2

ASHTON

"Fuck." It's the first word that comes to mind when I see her. That, and wondering what the hell she's doing here talking to that asshole.

She looks different, not like the eighteen-year-old girl who spread her legs for me and gave me her virginity at a party. One time, and I got her pregnant. What a dumbass. But I'm not complaining now. She didn't get the damn abortion because her parents basically locked her up, and it's not something that bothers me now because I have a son, and he's the only one I say I love. Owen redeems me from my shit. Owen makes me feel good for something.

I know she's been avoiding me all week. What the hell is she doing at my university? Didn't her rich parents give her a better opportunity? I keep asking myself, and I don't care beyond the fact that she's the mother of my son, the closest influence he has because she lives with her longer than with me.

"Who's that?" grumbles Faye, grabbing my face to make me look at her.

Who the hell does she think she is? I raise my hand to her neck; she smiles because she's a slut who likes being treated like that.

"I told you not to touch me, damn it," I tell her, and the smile disappears. "And quit screwing around; you're nothing."

"I'm your girlfriend."

"No, I just fuck you, so don't push it because I'll find someone else."

I know I'm an asshole, but I don't care.

I drop my backpack in the trunk, and she keeps whining like an idiot about why I don't take her to my apartment and screw her like the animal I am. She should know by now, that only happens when I want it to, not on the weekends when I have Owen with me. Only my closest buddies know I have him, and they're lucky to know.

Before picking him up, I swing by my place. I have to get the car seat out of the car, which I hide, and adjust it to the back seats to be able to go. I'm not ashamed of having it, but damn, I wouldn't fuck anyone if they saw that there. I don't want them to know I have a son; it's something very personal to me, not for any slut to know.

I know the forty-minute drive like the back of my hand; it's the same as always, ever since I started having visits with him. I pick him up from daycare, take him with me, lock myself in my apartment all weekend with him, and drop him off on Monday mornings before going to university, if I don't skip classes. When I arrive and park the car, my mood is completely different. Owen makes me different. I feel great with him, and feeling like I have someone to take care of is good for me to not be an asshole and not give a shit about everything I do. I think if I didn't have him, I would have killed myself by now.

I arrive at the daycare, and through a small window in the door, I can already see them, and I've never felt like this before. Nothing inside me has ever stirred like this. I ring the bell; one of the daycare managers opens the door and points me to Owen. I know it; I'm watching him play with Paige and laugh. I've never seen him so happy with me. He laughs and runs to his mother. "Fuck." When she bends down to call him, my eyes go to her ass. She already had a good ass when I fucked her, that's why she didn't seem almost underage to me, and it's not something I cared much about back then with marijuana and alcohol in my body; I just saw her as a skinny girl with a great ass and big tits for her body. Her ass tightens in the black fabric pants she's wearing and looks even rounder.

Owen runs back to her, I hear him shouting:

"Mommy!"

He laughs and tries to reach for her brown, straight hair tied in a ponytail. Owen is my exact copy, but that attitude must be from her even though I don't know her. I have a son with a stranger.

When I finally notice, he's looking at me and he points to me, wriggling in his mother's arms. They approach, and there's only one thing in the world that makes me smile: Owen. When he nestles into my chest and touches my cheeks with his small hands, it warms my heart.

"Hi, Dad."

He speaks strangely, sometimes it's hard to understand him and I haven't taught him that, I haven't taught him anything.

"Hi, champ," I say, brushing the hair out of his face, tousled from playing so much.

"Ashton," she greets me.

"Paige."

I see her hesitating, adjusting her high ponytail, and smiling at Owen, who wants to go back to her again. It annoys me, she doesn't do that to me as much, but she's his mother and I don't know how she is with him or what they do or don't do. Paige stretches out her hand and adjusts Owen's sweater; she manages to make him stop moving but he doesn't stop looking at her.

I had never noticed that she has green eyes, very clear green, so much so that they seem fake.

"I forgot some things for Owen," she tells me, looking at me like my opponents do. "Do you have fifteen minutes? Or... you can come."

Go? It doesn't sound like those girls who invite me to their house, it sounds indifferent, like she had to convince herself to say those words.

"Your parents hate me."

"So do mine."

Damn, the brat doesn't hold back. I know they didn't like the pregnancy at all, damn, I'm a mess and I sold weed outside of her school; but they forced her not to have an abortion. Do they hate her? How the hell do they treat my son then?

She pushes the nursery door and I follow her. She hasn't given me anything and I usually pick up Owen who is always dragging a blanket he can't sleep without. One of the first nights I put him to sleep in the crib I bought, he cried for hours just because I didn't cover him with that blanket. It was just a blanket, but it was his. And without it, neither he nor I will sleep.

In the parking lot, Paige keeps walking when I find my car and Owen calls her. She stops swinging her hips and grimaces because he starts whimpering. Damn. It's the first time he's seen us together and he's restless. She opens her arms and Paige doesn't hesitate to approach again. She smells like strawberry licorice, I can distinguish it better when she leans in and kisses him on the head.

"Shhh," she whispers, leaving her hand on his back when she looks at me. She seems more determined. "Will you follow me in your car?"

Owen squirms in my arms, reaching for the T-shirt he's wearing. He's going to spend the weekend with me, he can take a car trip to say goodbye to her.

"You take him, I'll follow," I say.

I see the relief in her green eyes and she takes him with a touch that gives me chills. I get another shiver seeing how he clings to her much more than to me.

"Thanks," she says softly, rocking Owen. "I'll come by car now."

I sink behind the wheel wondering what the hell is wrong with me. I'm not damn jealous of Paige. No, I'm not. It's different, actually, it pisses me off that Owen is so good with her. He's taken care of, and that's what matters to me.

Her crappy car passes mine and stops so I can follow her. It seems like she has a shitty car for the house where I remember her parents live. It also seems fucking weird the way she's going, but I shut the fuck up because I don't remember what it was like to go to her parents' house; but I know it's not the building where she parks. She keeps loading him up when she finds me outside my car, and I don't know if she expects me to go with her, but I want to know where the hell my son is. She doesn't object either, and I don't complain about climbing the stairs behind her. She still has a hell of a ass, especially when she bends down and leaves Owen on the floor. She takes my hand and I have to hold him so he doesn't fall on his face when she runs past me to an apartment that's too well-ordered and smells like a woman.

"You don't live with your parents."

I like that better. I don't want those damn brainwashers raising my son.

"Not for a long time."

Long? How long? And why the hell do I care?

Everything is spotlessly clean, and the furniture is in such light colors that it looks even more feminine. She drags me to a closed white door that I open, and Owen lets go of my hand to run to a shelf of colorful drawers, starting to take out toys. Paige walks past me clicking her tongue and crouches down beside him to put things away.

"No, baby," she complains in a voice that doesn't sound as ridiculous as it should, "just a few, show Daddy just a few because there's no time."

"Daddy" Nobody calls me that in that tone. My friends call me that almost teasingly, and Owen learned it not long ago, I'm still getting used to it. She lets him pick up two building blocks, and he runs to me with clumsy steps to show them to me.

"Look, look," he says, shaking his hand for me to bend down to his level.

Nobody sees me like this, nobody sees me being a father.

"We have these at home. You'll play with them there."

He drops them on the floor, and he runs back to the drawer. My eyes go to Paige's ass, and I move them up her slim waist to the rapid movements of her hands as she folds the blanket and puts it in a bag along with things I already have. She always does that, she saves things I already have but I'm not going to say anything. Let her do what she wants.

"No, no," she suddenly says, and I don't understand how quickly she moves to prevent Owen from throwing the entire drawer to the floor. "Do you want to take the teddy bear in your hand? Here," he hugs it tightly and shows it to me even though I already know it. "Come on, let's go."

"I'll carry her," he babbles, and you can understand him quite well. "The backpack," he repeats and lets go of the doll to open his arms.

Paige laughs, and I don't even understand it as well when she does those things.

"You can't, when you're older," she consoles him and offers me the bag. "I don't know what you have so... I think there's everything you need. And I think I've told you by message a few times, but if something happens, you call me."

But nothing ever happens. I know how to take care of my son.

We leave the apartment, and as we descend the stairs, Owen starts to complain. He doesn't make a big fuss, sometimes he does call for his mother, but he calms down when I put on some silly internet videos. Other times, it's just sleep. But when we're in the parking lot and Paige says goodbye to him, he starts crying like he never has before, not even three steps away from her. I don't know what the hell to do for a moment. Paige looks at me and retraces her steps.

"Does he do this a lot?" she asks me.

"No."

"Well, it's normal. It's the first time he's seen us together. Do this to him," she instructs.

What the hell?

Her hand rests on the back of Owen's neck, and she makes slow circles with her finger. It calms him down in ten seconds. She leans in and gives him a kiss on the back before saying goodbye to him again. And she looks at me, her clear eyes staring at me with strength, and it's one of the few times I'm grateful to someone. In the end, she's the mother of my son; I can't treat her like the others because screwing her over is screwing him over.

Avoiding me on campus for a whole week for this, just to make her smile when she's walking away quietly so she doesn't start crying again.

His rattle sounds all the way to my apartment, and he throws a toy the whole way to the elevator.

"Mommy?" he asks, holding up the stuffed animal he has.

"You'll see her on Monday, champ."

"No, I want mommy," he grumbles and sits on the floor.

"Don't screw with me, Owen. You've never done this before."

"I want mommy too."

By the time we reach the fourth floor, his tantrum has passed, and he runs out of the elevator to throw himself against my door.

"Let's go, Dad!" he shouts.

He makes me smile, and I have to hold him back so he doesn't fall on the step at the entrance.

Having Owen in my apartment drives me crazy because he only gets excited when there's one of the girls I use or my friends around, but most of the time, I'm alone. Owen brightens it up, he makes me happy, and he makes me forget that the next week I'll be alone again, waiting two weeks to have him back.