I didn’t want to be Hyde’s worst case. I wanted to be his best option in the crap hand he had been dealt in his life so far.
A door next to the reception desk opened and Sayer came through it and strode toward me. I was stunned stupid for a second at the sight of her. I had seen her in her lawyerly garb plenty of times while I was working on her house, but something about seeing her all buttoned up and sharply pulled together on my behalf was startling. All that golden hair was tied up and pulled away from her face. I wanted to shove my hands in it and pull it all free. Her eyes skimmed over me and the corner of her lightly painted mouth kicked up in a grin.
“You look nice. Are you ready to go back? This is Maria, she’s our CASA contact. She’ll be in the room with you and Hyde for the next hour. Don’t be alarmed if you see her taking notes, and you need to know all your visits here are going to be both recorded and filmed. So far, all Hyde has been told is that you’re an old friend of his mother’s. No one feels it’s time to explain to him that you’re his father just yet. We want him to get comfortable around you first. Are you okay with all of that?”
I just nodded stiffly. What else could I do? “Whatever you need me to do.”
She gave me a full smile and it settled some of the sharp and pointy things that were jabbing at me under my skin. When she reached out and put her hand on my elbow, I finally felt like I could breathe normally.
“We just need to fill out some forms and then we’ll go back. Hyde is in the room playing with another rep.” I nodded again, it kind of felt like that was all I was capable of doing at the moment.
Sayer must have seen my panic and my fear because as she reached out to hand me a stack of paperwork she took a step closer and told me under her breath, “He’s a happy little boy, Zeb. He seems sweet and wasn’t at all curious or afraid when his current guardian dropped him off. He just wants to play. He’ll be happy to see you. It’s all an adventure to him.” I exhaled so hard I was surprised I didn’t blow her over.
“Thank you for that.”
She gave me a little wink and patted me where she was holding on to my arm. “In person the resemblance is even more obvious.” She pointed to her own cheek. “He even has your dimple.”
I felt my eyebrows shoot up. “How do you know I have a dimple?” I started growing the beard when I was in prison because getting razors behind bars was a hassle I didn’t want to mess with. When I got out, the thing was long and unruly, but trimmed up and maintained, it was pretty awesome, so I decided to keep it. As far as I knew, no one I hung out with now had ever seen me clean-shaven, including Sayer.
Her smile dipped a little bit and she pulled her hand off my arm as I scribbled my name and birth date across the pile of paperwork. She cleared her throat and looked away from me as she muttered, “In the mug shot in your file you don’t have a beard. I noticed the dimple when I was looking over everything before filing my motion with the court.”
My mug shot. Shit, she had seen my mug shot. It made my teeth clench together with an audible click. No wonder she had started to pull back from me. There was no getting around the fact I had served time for an unarguably violent act. With the evidence of that right in her face, why would she want to give me a shot at being something more to her? She came across as so cool with all the baggage I dragged around with me but how could she ignore the contents of it when they spilled right in front of her over and over again? They didn’t make a strong enough lock to keep the contents of my past secure.
“Are you ready to go back?” She handed the papers over to the woman she had introduced as Maria and I tilted my chin down in the semblance of a nod.
“As ready as I’ll ever be. Let’s do this.” I wish I felt as certain as I sounded.
“Okay. Follow me.”
We walked down a long hallway and then entered a room that looked like a preschool. There were a bunch of little tables, art supplies, and a padded rug on the floor with numbers and letters on it. In the middle of all of that there was a dark-haired little boy lying on his belly, kicking his tiny feet up in the air behind him as he made car noises while he pushed a big plastic dump truck in front of him.
Time stopped.
The world stopped.
I stopped.
Everything that had ever mattered to me, everything that had ever seemed important to me before this moment, before I laid eyes on this little person that was so very much a part of me, seemed wholly insignificant and unworthy. Green eyes that matched the ones that stared at me in the mirror every day flicked up to me and a toothy smile with a gap on the bottom flashed as the little boy climbed to his feet and raced over to where I was frozen to the spot as I watched him with my heart in my throat.