Are you going to stay with us or... leave?

Gracie's question ripped through me like a bullet. It felt too abrupt. So painful. Brutal. I was utterly unprepared to address it head-on.

I gazed down at her. There was an expectant, almost fearful, gleam in her pretty brown eyes. It stressed me out. I hated seeing her look so troubled. As much as I wanted to soothe Gracie's distress, I could barely think, let alone speak. I felt paralyzed.

My mind was struggling to process our talk with Naomi. I no longer saw any reason to doubt the woman's word. She had promised to send over the paternity test results, which meant she probably wasn't lying about any of this shit. I've been told that the truth was supposed to set us free.

But I felt as though I was being run over by it. Semi-truck style.

Soon, there would be concrete proof, biological evidence, to confirm that I wasn't Stevie's father.

That some other undeserving bastard was Stevie's father.

My thoughts tripped toward a frantic, inescapable loop.

Once Naomi delivered the results to us, did I have the right to stay?

Did I have the heart to leave my baby girl?

Or would it be better for her if I simply... left?

Fuck.

Right then, another staggering revelation clawed through me.

You guys didn't have sex that night.

I had yet to wrap my mind around this new reality. The reality where I hadn't slept with Lydia. The reality where I hadn't knocked her up. The reality where Lydia had lied about everything.

A burst of anger quickly obliterated my confusion.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

I should've known better!

That fateful morning, I woke up in my underwear, in Lydia's bed, but, deep down, I should've sensed that something about her story was off. I should've given myself more credibility as a man and believed in my own integrity. I should've demanded receipts the very moment Lydia told me about her pregnancy. That alone could've saved everyone—Gracie, Stevie, and me—from a world of heartbreak.

Hindsight was a real bitch.

When you love someone, when you truly love them, drunk or not, grieving or not, you wouldn't have settled for anything less.

The hard, indisputable facts behind Gracie's accusations often played through my mind.

You wouldn't have tried to replace the real thing with a cheap knock-off, and you would've stayed to fight for our love.

Gracie was right.

Despite the fact that I never wronged her.

When love was real, when a man truly cared for a woman, he'd never hurt her even if they were no longer together. That was how I felt about Gracie. Drunk or not, grieving or not, I'd never betray her. Ironically, in a sick, sad twist of fate, I had been too goddamn drunk, hung over, and broken over Matty's death to see through Lydia's deception.

All at once, I felt like an idiot, a victim, and a lottery winner. Because I was innocent, damn it. Stevie was innocent. Gracie, too. We all got played. What a fucking mess. My mind began reeling from these bombshells. Outrage exploded into self-righteousness. Into regret. Into heartbreak.

My entire world had shifted on its axis. I loved my little girl, but that love now felt like a tragic joke. From day one, I had unknowingly been a stranger playing house in Stevie's life. I wasn't anything in Gracie's eyes, either. She had Andrew. Her perfect professor boyfriend. They were probably going to get married.

Would Gracie want me to stay?

For Stevie?

For her?

If I offered myself on a silver platter, would she pick me over Andrew?

I honestly didn't know. I didn't know what the best path forward might be for the three of us. Coils of doubt seized me then, suffocating me.

Andrew was good for Gracie, even a blind man could see it, while I'd done nothing except hurt her. In a way, Gracie had only tolerated me and allowed me to come back into her life because of Stevie. Now, though, we were no longer bound together by our baby girl. Gracie could wash her hands of me. A sense of loss overwhelmed me. I felt aimless. Purposeless. Pain clenched my chest.

Yet, a shred of hope lingered within me.

It refused to die.

At that moment, a realization dawned on me. For the first time in years, I felt whole enough to love Gracie in the way she deserved to be loved. I'd never fucked Lydia. My father's demons no longer consumed me. I was finally starting to heal from my time in Afghanistan. From Matty's death. I was still a work-in-progress, but there was nothing truly insurmountable standing in my way. I was free to pursue Gracie with everything inside me that felt good and true and right, and, more than anything, I wanted to fight for our found family of three. I wanted to keep taking care of Gracie and Stevie. Protecting them. Loving them.

Even if they were no longer mine to claim.