But then I would have never met Carly. Granted, my heart wouldn’t have been a festering wound, so maybe I wouldn’t have needed Carly…
I’d have this right now. No matter how hard Mia might have resisted, no matter how much she wanted to come back to Mateo, I could have controlled her once she had this baby. Just in the past ten minutes, I’ve already seen that Mateo’s firm hold on her isn’t quite as firm where the baby is concerned. My ass on this bed with the baby in my arms proves that.
Mia may worship at the altar of Mateo, but she loves my baby more than him.
If I could’ve kept her long enough for her to have the baby…
Dom smacks me right in the face. I cock my head at him and he grins, shoving the fist he just whacked me with into his mouth. I have to smile back. I guess I did sort of need a smack.
“You’ve got a pretty decent left hook for a three-month-old,” I tell him.
Mia grins. “Everything he does is adorable.”
I feel Mateo move around the bed, but I’m still somehow unprepared for him to stop in front of me and take Dom right out of my hands. “That’s enough,” he tells me, turning Dom and resting him against his own chest.
Dom looks up at him and squeals, happy to see him. He grabs Mateo’s face and stares up at him with a big smile, like he absolutely fucking adores him.
It’s a knife to the fucking heart.
Mateo rewards him with a faint smile that he eats right up. “You earned your giraffe. I wanted to do that, too, but they think it’s cute when you do it.”
Dom squeals again, then plants an open mouthed kiss on Mateo’s chin.
I can’t breathe.
Adrenaline surges through me, but I feel weak. The quicksand has reached my mouth. I’m never getting out if I sit here for one more minute. I stand abruptly, stealing a last painful look at Dom in Mateo’s arms. I want to thank Mia for letting me see him, but I don’t trust myself to speak, so I flee the room without another word.
Chapter Twenty Six
Vince
Carly is in my old bedroom when I get back to it. She’s not angrily packing her bags, her blue eyes flashing with anger and betrayal as I saunter in, like I imagined in my head. She’s flat on the bed, fingers laced across her stomach, staring up at the ceiling. Her phone is on the bed beside her, making me think she’s looked at the picture a few times.
I’m glad she didn’t leave. I don’t have the energy to chase her right now.
I expect I’m in for a fight I also don’t have energy for, but as soon as Carly turns her head and sees me, takes in the set of my shoulders, the look on my face, she scoots back against the pillow and pats the bed beside her.
“How mad are you?” I ask, as I climb on the bed beside her.
Carly smiles faintly, without humor. “I’m not mad.”
That’s worse. “How sad are you?”
“I’m sad for you, not me,” she says, simply, guiding me to lay my head in her lap. Her fingers move through my hair and I close my eyes, already feeling a little bit of comfort seep back into me.
“Whatever it looked like, it wasn’t that,” I assure her.
“I know.” Her fingers continue to work through my hair, but her tone is so even. How can she be so unaffected by this crap? Just seeing Mateo hold Dom makes me lose all of my shit, and Carly sees pictorial evidence of me pining for the family I can’t have with the girl I risked everything to keep but somehow manages to keep her head on straight.
“I feel like I’m sinking,” I tell her, opening my eyes to look up at her.
She swallows, nodding her understanding. “I won’t let you sink if you don’t want to.”
“I don’t want to, but I can’t…” I shake my head as much as I’m able with my head in her lap like this. I don’t know how to explain it.
Carly sighs. I feel it, since I’m in her lap. I hear it, and I feel bad for being responsible. She’s nothing but good to me at every fucking turn, and I repay her kindness with this bullshit.
“I figured it out,” she tells me, running her hand along my cheek before pushing her fingers through my hair again. “Mia’s the substance from your home planet that makes you weak. You may be my Superman, but she’s your kryptonite.”
“I’m a shitty fucking Superman,” I inform her.
“Nope,” she disagrees, more firmly than one would expect given this conversation. “It’s not your fault. You can’t control it. Logically, that shouldn’t be true. There are ways to control the power you give people over you, I’ve mentioned that before, but this… this is something else. It’s a toxic cocktail. Too much is being fired at you all at once and you can’t dodge every speeding bullet. Your cousin knew that. That’s why he made you come back to this familiar place, full of painful memories. That’s why he’s assaulting you with every instrument of emotional torture he can use against you. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more coming tomorrow. He really is a diabolical bastard.”