Chapter Text
“Daddy?”
Olive's steps are a delicate pattering in the hallway as she calls for him. Her fist rubs the sleep from one eye, forcing a half-blinded trek to the kitchen. The other hand has her stuffed dinosaur clenched within the vice grip of her fingers.
“Yea, baby,” Jake responds as he sips his coffee at the round table in their kitchen.
When she reaches his side, she pats his arm until he scoots his chair back far enough for her to crawl onto his lap. “Daddy, today?”
Jake sighs. He should have expected that question to be the first thing out of her mouth upon seeing him. It’s the first thing that’s come out of her mouth every morning since she found Jamie, and he found you. And while Olive is always the one to speak it aloud, it’s a question Jake has asked himself plenty.
It’s been a week since the theater. A week since you shared one popcorn while your children shared the other. A week since he asked if you’d be willing to set up a playdate. But the most that has passed between you since are a handful of text messages mentioning careers, your children, and confirming your single relationship statuses.
To say he’s moved faster with women in the past is an understatement so extreme it’s laughable, but with you, he can’t bring himself to push too far. Every time he writes out the message on his phone asking the four of you to get together, he is hit with the sudden thought that there is a lot on the line. While he doesn’t know much about you, what he does know is just a little too perfect. It makes him want to know more. More than he should.
He wants to know your past and how you see your future; your likes and dislikes; what kind of mother you are–though he suspects nothing less than wonderful. He wants to know about Jamie’s father and how involved he is; if he’s good to you, offering the support and kindness you and Jamie deserve. But then, that thought invites a new concern. If the father is in your life, should Jake allow his mind to continue wandering? Should he really be thinking about the single mother with a stunning face and a laugh that had his stomach fluttering, who also has a son his daughter’s age? You might as well have a halo above your head, and he doesn’t want to let you slip through his fingers, but his pulse races when he thinks of asking you to meet again. You could very well not feel the same. There’s a high chance you haven't been thinking about him as much as he has you.
So he hasn’t called. He doesn’t want to face the rejection. But it’s affecting his daughter now, who is rapidly growing impatient.
Olive tilts her head back, doe-like eyes staring hard at the underside of his chin until he surrenders and looks down. Her bottom lip protrudes in a pout.
“You promised,” she whimpers, and Jake snorts, fully aware of her manipulative tactics. “I wanna play with Jaime.”
She rarely asks him for anything; it truly is the least he could do for her. And maybe seeing you will help him gather the courage to ask what he is desperate to know.
“Alright, baby,” Jake agrees. “Today.”
—
The second Olive’s feet hit the sand, she beelines for Jaime.
The second his own feet hit the sand, he’s searching for you.
You’re close by, keeping a dutiful eye on the children as they meet in the middle with a tight hug. Jamie slightly lifts Olive off the ground which elicits a strand of giggles that are greatly overdue. The sight is a little squeeze to Jake’s heart. He wants her smiles always present; Her eyes permanently alight.
“How are you?” is the calling question that turns his attention. You’re walking toward him, and while there is no halo, the rays of the sun accentuate your silhouette in a comparable angelic manner.
“I’m good. Great,” he corrects as your face becomes more distinguishable. Still so beautiful. “And you?”
With that wide stomach-flutter-inducing smile, you shrug. “Never better.”
Once you’ve established beach rules and received speedy agreements, you both take a seat in the sand, maintaining a view of your children while staying far enough away to give them space to exercise their imaginations. Which they do to the utmost degree. With each game of tag played, the chaser transforms into a new ferocious creature—larger than the one before—until Jamie finds himself running from a mammoth with lollipops for tusks and a blue bow tied around its trunk. Ferocious indeed.
“It’s so easy for them,” you say. “They just slip right into it.”
Jake’s eyes meet the profile of your face as you stare at your kids in longing-like wonder.
“I never had that. Not really.” You finally look at him. “Not even with Jamie’s father.”
Were there sadness in your soft gaze, Jake wouldn’t perk up the way he does at the mention of the man he can’t avoid thinking about wherever he thinks of you. A man he’s assumed he might never hear the details of. While Jake isn't one to conceal the pieces of his past, it’s impossible to say—with such little known about you—if you approach the topic similarly. To Jake, the past is what made him who he is; good, bad, ugly. The past, however difficult, gave him his daughter, and he doesn’t refrain from speaking about that time simply because he is not ashamed of it.
Praying he’s not about to cross an unforgivable line, Jake cautiously says, “Would you tell me about him? If you’re comfortable.”
You blow out a long breath. A beat passes before you nod. “He’s not around,” you say, and Jake is met with a shameful pang of relief. “And left before Jamie was born.”
“Does he know?”
“Yes,” you reply. “But he changed the moment I told him. Grew angrier with each day. Started blaming me for not having taken precautions—like he was such a prize and I was trying to keep others from having a chance to claim him for themselves.” Your brow pinches and your toes dig into the sand as if to keep you grounded. “When I was seven months along, he met some girl at a New Year’s Eve party I was too exhausted to attend, and a month later he broke up with me to move to the other side of the country with her. I think they’re married now,” you say. “And I doubt she ever knew about me or Jamie.”
Jake’s silent as he takes it all in, thankful for what you were willing to share of your story, though there is likely more you’re not quite ready to divulge. Even so, the thought of you being abandoned at eight months pregnant is enough to simultaneously churn his stomach and invite a red hue to seep into the circumference of his vision.
You’re strong, he thinks. Stronger than many. Stronger than the man who tossed you and your son away.
You interrupt his thoughts with a question of your own. “Do you mind if I ask the same?”
Unafraid to tell his story, and eager to hopefully tighten the budding connection between you, Jake doesn’t hesitate to begin. “She’s not around, either,” he says. “And I have no idea where she is.”
From that answer alone, he notices your shoulders relax.
A shriek comes from ahead and Jake pauses to confirm it's of playfulness before continuing. “She never wanted Olive. I hate saying that, but she was honest from the beginning, and I thought I felt the same until the due date got close.”
With much of your attention given to him—the rest, of course, reserved for the children—his confidence grows.
“Somehow, it took almost nine months for the word ‘adoption’ to leave either of our mouths, though we both knew that was the path we were choosing. But hearing it—something happened to me.” Jake runs his fingers through his hair, recalling the immediate shift in his heart; remembering the relentless image plaguing his mind of a coin balanced on its narrow edge, able to land on either side. “I became unsettled, when before I was so sure. And it kept me up nearly every night until Olive came.
“When she finally did, I took one look at her and knew she was mine. More than mine by blood, but my daughter,” he says. “Her mother was pissed. Said she didn’t want me coming after her to demand she take responsibility down the line, but I swore I wouldn’t and I haven’t seen her since. I took Olive home to a house entirely unprepared for a baby, and that was it.”
Just as he had, you soak it all in. “Do you think she will ever come back?” You ask.
Purely out of respect for his daughter, Jake thinks about his answer for more than a half-second. No one has ever asked him that before. He hasn’t ever asked it himself. Because he already knows the truth.
He shakes his head and replies, “No. She’s not the type.”
With a nod, you say, “Neither will Jamie’s father. Not that I want him to. Jamie doesn’t know him and, for now, doesn’t seem to be missing that figure.” You pull your legs to your chest, wrap your arms around them, and settle your chin atop your knees. “But I fear the day I’m no longer enough for him. His friends will talk about their fathers, they’ll ask about his, and what will he say?”
Jake has been neglecting the very same worry for years. He’ll have a teenage girl one day. There are things she won’t want to talk to him about; things he isn’t sure how to comfortably explain.
But Jake doesn’t say that, though he should. Instead, he goes with what feels slightly more important at the moment—validation.
“You’re enough,” he says. “More than enough.”
In the silence that follows, you simply watch one another. Examining; deciphering; appreciating. And he could’ve stayed that way, but parental duties come first.
“Daddy!” Olive suddenly calls in tune with Jamie’s, “Mommy!”
You both break the held stare to greet the smiling faces of your children. Their hands alternate between burrowing into the ground for wet sand and dumping handfuls of softer grains over a mound of unidentifiable shape.
“Lookit! We are building our new house,” Olive yells, her arms spread wide with pride after smacking a chunk of damp sand onto the side of their sculpture.
Jaime nods with enough vigor to strain his neck.
“It’s perfect,” you say.
“You really like it?”
“We love it,” Jake confirms.
The four-year-olds share a triumphant grin before Jaime decidedly declares, “That’s good! All of us are moving in tomorrow!”