Summer Son (19 page)

“But you never meant to be with a man like me.”

“Zane, I meant to be with someone exactly like you,” I said, smiling when I didn’t mean to. “If you hadn’t noticed, I think you’re incredible.”

He brushed off the compliment and got away with it, since the doorbell rang for the food delivery. Zane unfolded himself from my lap and made a good show of trying not to be pleased.

We ate sitting on the floor around the coffee table with Harrison boosted on a throw cushion between me and Zane, since Leo didn’t have a high chair. I thought there was no way in hell Harrison would touch anything we were eating, but I was rapidly learning that he would accept, or at least try, food that Zane offered him.

Zane managed to add sticky rice, some soft fish, and tempura-style vegetables to the ever-growing list of things Harrison liked. He spat out the tofu, and I gave Zane a smug look.

“You can’t win ’em all,” he said with a shrug.

I finished eating first—the food wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t a bloody steak—and watched Harrison interact with Zane some more. He still looked to me for reassurance at regular intervals, mostly when Zane offered him something new and intriguing to eat. All it took was a nod from me, though, and he settled back, comfortable and confident in his surroundings.

“You guys should come over more often,” Reid said, leaning back against an armchair with his beer. “This is nice.”

“You should work less hours,” I told him with a smirk.

“Yeah….”

With Zane taking charge of clearing up the mess he’d caused on Harrison and talking to Leo about baseball, I leaned back with my own beer and let Reid tell me about his new cases at the hospital. I liked this—being able to spend an evening with my brother and his partner without feeling like the third wheel or like my son was my date.

It wasn’t like going out with my friends, either—our friends. There was less pressure to be anything other than ourselves. I liked the easy normalcy that Leo and Reid had; it made me feel like my world wasn’t that weird after all.

I talked to Reid about kids for a while, different options about surrogacy or adoption, how Oliver and I had gone through the process a few years back. I didn’t exactly feel qualified to tell him how to make good decisions when I couldn’t do that myself, but he seemed to appreciate all the information I’d gathered on gay baby-making.

When it was time to leave, Harrison cried, and I was secretly pleased that Zane wasn’t the only one he threw a fit for. He was a good boy, really, just tired.

I got home, put him to bed, and stretched out on the sofa for a few minutes, terrified that if I went to bed I’d fall asleep.

Zane knelt next to me and gently stroked my hair. “You’re tired.”

“No, I’m not,” I mumbled. “Wide-awake club.”

“Just have an early night, baby. For once.”

“I can’t. I have work to do,” I said and hauled myself up.

“Ellis. It can wait. For one night.”

He was right. I let him lead me through to our room, turning the lights off as we went and then putting the lamp on the nightstand on. He helped me with my T-shirt, then had me lie down on my stomach.

“Can I give you a back rub?”

“Um, yeah,” I mumbled. “Anytime you like.”

He straddled my thighs and rubbed baby oil between his palms, then ran his slick hands over my skin before digging his fingers into my muscles.

“Oh, God,” I groaned.

Now that I knew he was good at this, I was going to make him do it all the time. I’d suffered with aches and pains in my back for years, the result of lots of sports when I was a kid, and I got knots in my neck and shoulders too. Knots that Zane’s talented thumbs were currently rubbing out.

By the time he was done, I was half-asleep—only awake enough to shuck off my jeans and pull the duvet up to my waist before dropping off completely. It was a light sleep. I was dimly aware of things going on around me and the fact that there was still a light on in the room. When Harrison woke up and fussed, I did too, although Zane calmed me with a kiss and slid out of bed to settle him back down again.

I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and looked over at his sketchbook. The TV was on but muted, the flickering light I’d been half aware of.

“You’re not supposed to look at that,” he said softly as he slipped back into bed.

“Sorry.”

“You’re forgiven. Since it’s you.”

“Can I hold you for a bit?”

The words came unbidden. I was usually more careful with them. Zane seemed surprised but nodded, slipped out of my pajama pants, and turned things off before curling up on his side so I could wrap my arms around him.

We’d long since figured out how we fit together, the crook of his knees the space for mine, my hand flat on his belly, the arm that pillowed his head curled round enough so he could tangle his fingers with my own. It wasn’t perfect because there was too much of a height difference between us. Somehow that made it better, though.

It had been a weird few days, and I wasn’t good at processing things in the moment. I’d always been the sort to sit back, away from it all, and assess. Like my words, thoughts came to me with time and consideration, something Oliver had hated. I could never make a decision, he’d decided, whether that was what restaurant to eat at or what to name our child. A name was so permanent I wanted to get it right, and nine months of waiting hadn’t been long enough for me to decide on something I liked.

When Zane sighed heavily in my arms, I pressed my lips to his shoulder and forced thoughts of the past out of my head. I would sleep better with them gone.

Chapter 14

I
PACED
the kitchen the following morning trying to find the right words. I’d slept fitfully the night before, unable to sort my thoughts into neat piles in my mind. When I’d woken and stumbled into the kitchen, Zane had demanded I talk to him, but the words weren’t coming easily.

“I’m not very good at saying things like this,” I admitted, watching how he was now practically an expert at feeding his banana yogurt to Harrison, who hated being spoon-fed. “I know I’ve been married before, so I can’t tell you you’re the first man I’ve loved or anything like that. But I’ve never held anyone in bed like I hold you. I’ve never felt like… like I’m falling apart, just because you kissed me. I never knew, before, that sex with someone could feel how it does when I’m with you. It’s not just getting off. There’s so much more involved than that.”

I was so frustrated with myself. Even though Zane had lived with us for a few months now and nothing disastrous had happened, I still felt like I wasn’t doing enough, wasn’t giving him enough. His words from before, from the argument, still rang in my head. He wanted something that I wasn’t prepared to give him, yet he gave me everything I wanted without question.

Loving him wasn’t everything in a relationship. I wanted for us to be equals, so the imbalance was killing me. Tying to voice that, though, was easier said than done.

Zane passed the spoon to Harrison, then stood up and boxed me in against the counter with his arms.

“Go on,” he said.

“I, um… I don’t know. It’s different. I wanted you to know that. I don’t feel like we’re repeating the mistakes I made before. It’s new, all of this. So I’m as lost as you are.”

“I’m not lost at all,” he said softly, defiantly.

“Oh. Then maybe I’m not either.”

“You need a little practice,” Zane said, rising up on his toes to nuzzle my neck. “But you’re doing okay.”

“At what?”

“Saying stuff like this.”

“Oh.”

“I love you, Ellis.”

“Yeah,” I murmured. “I know.”

Harrison laughed at that, banged his spoon against the tray of his high chair, and managed to splat banana yogurt on one of the cupboard doors. Zane poked me in the ribs—hard—and laughed too as he grabbed a cloth to wipe it up, then used it to clean off Harrison’s face.

It was normal, disgustingly normal, and I loved it.

Piece by piece, it felt like our family was starting to come together.

W
E
WERE
supposed to be having a quiet lunch when Meg texted me, somehow knowing that I was trying to be romantic (for once) and jumping in to interrupt. She was always good at that. I reluctantly told her where we were, and she appeared within twenty minutes.

“I’ve been doing some research,” Meg said as she slid into the booth next to Zane and me with a mug of coffee.

“Hi,” I replied, secretly impressed at how quickly she had managed to turn up at the little diner. It was a Brooklyn institution but somewhere Zane had never visited before now. “How are you, Megan? Have you had a nice week? It’s nice to see you looking so calm and well rested.”

“Don’t call me Megan,” she snapped. “And don’t get sarcastic with me. I’m trying to help.”

“He knows you are,” Zane said soothingly, reaching over me to take Meg’s hand. “He’s just on his period right now. Let him be.”

Her lips twitched, but she didn’t succumb to laughing. Meg was above such things, especially when she was making a point. I pulled a face at Zane, and Harrison laughed.

“Aren’t you three just the perfect little happy family,” Meg said. I couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic and let it go. As far as I was concerned we weren’t perfect, but pretty darn close to it.

“Okay,” she continued, after sipping at her coffee. “I was looking up the parental rights thing and custody cases in New York.”

“God, is this my life again?” I sighed.

“Yeah. So suck it up and deal with it. You know you and Oliver rewrote the rulebook the last time round, right?”

“I’m behind here,” Zane said. “Explain it to me?”

I started before Meg could. “In New York, in a custody case, custody can only be granted to a parent, and they have to grant custody to one parent or the other if you get divorced. You can’t split it.”

“Okay.”

“At the point when the custody hearing came up, Oliver had already asked for the paternity test, and I was fighting that, knowing that if Harrison wasn’t my biological child, Oliver was going to take me to the cleaners. All for some random decision when sperm met egg.”

“Bastard,” Meg muttered from behind her mug. Neither Zane nor I contradicted her.

“So they granted you custody because you’re Harrison’s biological dad, right?” Zane said.

“No, they gave me custody because Oliver made it pretty clear he didn’t want to waste his time raising a child who wasn’t his. If he’s not already looking for a surrogate mother to make a baby of his own… I’ll eat my hat.”

“Which brings me to my point,” Meg said. “The court has to grant custody to one of the child’s parents. I know Oliver thinks he’s got a case, but I think you could argue that he’s not a parent at all.”

“Meg, you’re a marketing exec, not a lawyer,” I said gently.

“I know that,” she snapped. “But I’m a marketing exec with a point. If there was going to be a custody battle between Harrison’s parents—his
parents
, El—it would be between you and Zane. You should get this case he’s trying to build shut down before it even begins.”

“I’m not sure it’s that easy.”

“So ask your lawyer. If they are going to take Harrison away from you, and I’m pretty sure there’s no way that’s going to happen, first make them prove that he is actually eligible for the role of parent in the first place. Which I don’t think he is.”

She sat back in her seat with a very satisfied expression on her face while Zane carefully smoothed Harrison’s hair back, then wiped his face clean of cookie crumbs. I hadn’t even noticed anyone giving him a cookie in the first place.

“I’ll talk to Linda,” I said with a sigh. “I don’t know what she’ll say, but I’ll talk to her.”

L
INDA
WASN
’
T
so convinced.

“Where the hell did you get that from?” she demanded after I’d repeated Meg’s point.

“A friend,” I said evasively. Harrison patted my leg until I looked down at him. He showed me a block, waited for me to approve it, then went back to playing.

Zane was at a class, and Meg was back doing her real job—something I would have been better off doing than running around chasing her theories.

“Well,” Linda said with a sigh, “your friend isn’t exactly wrong. The thing is, though, the court already decided that the two of you were Harrison’s parents, first when he was born, then again when you got divorced. To try and argue that now… well, I’m not sure that’s something we want to get into. It could take years to untangle.”

I sighed. “Well, it was worth a try.”

“I’ve also approached Oliver’s lawyer to see if we can settle this out of court. He doesn’t seem to be interested.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised.”

“There’s something else.”

I gave her an even look.

“The name they’re using for Zane is Al-Jazari.”

“Wait—”

“I don’t know, Ellis,” she said quickly. “I don’t know how they got it or what they know. But they’re referring to him as Zane Al-Jazari.”