Page 35 of Falling Together

I’ll be there

See you then

I snort laugh at the emoji. I don’t really think there’s a good one for “glad you’re stepping up for your kid.”

My mind is still spinning. There’s no chance of going to sleep, so I grab my laptop and start researching babies.

I have zero clue how to raise a kid at this point. What if things have changed? I feel like the basics are the same, but I haven’t done this in well over a decade.

I should also probably figure out how to tell Luke. I wonder if there’s an Internet search for that.

How to tell your kid who is annoyed by everything you do because you up and moved him to the middle of nowhere that you’re having a baby with a woman you barely know.

Yeah, I don’t think there’s much in the way of answers for that.

The least I can do is be prepared when Georgia and I talk. That’s the one good thing about my job. I’m always studying film. I can apply the same strategy here.

I wonder if there are baby baseball mitts.

I shouldn’t already be looking, but of course there are. And they are fucking adorable. Maybe I can get one kid to play baseball with me. Luke’s all but given it up since we moved here. If it’s not on a digital screen, he doesn’t really care.

I don’t even know if it will be a boy or a girl, but it doesn’t matter. I’m going to give this kid everything.

Whatever they want, I’ll support them. I had great parents, even though they’re no longer here, that supported everything I did. Kari doesn’t show as much interest in Luke’s life as I wish she did, but at least he can talk to her about things.

I won’t be that parent. I won’t check out on either of my kids. Or Georgia.

Like I told her, I’m all in.

Chapter Eleven

GRANT

“Are you going to be okay tonight?”

“Yeah.”

Luke doesn’t look up from his video game.

“Hey.” I pat him on the shoulder, trying to get his attention, but he doesn’t acknowledge me. “Dinner’s in the fridge, okay? Leftover eggplant parmesan. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

“Okay.”

“Love you, bud.”

No response.

Jesus.

I don’t know if I’m ready to deal with this for the next however many years. He’s fourteen. How long is this going to last?

Grabbing my keys, I head out to meet Georgia. After she dropped the baby news, she gave me the out. It didn’t take me as long as I thought it would to decide I’m in. I don’t need the out she gave me.

Did I ever think I’d be raising another kid? No.

Especially considering how badly I’m doing with the first one, I don’t know why she wants me around. Somehow, I feel the need to impress her that I am a good dad, despite the fact that my kid stays in his room twenty hours a day and doesn’t say more than three words to me a day.

But I want to be a part of their life. Hell, even a part of Georgia’s, however she’ll take me.