Charlotte

Lowell kisses me as if no time has passed at all, and it still feels like the very first time outside the old Dairy Queen back in college. I don’t get to feel much more of him before he leans back like he has to get away before it goes any further. I’m almost glad he did because I wouldn’t have had much self-control.

It would be easier if I came here to do that, but I didn’t.

Over the years, I had imagined how this conversation might go should it ever happen. At least two years after I stopped thinking we would run into each other, I couldn’t get in contact with him. He was famous by then, and I would have been one of probably many claiming to have his baby. But it’s the truth—I haven’t been with anyone else and hadn’t back then either. Things like this took the back burner especially when I knew I was pregnant, and after that when I was busy with work and raising her mostly on my own. I couldn’t have done it without Catherine. Sometimes I would wish Lowell was there and knew about her.

He was never a bad man, at least not to me, and he did deserve to know his daughter.

“What happened, Charlotte? Really.” Lowell leans back and runs both his hands through his hair, his blue eyes darken and stare me down. He has always been so handsome, his looks unconventional but perfect on him, and his personality added to them. He was not like I thought he was in the beginning—a stereotype to college football stars, homecoming kings, and young playboys. He was his own person, always better than that.

“I was…” I stop and remind myself not to whisper. As much as I want to keep the truth to myself for a little while longer because I know how much it might hurt, I can’t.

My eyes fall back to his face, partially twisted with anguish, waiting on my answer. I don’t even know if I have one yet. But when I think of Kimberly back home in bed or probably convincing her aunt to let her stay up late, I wish I could have done more for her.

I didn’t have the best childhood with my dad, but at times he did spoil Catherine and me—we were his little girls. Kimberly should at least get to have the same. Sometimes I would try to picture them together, but I never knew enough about him to know if he even liked kids or how he would be with them. But when I saw him with Kimberly in the office today, that small glimpse was enough to know how much I took from him.

“I found out I was pregnant in May about a week or so after what would have been your graduation.” I almost smile at the weird memory because I only thought something was off when my clothes didn’t fit anymore. “I was doing a broadcast piece, and that’s when I found out. By then, you had already left, and I called you but didn’t get an answer. I thought… I don’t know what I thought.” I trail off, shaking my head to myself as I turn away and count my breaths.

“I don’t know, I guess I didn’t try hard enough.”

“That sounds… insane.” Lowell hardens his voice, the sharpness of it is unknown to me, and I flinch at the sound of it.

“I know, but I didn’t know what else to think. I mean you were gone, and I didn’t know if you were coming back or if you even cared. I would have done more… I guess I saved myself the trouble. I don’t know.”

“Shit, Charlotte, I don’t even know what that means.”

“I was young and pregnant. I did a lot of things wrong.” My voice raises as it squeaks too. I have to clear my throat as I wince, and my eyes flinch.

“I didn’t know if I was coming back either. I planned to.” He softens his voice again and seems to relax at least a little bit.

“Really?”

His arm comes across the table, and his lips twitch at the corner when he looks at me.

“Yeah. I thought I would do rookie training and then be good to go, but that’s not how it worked. And when I found out I was first string and that huge contract… I guess I didn’t want to go back to the old life. Maybe not you in particular, but I wish I could tell you I wanted to come back to you more than I wanted to make five million dollars a year to throw a ball. But that would be a lie.”

“I… I guess I wish I could tell you I tried everything when I found out I was pregnant, too. With your baby.”

“So, you agree she’s mine, too, then?” His chuckle is choked and uneasy. “Because that saves me the trouble of the hard part.”

“The hard part?” I tighten my brows together, and he avoids my gaze at the same time.

Lowell reverts back to his hard gaze and backs off the table again. I don’t pry him because it doesn’t take me long to understand what he means.

“You found out about her today,” I speak slowly like I have to think about the words before I say them.

He shrugs. “Shouldn’t that be all it takes? I can make us do every test in the book and run away from it, but I’m not going to. I won’t do that.” His eyes glaze over before he blinks it away. “She’s mine, too.”

When I figure he is hiding something, it makes it hard to be angry with him for insinuating he would have taken legal action against me or gone beyond us sitting down to discuss things like this. I can’t imagine how it would go if he did.

“I know she is. I’m not arguing with you on that.” I clasp my hands and stare at my French manicured nails like it’s more interesting than this. It’s much easier to take in, though.

“Good. When can I see her?”

My laugh is incredulous. “We can’t turn her life around so quickly.”

“What is your suggestion then?” His smile is soft when he leans in and licks at his lips without thinking. I let his angled jaw and full lips distract me until I come up with a response.

“I don’t know. There was nothing in the parenting books about this.”

“You read those?”

“Yes, I did,” I say seriously, and he laughs at me.

“Lowell…” I giggle once, “… I guess we can ease into things. And when the time is right, I can tell her. I need to figure out how, though.” There was definitely nothing about revealing to your daughter who her father is after you’ve made up an elaborate story as to why he isn’t around like the other kids’ fathers. I guess it isn’t so elaborate. I told her it was just us, and she didn’t need one to have a good life. My dad is around on holidays and whatnot to fill that gap sometimes, but her grandparents aren’t around much. My parents took to traveling and wineries in their retirement.

“Okay. How long until then? What if I spilled the beans? It isn’t like she would be traumatized.”

I scoff, “Oh God, please don’t. I mean it, Lowell. Kimberly has a good life.” I grin.

He rolls his eyes in submission. “You know she told me her mom was rich before you walked in.” He chuckles.

I laugh. “I told her to stop saying that.” I shake my head. “Anyway, she has a routine.”

“She’s five.”

“It’s important at this stage…”

“When I was five, I had no routine or whatever it is you want to call it. But, whatever you want, I’ll do.”

I nod, and we go back and forth over more of the same thing. Lowell seems like himself, and I relax a little bit too. Knowing we hashed some things out and don’t have any hard feelings feels right. About Kimberly, at least. I have yet to find out if we will be co-parents or… or hardly even what we were before, whatever that was.

“Tomorrow at six. I’ll be there.” Lowell walks me to the door. About an hour had passed, and I’m eager to be home but somehow a little reluctant to leave him. A bit like before when I got over a hotshot senior athlete wanting me and let myself fall for him at least a little bit.

“Okay.” I turn in the threshold of the door staring up at him. He seems taller, more imposing, his features only a little older.

“Thanks for coming.” His lips close in a smile staring down at me. He takes a step closer, and we breathe the same air.

“Of course.” I exhale. Looking into his eyes, I watch his blue eyes blaze.

“I want to make this work, Char…”

I smile. He hasn’t called me Char in so long. I remember the first time, I hated it, and then it grew on me, much like everything else with him back then.

“Me, too.” I almost want to ask how much of it he wants to work and tell him what I want, but the answer comes instead when he fills the gap between us and kisses me again.

His lips mold to mine, and I lean up to feel a little bit closer. The heat of his palm presses into my lower back as he holds me close. My purse slides down my arm, and I let it fall as I wrap my arms around his neck letting my body mold to his. His taste floods me when his tongue laces over mine, and his lips pull me in harder. I collapse into the kiss as much as he seems to, and I find it hard to want anything else for that moment.

I only wish I knew how we really felt about each other.