s Day right before we left to come home. It was taken the morning after he told me that he loved me. We are laying on the beach laughing. I can’t even remember what about, but the picture has sat in the drawer since he left. I kept all of the pictures that we had taken during our whirl-wind romance. I watch her fingers fold around the picture and her mouth drops. “You’re the girl from Miami.”

“Yeah,” I look down at the desk, “I’ve been looking for him for over a year.”

“You moved your business up here so you could find him?” she asks me.

“Something like that,” I shrug to her and she grins.

“That’s so romantic.”
She slumps down into the chair that sits in front of me.

“Well not so much. See the thing is that everything happened so fast with us. Damn, look I’m about to trust in you not to tell anyone this. He knows but I’m waiting for him to decide how he is going to handle it, and no one should know unless he decides that it’s something that he wants. Can you do that?”

“Yes.” Her eyes light up and I can tell that she loves secrets.

“You can’t even tell Brandon.”
I make myself perfectly clear just how secret this is.

“Ugh,” she pauses, really thinking it over for a second, “Alright, I won’t tell him.”

“Okay, well I have a child who is nine months old.”

“Alright,” she looks confused for a minutes and then her eyes grow wider, “The baby,
it’s Austin’s isn’t it?”

“Yes, he found out the day after the concert. I told him that I wasn’t expecting anything from him which is true, I’m not, but I’ve never stopped thinking about him since he left Miami. I tried to date again before I found out about Kay, but no one seemed to compare to him. There was something wrong with every
one of them and my sister started to make fun of me, well with the exception of the guy that was gay and the one that wanted me to pay for dinner.” She laughs a bit, “She started to make fun of me that none of them compared to Austin which I why I wouldn’t see any of them again, which is probably mostly true. When he left Sarah, he broke my heart. He changed his number and left it so that no one could find him.”

“Then tell him that.”
She says firmly.

“I can’t. I want him to be with me because he loves me and truly wants to be with me not because we have a child.”

“But I know that he still loves you.”

I can’t help but sigh, “Sometimes you can love someone but you can’t be with them.”

“If you till love one another than anything is possible.”

“Maybe, but I don’t want to force it on him.” She nods at me and hands the picture back to me.

“I know it will all work out.”

“How do you know?”

“Because why would fate bring you back together again if you are not meant to be together?”

“I’m not sure. Fate has a funny way of doing things.” I smile to her a
nd she shrugs, walking out of my office.

I feel bad for the way my conversation went with Austin, and I kind of wish that we could talk about things all over again. Every day that I go without talking to him I sleep less and less. I know that it sounds ridiculous but it’s almost as if even though he hasn’t been with us for a year now because he knows everything it has changed my life.

I end up not sleeping tonight and when I finally give myself over to the gods of insomnia and get up I find myself in Kaylee’s bedroom watching her sleep. I know that this is what I’m mean
t to do with my life. Be a mother to this amazing child. She is my life and always will be. It doesn’t matter if Austin wants to be a part of our life, we will be fine. I will figure out how to manage.

My phone buzzes in my hand and I open it quickly without looking at who is calling.

“Hello,” I whisper walking out of her bedroom and outside onto the balcony.

“Sophie,” I hear the deep sigh.

“Hey, Austin,” I gasp, since he is the last person I would think to call me right now.

“Is this a bad time?” I really don’t mean to, I mean the laugh comes out before I can stop it. “I’m sorry, I’ll call back later.”

“No, no, no, it’s not a bad time. It made me laugh because it’s two in the morning and you’re asking me if it’s a bad time.” I hear him understanding what I’m saying and he laughs.

“I can’t sleep.” He admits.

“Me either.”

“Why can’t you sleep?” he asks me

“I just keep thinking-,” I let my sentence trail off.

“A
bout what I’m going to say?”

“Yeah,”
I admit.

“Well I think that we need to talk about
it.” he says and I think I hear the sounds of traffic behind him.

“Sounds good,” I tell him.

“I think that we should do it in person.” He says to me.

“I do, too.”

“Good, because I’m downstairs.” He chuckles a bit.

“What? What if I wouldn’t have answered?” I slightly laugh and ask him.

“I would have walked home.” I laugh as I hear the elevator ding on his side. “Be up in a minute.” I hand up the phone and walk over to the front door opening it and walking out into the hall. When the elevator car dings on the floor I’m pretty sure that my heart stops, but I cannot tell for sure. When the doors slide open he still manages to take my breath away.

I see the corner of his mouth turn up as he smirks to me.

“You know,” he says stepping out of the elevator, “There’s something about you that instantly causes a smile on my lips the second I see you,” he says as he wraps his arms around me body and I can’t help but laugh.

“You are still a smooth talker aren’t you?” I laugh saying it to him as we walk inside of my apartment and into the kitchen.

“Maybe, but does that ever go away?” he smiles, shyly.

“Want me to break out a guitar for you?” I ask him raising my eyebrow at him referencing our first lunch together.

“That was a million years ago.” He looks down at the ground.

“So, are you saying that you’re a changed man, Mister Calloway?”

“Yeah,” he nods his head, “You did that to me,” and my heart breaks and I’m not really sure why, “I don’t mean that in a bad way. I mean that you showed me that there’s more to life. That’s why I walked away from the partnership that night.”

“Because of me?”
I ask, stunned.

“Yes, you told me to do what I wanted to do. To do something that makes me happy.” I see a smile spread on his lips,” and I’ve found it now, Thank you.” I mutter out a pathetic ‘welcome’ and ask him if he wants a beer. H
e nods his head and I hand him the beverage and then we walk out onto the balcony.

“This is amazing.” He says looking out onto central park.

“Thanks, it’s what sold us on the apartment.” I tell him

“I see why,” I sit down and awkwardly stare out into the city, neither of us saying a word. “So, Jack already knows about Kaylee?” he asks me.

“Yes, I was trying to find you and I was desperate. Then when he saw me a few months later at one of the events he sort of put two and two together.”

“I’m sorry I left you to go through it all alone.”

“No, Austin, you didn’t know. Hell at the times I didn’t even know.”

“Something told me not to go, something told me to stay and make you see, make you understand, but I was so fucking mad at you for not believing me.”
He admits to me.

“I understand, I really do, I’m not mad at you for leaving.” He looks up at me and I think that I see tears threatening to come out resting on the brim of his eye. I place my hand over his as he looks away again.

“She’s beautiful. She looks just like you.” He tells me smiling at me.

“I think she looks just like you. Those eyes are killer.” He laughs taking a sip from his beer.

“Well, they have managed to get me my way, my whole life.”

“I know
, I was a sucker for them.” He smiles looking to the ground and I think that I see a hint of blush on his cheeks.

“Soph,” he pauses looking up to me with a serious look, “I’m sorry for what I said to you that night at the bar.”

“No, stop. Stop apologizing. It’s done and over with I know why you said the things that you did and you know why I did the things that I did. Let’s just move on.”

“I do have one question though.” He asks me seriously.

“Alright,”

“Why did you leave, the night that we ended things, why did you leave me?”

“Because I knew that if you woke up while I was still there that it would make things harder and I wouldn’t be able to walk away.”

“Why wouldn’t you be able to?”

“Don’t play dumb, you know why.” He smiles at me and then looks down.

“Need another drink?” I ask and he nods his head not looking up at me. When I come back outside he is staring off into the distance.

“I want to be around,” he says as he hears the door close behind me.

“What?”

“I want to be around for her. I know that it took me awhile to think about it, but she’s here. She deserves to have a dad that is around and loves her.”

“How do you know that she deserves it?” I ask him and he looks up to me again.

“Because every child deserves it, I don’t want to wonder about her and you every day if you guys are doing alright. I want to be here and I want to help out with her, you will have to cut me a little bit of slack though because I have never taken care of a child before.” I nod my head and smile.

“I understand.”

“And with the other thing,” he says and I look to him confused, “Oh, don’t play that card, I think we need to figure out what we are going to do about us, I don’t think that we should jump into anything right away, maybe just start out being friends, and you have no idea how hard that is for me to say.”

“I do, I think this is a good idea.”

We sit on the balcony talking and catching up on what has been going on in our lives until the sun starts to break over the buildings.

“Did we just sit out here and talk all night?” I ask him.

“It looks that way.” I hear the crying come inside as I get up and briskly walk into the apartment. I peak my head into her room and see her standing in her crib. I smile as I walk to her and pick her up in her dinosaur pajamas, and walk back out the balcony.

“Good morning sweet Kaylee,” I says kissing her cheek as I look up to Austin and I see his face melt, just seconds before my heart does. “I would like you to meet someone.” I whisper to her as she looks around, “Kaylee I want you to meet your daddy,” I see the water beginning to take control of his eyes.
My heart seems to beat louder than I ever thought was possible. “Kaylee, can you say daddy?” she smiles attempting to say it and coming fairly close. His eyes widen as he looks to me and I smile, “Austin, please don’t disappear again.”

“Never again,” he smiles to me, “Never again, can I hold her?”

“Of course,” I say as I hear a noise coming from behind me.

“Hey Soph,” Mar says looking from me to Austin, stunned, “Oh, I see that you’ve got some stuff going on out here.” She smiles looking to me and I think I see her somewhat relieved.