Cal
Tap. Tap tap tap. Cal rolled his eyes, annoyed at being disturbed when he’d just opened up his first beer of the evening. It had been a long day at the office dealing with patients, and then a long afternoon at the MC clubhouse, and all he wanted to do was curl up into his couch, watch some mindless television, and fall asleep. But no, the universe wouldn’t grant him that much, it seemed. Somebody was at his front door.
“No thanks, I don’t want to buy whatever you’re selling—” Cal started to say as he opened his door. He cut himself off when he saw his ex-girlfriend, Briana, standing on his front porch. What the fuck? Cal thought to himself. He swallowed hard around the lump in his throat. He hadn’t seen or heard from her in almost five years, after she’d left in the middle of the night with no warning. He stood there, fumbling over his words, for a long moment before he finally forced himself to say, “Bri. Long time no see.”
“Yeah, save it, Cal,” Briana said, sighing deeply and brushing some hair off her forehead. Her face was drawn, her cheeks a little sunken in. She looked like she hadn’t slept in months. “I’m not here to play nice with you.”
“What are you here for, then?” Cal wondered out loud, finally spotting the heavy-looking suitcase that was propped up on the porch next to Briana.
Briana blew out her breath forcefully, her eyes going glassy and unfocused. “This is hard to say.”
Cal felt his impatience start to ramp up, resisting the urge to roll his eyes in annoyance as Briana struggled to come up with an explanation. In all honesty, though, Cal knew he wasn’t as angry as he should have been. Briana had abandoned him without even telling him why. He’d even worried that she’d been kidnapped by a rival MC until he had a private investigator locate her a few weeks after she disappeared. But despite all of that, he couldn’t help but feel a little concerned as he stared at the woman across from him. She’d lost a lot of weight since he’d last seen her, and time hadn’t gone easy on her face. She wore deep wrinkles where before her skin had been silky smooth. So even though there was a part of him tempted to yell at her to spit it out, he held himself back, waiting in the excruciating silence until Briana finally spoke again.
“You have a son,” Briana said, clearing her throat and straightening her shoulders as she met Cal’s confused gaze. “He’s right there, waiting in the car.” She turned and pointed at the cheap, beat-up car parked in his driveway. When Cal squinted a little, he could make out the silhouette of a small face pressed against one of the back windows.
“What?” Cal sputtered out, totally dumbfounded.
“You have a son. With me,” Briana said. “I ran away when you knocked me up, okay? And I had a kid. His name is Bobby. He’s four. He’s…a good kid.”
Cal lost his breath for a moment as Briana’s words sunk in. I have a son? Cal repeated to himself silently. What?
A thousand questions popped up into his mind. How do I know the kid is mine? Why did she never tell me before now? Is he healthy? Is he smart? Is he anything like me? Or is he more like her? Why did she run away? We could have been a family.
But he didn’t ask any of that. Instead, what left his mouth was, “Can I meet him?”
“Oh, you can do a lot more than that,” Briana said with a harsh, bitter chuckle. She turned on her heel, leaving the packed suitcase on the porch as she walked out to the car, pulling a little boy from the backseat before carrying him back up to Cal’s house. “Here he is. Meet Bobby.”
“Hi,” the little boy said softly, waving his tiny hand a little until Cal reciprocated the motion.
“Hey there. I’m Cal,” he said stiffly, unsure of what was appropriate in this situation.
“He’s your dad, the guy I’ve been telling you about,” Briana said into Bobby’s head, hitching him up higher on her hips, like his weight was becoming too heavy a burden to bear. “He’s the one you’re going to be staying with from now on.”
“Wait, what?” Cal asked, knocked off guard by Briana’s casual statement.
“He’s yours now. He’s potty-trained and everything, so the hard part’s over with, okay? I packed everything he needs in this bag,” Briana said quickly before slowly lowering Bobby to the ground. “Bye, baby. Daddy will take care of you now, all right?”
“Wait, wait, Bri, hold on, let’s talk about this,” Cal said, feeling a wave of panic start to rise inside of him as the small child stumbled forward into his house, brushing past him in his curiosity to discover whatever waited inside.
“Nothing to talk about,” Briana said as she marched away from the house, power-walking down the sidewalk towards the driveway. “It’s done.”
“It’s not fucking done, just give me a second to—” Cal cut himself off as Briana broke into a run, bolting towards the car. “Bri! Wait!” He launched himself into motion, going as fast as he could to get to Briana before she could get away, but she hopped into the car, put it in drive, and sped away down the street before he could even get to the bottom of the driveway. “Fuck!” Cal cried out, watching as Briana took the first available turn, probably heading for the highway.
Cal quickly considered his options. He could hop on his bike and go after her, but…what about the kid? He couldn’t leave a four-year-old alone in his house, even if Briana was lying about who the father was. “Jesus fucking Christ,” Cal muttered under his breath, burying his head in his hands for a second just to steady himself before he slowly walked back up the driveway and headed back into his house.
The little kid had found a miniature figurine of a motorcycle, something one of Cal’s patients had gotten for him years before as a thank you gift. The kid—Bobby, Cal reminded himself—was looking at it with wonder in his eyes, pushing it along the top of Cal’s coffee table and murmuring, “Vroom vroom!” under his breath.
“Do you know where Briana—where your mom was planning on going?” Cal asked, feeling his tongue go dry in his mouth as the little kid turned to face him, staring back at him with his own bright blue eyes. Oh, Jesus, Cal realized. He’s mine. There could be no doubt about it.
“My mommy probably went to the store!” Bobby said brightly, smiling up at him. “That’s where she goes sometimes, and then she comes back with that brown stuff.”
“That brown stuff?” Cal asked, feeling the contents of his stomach roll around anxiously inside of his gut.
“The stuff she puts in her arm,” Bobby said, wrinkling his nose up. “She says I’m not allowed to touch it till I get big. Oh, well.” The kid resumed playing with the little motorcycle, making it go faster along the border of the coffee table.
“So you don’t know where she might have gone just now?” Cal asked again, speaking more slowly this time in the hopes of getting the kid to understand.
“She’ll be back in a little bit,” Bobby said, nodding to himself confidently. “Don’t worry. I used to worry, but then I get over it.”
Cal didn’t know what to say. He stood frozen in place as the kid kept playing with the toy motorcycle, content to wait for his mother, completely oblivious that he might not ever see her again.
Fuck. What the hell was he going to do now?