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It was a deep satisfaction, knowing that I was doing something good and would be providing for the people I care about.

Then I got to the house and Julia was outside talking on her phone. I was walking up to her when she said…

When she told whoever was on the call with her that Artie’s father was someone she had been in a relationship with before she left Helena sparked something in my head.

I had begun to assume Julia had a one-night stand at some point, a drunken fling while burning off some steam. Couldn’t blame her for that. Except, she called it a relationship, and a fling was not that. And it was in Helena. I know we didn’t date for long, but as far as I know me and Julia were exclusive.

I feel my brain aching, changing.

I picture Artie, the bright, playful little boy with a tumble of dark hair and bright blue eyes behind glasses.

I look past Julia at my reflection in the mirror, at my own dark hair and the eyes I know are blue even if the glass doesn’t accurately show their color.

I think about the way that he’s bonded to me, sticking to my side since the very start.

And I think about how I feel so protective over him, and how I have sometimes imagined what life would be like if this little family was my little family.

A connection like that, I’ve never felt it before. I never had parents to show me how it’s done. My fosters ranged from horrible to neutral, guardian figures who saw me more as a paycheck than a child.

I’m feeling it now, have been feeling it since I first saw the rugrat, and now I know why.

It’s because I have a right to feel it. It wasn’t wishful thinking. It was instinct, because Artie is…

“He’s mine?” I whisper, shaking all over. The bags of food slip from my fingers and thump onto the porch.

I had a son all this time, a part of me living freely on the outside.

Tears brim bright in Julia’s eyes and spill down her cheeks. She presses her hand over her mouth and nods.

“Why…” My voice breaks. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Julia’s throat works and she sobs, a wretched little sound that at any other time would make me sweep her into my arms to protect her from what pain I could. But I can’t move. I can hardly think.

“Julia, tell me. Am I not good enough? Is that what this is?”

She squeezes her eyes shut, tears starring her dark gold lashes. “No! Please Wolf, don’t think that. I didn’t know how to tell you.”

I stand there waiting for more, needing more for it all to make sense.

Julia opens her eyes and drops her hand back to her side. She looks up at me with her face wet and all her emotions on display. They’re as jumbled as mine are, a tangle of feelings that I can’t even hope to begin unraveling.

“I didn’t know until after you broke up with me and I had moved,” she says, her voice wet and hoarse. “I thought about telling you. I agonized over it. I thought maybe if I did, then you would come back to me. But… but you had already made me feel like you didn’t want to see me ever again and I didn’t want to make the baby a bargaining piece. I’ve seen how kids become pawns in the games their parents play and I couldn’t do that. I hadn’t even felt the baby kick yet and I knew I couldn’t have that as a potential future.”

And I probably would have been in jail or awaiting trial at that point. Would things have been different if she had reached out and discovered I was in jail? Would she have come for visits, showed me her pregnant belly, let me see the ultrasound pictures? Would I have been on my best behavior to get out early and go be with my boy? Would I have been allowed to hold him during visits?

Or would my sentencing have driven her away, proven to her, in her mind, that she was better off without me? I think back to her father setting me up. He would have done whatever he could to keep me from her if he’d known I was Artie’s father.

That bastard ruined three lives.

“I decided I was going to raise Artie on my own. He was a toddler when I met Malcolm, I was a fool. I should have known right away because he’s a lawyer that he wouldn’t be trustworthy. But I was… I was lonely and I knew Artie needed a man in his life. I thought I was doing what was best for him.”

That’s a stab to the gut, that my boy needed a man and I fucking wasn’t there.

“I should have told you when I came back to Helena.” Julia strikes her fist against her thigh. “It’s inexcusable. But with everything going on with Malcolm, I didn’t want to give him any other reasons to fight me.” She pauses and shakes her head sadly. “I was sure you’d figure it out. He looks exactly like you. And the way he took to you… He knows. He doesn’t know he knows, but he does. I just had no idea what to say. Do you know what I was supposed to say? How does a woman just come out with that? How does anyone open up their closet like that to let all the skeletons out at once? And I was scared. I was scared you’d… decide you didn’t want me or him anymore.”

“You didn’t even give me the option to choose for myself.”

“You took a choice away from me, too!” she cries. “We’ve both screwed up.”