Page 56 of Let Me Love You

“I feel guilty, all right?” I snap.

And fuck, it hurts. The pain in her voice. The tightness in my own. But I don’t know what she wants me to say. This entire situation is so messed up I can’t even wrap my head around it, let alone figure out what the hell I’m going to do to fix it. To make things okay. With Ash and me. With Jaxon and me. I should’ve been there. From the beginning. I should’ve held him. Woke up with him in the middle of the night. I should know everything about him. What he likes to play. What he likes to eat. Does he have a favorite show? Is itWinnie the Pooh? There are so many questions, but I don’t have any answers. Not for a single one of them.

“I wasn’t there, Ash,” I mutter. My guilt rises with every passing second as I stare at the expanse of road in front of us. “I wasn’t there for him for the first year of his life. What kind of father does it make me?”

“You thought he was nothing more than a rumor. You didn’t know—”

“I knew.”

Her breath hitches. The sound cuts through the tense air like a knife.

“What?” she whispers.

“In my gut, I knew, Ash. When someone told me about him, I knew.” The words feel like an oozing sore. Infected. Painful. Disgusting. But almost cleansing too. Like the building pressure from the last few months since I first heard about him has finally burst, relieving it.

When Ash stays quiet, too shocked to respond, I clear my throat and force myself to continue. “It was someone who knew about the drama at Dixie Tech and why I transferred to LAU. They mentioned Eleanor had a kid, and I’d abandoned him, Ash. I—” The words catch in my throat, and I shake my head.

Her touch is gentle as she reaches over the center console and squeezes my knee. “You were scared. And you made a mistake. We all make mistakes, Colt. But Jaxon deserves what’s best for him. Not what’s best for you or for me. You need to ask what’s best for the little boy who looks so much like his father it hurts. That’s all I’m saying.”

My jaw tenses. “I’m not gonna lose you.”

“Listen to me,” she pleads.

I swallow past the lump in my throat and let our eyes meet, waiting.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she promises. “I love you more than anything. And you being a dad is by no means a dealbreaker. Especially when he’s as adorable as Jaxon. Like seriously, my heart. I can’t handle it.” She clutches at her chest with a sad laugh, and it guts me. But her words sober. “I…I need you to take a step back and really look at your little boy’s future.”

I hesitate, my molars grinding.

“How do you want it to look, Colt?” she prods. “Do you want him to grow up splitting his time between his parents? Growing up with half-siblings when there’s a possibility he could have full ones if I was out of the picture?” Her lower lip trembles, and she closes her eyes. “Fuck, Colt. You have no idea how much it kills me to even say it out loud.”

I pull over onto the side of the road and hang my head, my sorrow getting the best of me. Because this is my fault. It's my fault she’s put in this position. It's my fault she has to consider a life without me all because she wants Jaxon to have the best childhood possible. It's my fault she looks like she wants to cry. It's my fault she has every right to.

“Don’t say shit like that, Sunshine.”

“I’m only trying to help you see this from an unbiased perspective,” she murmurs, squeezing my thigh one more time and placing her hand back in her own lap. “If I were out of the picture, would you give Eleanor a chance? That’s all I want to know.”

“I love you, Ash—”

“I know you do,” she interrupts. The same sad yet encouraging smile mars her pretty face. “And trust me when I say I love you more than anything else in the world. But I can’t sign up for this, knowing I might be the reason behind a little boy’s future being less than perfect. And I’m not sure I can live with the guilt.”

Like a knife to the chest, my lungs struggle to inflate, and I rub at my sternum, praying I’m jumping to conclusions. Praying we’ll get through this.

“So what are you saying?” I ask numbly.

“I dunno. I dunno what I’m saying.” She wipes beneath her red-rimmed eyes, then rubs the moisture from her tears on her jeans. “I think I’m saying I want you to take a step back and reevaluate everything before we move forward. And I won’t hate you no matter what your decision is. I promise. But if there was ever a reason to pause and reevaluate our relationship, I think this one is it. Don’t you?”

“I love you, Ash,” I repeat. Because I don’t know what else there is to say. Do I like Eleanor? Yeah. I think she’s a good person. I think she’s a great mom. But do I love her? No.

But could I? For Jaxon?

Fuck.

I don’t want to.

19

MACKLIN