Finding Me (13 page)

Owen's smile grew wide as he nodded. “Right back at you. Hey, would taking off my pants make you feel better? Because I’d do that for you.” He stood and dropped the laptop on his bed. The camera was in line with the waistband of his gray sweat shorts. My breath caught when he hooked his thumbs on either side as if he was about to yank them down.

“No, no. That’s fine. Owen, stop!”

Owen knelt on the side of his bed and rested his elbows on the edge. “Hey, it worked for a minute.” He nodded at the screen. “The face went away.”

“I really have a
face
?” I giggled.

Owen laughed back. “You wear the weight of the world on your shoulders sometimes. Why I act like a clown just to make you laugh.”

I laughed and shook my head. “You're such an—”

“Ass I know. I like making you smile. It’s a thing I have. But you feel just a little better, right? I helped?”

He did make it better. He made me forget for just a moment, and my insides turned to mush at how from hundreds of miles away he could read me so well.

“You make everything better. Why I keep you around.” I gave him a big smile as he beamed back at me.

“I'm here if you change your mind.”

I traced the outline of his chin on my screen as I let out a deep sigh. “I know.”

“If I was there, I'd kiss you until you felt better.”

I chuckled. “Can I get a rain check on that?”

The side of Owen’s lips ticked up in a smirk and he threw me a wink. “Always, City.”

“Is it January fourteenth yet?”

“I wish. And you’re staying with me that night.”

I shook my head. “Andy and Ethan will be home. They’ll . . . hear us.”

“Well, then . . . you need to learn to be quiet.”

“Bella!” My mother’s voice drifting up the stairs broke our sexy mood.

“I better go, I think dinner’s ready. I’ll be on later.”

“Okay. Speak to you tonight. Can I at least get a tank top? Cute little shorts? Give me something for Pete’s sake.”

“We’ll see. I’ll make it a surprise.”

“I miss you so much. I can’t wait to actually touch you.” Even over Skype, Owen’s fiery gaze made my stomach flop.

“Right back at you.” I grinned and closed the laptop before heading downstairs to dinner.

Joey turned to me with a mouthful of mashed potatoes when I slid into my seat at the table.

“We have one more LEGO set to put together.”

I shook my head at my baby brother and laughed. I built more LEGO projects in the past couple of weeks than in my entire childhood. “Don’t you have homework this vacation?”

“Nope!” Joey folded his arms with his nose in the air. “All done. I did a family tree!”

“You did? Very cool!” I loaded up my plate as Joey nodded at me.

“Yep. I can show you. I have pictures and everything!” Joey’s baby blue eyes twinkled as he chomped on a piece of bread.

“I’d love to see it! You can show me later.”

“Do you ever see your real dad?”

My fork stilled in my hand and I tried to figure out how to answer.

“Just eat your dinner.” Mom gazed over at Joey as her eyes darted to me.

“My friend Dominic has two dads.” Joey went on, ignoring our mother. “He has a dad he lives with and one he sees on Saturdays. He gets two Christmases and two birthdays! He even makes two different Christmas lists.” He turned to me with wide eyes. “Do you make two lists?”

I let out a sad chuckle. Two Christmas lists? I didn’t even get a card from Marc. Dominic was a lucky little boy. He had a father who made sure to stay in his life and make things special. I laughed at the sting of jealousy I felt for a seven-year-old.

“I don’t see him for Christmas, Joey. I actually haven’t seen him since I was a little younger than you.”

“But he’s your real dad. Why don’t you see him?”

“
I’m
Bella’s real dad,” Dad grumbled from across the table. “Just eat, Joe.”

I glanced at my little brother and my parents. His questions came from a simple place, but were on point. Why wouldn’t my father want to see me? I didn’t quite get it either.

The blood in my veins didn’t change because Lucas acted more like my father than Marc did. At the end of the day, I was Marc’s daughter and Joey was Lucas’s son. As much as our parents tried to dance around what he asked, the truth stayed the same.

We ate the rest of our dinner in silence. I didn’t look up, even though I felt the eyes of both my parents on me the entire time. Anytime the subject of Marc came up, my parents shut it down quickly, and then completely ignored that it was brought up in the first place. Joey wasn’t the only one in this house still treated like a baby.

After clearing the dishes off the table, I headed straight for my room and finally made the decision I’d been putting off for weeks. It was time to face where I really came from and get some answers. I opened my email, headed to my drafts folder, and sent the email to Marc.

My head turned to the soft knock at the door. I closed my laptop and quickly set it on my nightstand. It didn’t feel I was doing anything wrong speaking to Marc anymore, but I hated the secrecy of it.

“Come in!” I folded my legs under me and kept my head down. I was just as uneasy about Joey’s questions, but dodging them—like they’d dodged mine for years—was pointless and insulting.

“Hey, Butterfly. Can I sit?”

I nodded silently as Dad perched on the edge of my bed.

“Joey didn’t mean anything. He’s too young to understand.”

I huffed and met his gaze. “No, I think he understands perfectly. It’s you guys that like to pretend.”

“Pretend how, Bella?” His eyes narrowed at me and his jaw clenched.

“Marc is my father. Joey is your son. I’m not your kid and you aren’t my real father. It’s a simple truth. Why is it such a taboo subject in this house?”

Dad blinked before his face fell. It killed me to cut him to the quick, but it was the truth. It didn’t matter how much I wished I was really his daughter, or that I secretly wrote my name as ‘Isabella Hunter’ when I was little. Biology is definite, just like numbers. You can’t manipulate it to get a different answer.

“Is . . . that what you really think?” His voice was soft as he gazed at me with glossy blue eyes—the same blue eyes that Joey had. Not the shit brown ones my real father gave me.

I answered with a shrug and looked away. He stood from my bed and left my room. A lone tear streamed down my cheek; I bit my lip to keep it from trembling. Facing the truth really sucked sometimes.

I was surprised to see him come back in, holding his wallet and a shoebox. He lay both on the bed and motioned for me to scoot over so he could sit.

“I don’t think I ever showed you the pictures I kept in my wallet.” Dad unsnapped the worn brown leather and flipped to the inside. There was a picture of him, Mom, and me from their wedding day followed by a picture of both of us from the rear when I was about five years old.

“I don’t remember this one. Is that the Butterfly Garden?” I could tell by the oversized caterpillar statue I loved to sit on every time we went to the Bronx Zoo.

“That is the first day we met. Your mom snapped that picture because she said you took my hand, walked away, and we ignored her for the next hour.”

I remembered meeting Lucas for the first time at the zoo all those years ago. Mom said I made him stay in the Butterfly Garden for hours and he called me Butterfly ever since.

“I’m surprised you still have it.” The next picture was Joey’s newborn photo. He was swaddled in the typical blue striped hospital blanket with sandy brown wisps of hair sticking out from his cap.

“I always keep these three pictures with me because they were the three best days of my life.” He swallowed as he put the wallet aside and opened up the shoebox. I recognized some old pictures I’d drawn and some more photos. “This was the night I took you to the father/daughter dance when you were a Daisy scout.”

I smiled at my blue velvet dress and Mary Jane shoes. “I remember that dress. Why did you keep the pictures I drew?”

Dad shrugged. “When you have kids, you’ll understand. Your teacher gave me these the night of the dance. This picture is of us when I taught you to swim, and this one is just of me and why I was your favorite person. I used to keep them up in my office but when you left for school, I took them down and kept them here.”

I squinted my eyes at him. “Why did you do that?”

He shrugged back with a sad laugh. “I guess I’m getting sentimental in my old age. I understood why you wanted to go so far from home, but I missed you. This was the night you went from being a little girl I loved to my daughter—and you’ve been my daughter ever since.”

Guilt tore apart my insides as I gazed at the hurt on his face. Every skinned knee, every school play, every heartache, he was always right by my side—and made it clear there was nowhere else he’d rather be. Maybe I didn’t have his last name, but I had his heart; a heart I just crushed.

Oversized tears streamed down my cheeks as I leaned forward and cried into his chest. “I’m so sorry, Dad.” I
was
sorry. I’d always hate that I’d never have the biological connection with Lucas I’d craved ever since I could remember. My recent contact with Marc only made that all the more raw. The resentment of being a Christensen and not a Hunter made me overlook the one connection I
did
have with Lucas. He’d always loved me as his own, and that was the only one that ever mattered.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Dad murmured as he rubbed my back. “Don’t cry.” He pulled back and wiped my tears away with his thumbs. “But, please, don’t ever say you aren’t mine.”

I nodded and he kissed my forehead. “And come downstairs. You’ll be back at school soon enough. When you aren’t Skyping what’s his name you can spend time with your family.”

I laughed and wiped the wetness off my face with the back of my hand. “Owen, Dad.”

“Yeah, whatever.” He gave me a wink before he stood. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Dad. I’ll be right down.” Dad gave me a small smile and left the room.

I hated that I hurt him, and hated that in spite, I opened up a Pandora’s Box that would hurt him even more.

I was the naïve one. There were no simple truths.

Owen

“MY BABY BOY IS TWENTY-ONE!
Where did the time go?”

I smirked at my mother as she planted a kiss on my forehead at the dinner table. She was a little bit of a thing; I passed her in height by the time I entered middle school. But, that didn’t matter. Since I was their only child, I was still her baby boy. Both Mom and Dad spoiled me in different ways, but the dimples only worked with Mom.

Our house was huge, much too big for only the three of us. It left little doubt that more children were planned, but never came. It was something they didn’t discuss, and the extra rooms served as dens, exercise rooms, and offices. My friends always joked about having parties in our mansion. Mom pushed for a twenty-first birthday party here, begging for months and promising they’d spare no expense. Dad, with all his grumbling, would look the other way at us drinking as long as we kept it contained and no one drove home. A year ago, I would have said yes without question. This house would be packed to the gills with people and a thumping bass of music all night long. Now, however, I wasn’t feeling it. The one person I wanted to share my birthday with was on the other end of the Eastern Seaboard.