Holy shit. Never in all my dreams had I thought he’d reject me because of Sylvia. How had he even seen her? It wasn’t as if I brought her to school with me, not yet anyway.

My emotions flew from melancholy and self-pity to sheer rage. There was no fucking way he was going to ignore her like that. I understood that he was young and just beginning his adult life and all that bullshit, but she deserved better. She deserved more.

I felt the need, no matter how insane, to march over to his place and show him the amazingness that was his daughter, the way her smile made all things better, the sweet lavender scent that was hers alone. The way she made all the darkness vanish. As if sensing my need to hold her, snuggle her, and love on her, she woke up, giving her little I’m hungry sighs.

After a quick change and feeding, I found myself bundling her up. No matter how many times I tried to convince myself this was a bad idea, I needed to bring her to her father. My gut told me that if he only saw her up close, touched her, scented her, that he’d take it all back and decide we were good enough, worth it.

No, not we, her. I couldn’t be selfish in all this no matter how much my heart longed to do so. This had to be all about her, even if she had no clue that her life was meant to include another father. Because someday, she would know that she didn’t come into this world via the stork, and she was going to want to know why I didn’t try harder.

The trip was shorter than I thought, thanks to the lack of traffic. Anyone seeing me bringing a baby out so late at night would have pegged me as the world’s worst father, and maybe I was. In theory, this could all wait. There was no reason to go immediately. Not really. But my need to make it all better pushed at me to the point of convincing me this was the only way to go.

And so, we went.

Coop’s neighborhood was nice enough. Farther away from school than I imagined, but it was safe and had ample parking, which was not the norm for city life. As I pulled to a stop, I read his message again.

No. I just couldn’t let it go. Not now, not ever.

I tried to convince myself that once he met Sylvia, I’d move on if that was what he truly wanted, but I was lying to myself. Sylvia needed both dads in her life, and if I let that opportunity slip away without a fight, I was just as bad as he was.

I put Sylvia into my baby sling but grabbed the car seat as well. I didn’t know what I would run into once I got there and needed her close, but I also wanted a safe place to put her down if need be, and having been a college student once, I knew that the chances of Coop’s place being baby proof was non-existent.

After ringing the bell to his apartment, I waited and waited at the door on the street. From the age of the building and the lack of physical cameras, I doubted he was ignoring me because he knew it was me. I rang the bell again, cooing to Sylvia as she giggled at whatever babies her age giggled at in the middle of the night on the stoop of a less than fancy apartment building.

“You can ring that all day, love. No one’s gonna hear it,” an older gentleman said as he walked up to the door. “I’ll let you in. Being out here with a baby this time of night and just ringing a bell that doesn’t work isn’t the best idea.”

“I forgot my phone,” I lied, not wanting him to think I was showing up unannounced, which I very much was, and not wanting to call Coop now that I had a way in. “I appreciate this.”

“Anytime.” He used his key to get the door unlocked. “You going up to see Myrtle?”

“Myrtle? No. I’m going to see Coop Daye.”

“I assumed Myrtle since,” his tone hushed to a whisper, “she lost her mate this week. Cancer.” And then he went back to his normal voice as he opened the door wide for Sylvia and me. “Figured you were here for the funeral, but now that I see your baby in better light, I see you are part of the Daye family. What a cutie she is.”

“Thanks. I plan to keep her.” I smiled as I walked past him to the elevator. He shook his head at me and pointed to the stairwell. “Maybe I’ll see you around.”

I nodded and climbed the steps, quickly remembering how awkward the stupid car seat was. I would never understand how parents could carry them around in stores the way they did without accidentally assaulting people or having their arm scream out for mercy. And I was strong. Not as strong as in my youth, but for my age, I was doin’ okay.

As I reached Coop’s floor, I took a deep breath, followed by another, before walking to his apartment number. Three doors creaked open then closed as I made my way down the corridor. At least I knew people were keeping an eye out for Coop even if it meant his neighbors were nosy as hell.

I rapped on the door, my stomach filled with rocks. I needed him to answer, let me in, and have an epiphany. Basically, I needed a miracle.

“You have a key, Kill,” he mumbled as he opened the door. At least he opened it even if it was under the misconception that I was his brother. “Ash,” he hissed, his body looking like it had forgotten to sleep for a week or more and lacking the fresh scent of a shower. He looked so not like Coop.

“Can we come in?” I asked, wondering how many peering eyes were on me.

“We?” He looked behind me before Sylvia giggled, and his attention was drawn to where I was wearing her, his eyes huge.

“Shit. You have another baby?”

“Another?” His words made no sense and more than anything I wanted to be in his apartment, away from the nosy neighbors. This was about us, not them. “We only have Sylvia.”

“Yeah, I know, the baby hasn’t been born yet, and...what the fuck?” He looked down as he caught his faux pas. “Oh, sorry.”

I shrugged awkwardly as he patted her on the head and was rewarded with a huge smile. It stunk that she’d gotten off schedule with the teething and my new work schedule, but I was glad she was awake and happy when meeting Coop the first time.

“What do you mean by we, Ash?” he asked as my words clicked in his clearly overtired mind.

“Can I come in?” I heard a door click behind me. Fuck it. I was not asking because some conversations just needed to be private. “Never mind, I mean I’m coming in. We are coming in.”

I brushed past him and into his tiny apartment. There had been some recent construction from the smell of the place and the white coating of powder on the floor near the back wall. The rest of it was tidy enough. It didn’t feel right for Coop, but I didn’t really know him. He was a one-night-stand-become-fantasy, so maybe this was exactly him.

“Explain,” he demanded as soon as the door clicked shut.

“This is your daughter, Sylvia.” I took off my coat and settled it on the car seat I dropped on the floor before taking Sylvia out of the baby carrier so he could get a better look. “I tried to find you last fall. I stalked that Cafe Om for months. And then when I got fired and had to move, I feared I’d lost my chance to ever see you again.” I was babbling, but I wanted it all out so we could move on. So far, he seemed less angry than his text indicated and more frazzled. Frazzled I could work with.

“Fired?” He finally took his eyes off our daughter to look back at me.

“For having Sylvia out of wedlock or mating.” Which was nothing to be ashamed of.

“What kind of place does that?” He pointed to the love seat which was in the middle of the room, thanks to whatever work he’d had done on the back wall.

“Religious college.” I shrugged it off, not wanting to get into details as I took a seat. “And then I came here and saw you, and then you saw her and ran. How can you run from such a beautiful baby?” That was what had bothered me the most. How could he leave her? He couldn’t keep his hands off me the first time we saw each other. The only thing that had changed was her.

Perfect. Beautiful. Sylvia.

“She’s really mine?” His voice filled with awe, which had to be a good sign, or at least that’s what I told myself.

“She is,” I whispered.

“I need to hold her, Ash.” He held out his arms, waiting for my approval.

I handed her over without a second thought. He did need to hold her. She was his. He held her as if he’d been around babies his entire life. “She’s...she’s perfect.”

“She is,” I agreed. She was so perfect it hurt. I wanted nothing bad to ever happen to her, which as a parent was probably both unrealistic and a bad parenting move. But I wanted it nonetheless.

“I don’t care that you found a mate, Ash. I mean, I care and am mad as hell, but Sylvia is mine. I’m her dad, and I will be in her life.” He kissed her sweet head, his words forming a pile of confusion in my head.

“I don’t have a mate. Why would you think I did?” Something wasn’t connecting.

“I saw you with her. She’s gorgeous with all that red hair... And she’s got to be what? Nine months pregnant? Did you knock her up while you were pregnant? I didn’t even know that was possible.” Coop was talking a mile a minute as if the words were toxic.

“Red hair?” I thought for a minute, trying to understand what he meant. “Do you mean the woman on the bus at Omega House?”

Coop nodded, going in for another nuzzle of Sylvia’s neck.

Damn. It was all starting to make sense now. Talk about being at the worst place possible at the worst time. “You came?” It was more than a day earlier than our planned meetup, which had to mean something.

“Yes, of course I mean her. And I get it. It’s been over a year and we had one night. It sucks, but I get it.” He cringed a little as he said the word sucks. It was adorable to see his protective instinct already in place like that. “That doesn’t change the fact that I’m her dad. She looks so much like my mom’s baby pictures.” He paused to just stare at her for a long moment. “I can’t believe we made her.”

“Look at me, Coop.” I needed him to understand, to have this misunderstanding completely pushed aside so we could move on to whatever path was going to be ours. Seeing him with Sylvia, I knew at least it would be a path of co-parenting. But whatever was decided, it needed to be decided based on facts and not misinterpreted observations.

He cradled Sylvia against his chest as he looked right at me.

“Hear my words. There has been no one else. No one.” Not even when I was alone and seeking release, but that could be said another time—or preferably never. “I was at Omega House to teach a class, and that woman was a guest. She fell because she hadn’t eaten and heard we had food. Her alpha kicked her out and she was desperate. I met her that day.”

“No one?” he asked as if he was sure he’d heard me wrong, splashed with a little bit of hope.

“Not a person. Not one.” He’d wormed his way too deep inside me even before I knew I was pregnant, defying all odds.

“Me neither,” he confessed, snuggling her close while he met my eyes. “I just—it probably sounds dumb, but I... Well, you were special. You’re probably going to say that shows my youth or some shit—I mean stuff.” He looked down at Sylvia as if to see if she learned a new word, a bad one at that, from him. Adorable.

“I’ll work on that, Sylvia. Daddy promises.” If for even a second I questioned whether he should be in her life, that precious moment erased it from my memory. He was putting her first even in this cluster fuck of a disaster we called our relationship, whatever that might be.

“Back to my point, it’s not about my age. I felt something more with you, and when I saw you on campus, for the first time in more days than I care to count, I felt like me again. If there really is no one else, can we try and make this something more?”

“It’s not your youth.” Because no one accused me of being too young anymore save maybe the alumni living in the Floridian elderly housing complexes. “I feel it too, Coop, but it’s not as simple as that. I am a professor. Your brother’s professor.”

His eyes were begging me in a way I could hardly resist. “I’m her dad.”

“True and nothing will change that. But we have to be smart about this.” Not that I had a fucking clue how that would look.

“Like not washing a condom and then thinking it’s cool to use with the first hot professor you meet?” he teased, which I took as a good sign. An amazing sign.

“No, that was smart.” Because if I had to do that night all over again, the only thing I’d change was getting his last name or number...or both. “Look what came of it.” I rubbed a small circle on our daughter’s back. She was slowly falling asleep in his arms. It was a beautiful sight—one I needed to burn into my memory banks.

“True.” I could finally see some regret on his face. “I wish I’d been there for it though.”

“Me too, but you can be there for things next time. I mean, now.” I caught myself quickly, but not quick enough to prevent the slip. The last thing we needed to be doing was talking about future children when we still hadn’t figured out what we were going to do in the situation we currently found ourselves in.

“Next time I will,” he vowed. And I knew that’s exactly what it was. A vow.