My Song for You: A Pushing Limits Novel (4 page)

The apartment door shut behind Jared. I leaned back against it for several minutes, staring at the picture of Logan when he was a baby.

And you think I’m gonna let him down?

That was exactly what I believed would happen. It wouldn’t be Jared’s fault. It was just the nature of his lifestyle.

The best thing for everyone concerned was to prevent Logan from becoming even more attached to Jared. Asking Jared to join us for the birthday party had been a huge mistake. A mistake I wouldn’t repeat, for Logan’s sake.

And for the sake of my own heart.

Logan was busy with his toys when I entered his room. “Bedtime,” I said, and started corralling the animals from his preschooler-friendly farm set that were scattered on the floor.

“Not tired,” he said and signed, but he didn’t have a chance to say the final word before a yawn cut it short.

I laughed. “No, you don’t sound tired at all.” I deposited the animals in the plastic barn and helped him into his Spider-Man PJs, which were getting too small for him. “We need to get you some new ones.”

He shook his head and signed, “No.”

“Don’t you want PJs that fit better? You’re a big boy now.” I sighed. We’d had this same discussion every night for the past week.

“No new ones. Liked these ones.”

“But I bet you’ll find new pajamas that you like even more.”

He crossed his arms and pouted. End of discussion. I pushed away the voice pointing out that maybe he wouldn’t be so stubborn if he had a father or a positive male role model he looked up to. But it wasn’t as if I could go to the mall and pick him up either of those the way I could buy a new set of pajamas.

I helped him brush his teeth and read him a story. “Good night. I love you,” I said afterward. I hugged him, and a memory snuck in of my mother doing the same when she put me to bed as a child. I hugged him tighter, but it wasn’t just him I was hugging—it was my mother.

I kissed Logan’s cheek. “See you tomorrow.” I removed the audio processor from the side of his head, hidden under his hair, and placed it in the drying box on his nightstand.

After tucking him into bed, I turned off his light. The green nightlight glowed softly against the painted walls. I closed the door partway, leaving a narrow gap between it and the doorframe. Logan preferred it that way.

As I turned toward the living room, a knock on the door intruded on my thoughts about Jared. Just as well. My thoughts shouldn’t have been on him anyway.

For a second my stupid brain entertained the idea that maybe it was him. But the knocker wasn’t Jared; it was Sharon.

“Hi,” I said, doing my best not to sound disappointed.

“I saw your friend leave and wanted to talk to you.”

My stomach did a belly flop. Nothing good ever came from the words
I wanted to talk to you.

Or maybe I was overreacting. Maybe she just believed Jared wasn’t a good role model to have around Logan because he was a musician in a rock band. Visions of groupies, wild parties, and drugs had danced around in her head. Who could blame her?

I opened the door wider. “Sure. Logan’s in bed now.” He wouldn’t hear anything. I could play a Pushing Limits album at full volume and he wouldn’t know it was on—unlike my neighbors. “Would you like a drink?” Milk. Wine. Something a lot stronger?

Too bad I didn’t have anything stronger than apple juice. There was no point. I was a social drinker. I didn’t drink at home alone, and since most nights I was alone…

“I’ll have some water, thanks.”

In the kitchen, I filled a glass of water for her and grabbed a diet soda from the fridge. Since I expected to be up late tonight working on an assignment for one of my classes, the caffeine would be much appreciated.

With drinks in hand, we sat at my parents’ old mahogany dinner table, which I had inherited. It still looked festive, with balloons floating above our heads and the matching purple and silver streamers on the table. But I had a feeling the last thing I was about to do was celebrate after what Sharon had to tell me.

“Thanks again for the presents, Callie,” she said. “They meant a lot to me. You and Logan are like family to me. Correction—you and Logan
are
family to me.” She took a sip of her drink, then released a long slow breath, her gaze on the contents of her glass. “I’ve never told you what happened to my daughter and grandson, have I?”

I shook my head.

She placed her glass on the coaster in front of her. Sandwiched between the two layers of glass was a picture of Logan grinning at the camera. Above it,
FAMILY
was printed in carefree lettering. The opposite of how I felt.

“Mathew was Logan’s age when it happened. He and his mom, my daughter, were in a boating accident and drowned.”

A dull ache took up residence in my chest. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

“It happened seven years ago. Several years after my husband died of a heart attack.”

I opened my mouth, but the words weren’t there. Really, though, what could I say that hadn’t already been said?

She gave my hand a light squeeze. “You and Logan saved me. When you two moved in, I’d been struggling with depression. I saw you and him as my second chance at the family I’d lost. Especially when I realized you were just as alone as I was.”

I nodded because that much was true. Until Sharon had reached out to me, I had been alone. Alone and scared. My friends from high school had moved on. My friends back in San Francisco had no idea what I was going through. They couldn’t help me. There was no one for me to turn to…until Sharon had stepped into my life.

I owed her everything for that.

“Logan and I consider you our family too.” I hugged her.

“Can I ask you something?”

I swallow hard against the growing lump in my throat, fearing where this was headed. “Sure.”

“Why don’t you date? You’re a beautiful and smart girl, Callie, but you never go out. You don’t even go out with friends.”

I swallowed again. “I can’t.”

“Because of Logan? You know I’ll be more than happy to babysit him so you can go out at least once in a while.”

“I know,” I whispered before finding my voice again. “But I don’t really have anyone to go out with. And I love spending my free time with Logan. Plus I don’t want to be a waitress forever.” I wanted to have a career Logan could be proud of. I wanted him to see that if you desired something hard enough, you could achieve it—even when the odds stacked against you were taller than the Empire State Building.

I stubbornly turned my back on the voice whispering how that wasn’t completely true. Being a graphic designer wasn’t my passion. That wasn’t the future I had dreamed of from the moment I’d watched my first Pixar movie.

“You won’t be a waitress forever, but don’t you think Logan wants to see you happy?”

“I am happy.” I gave her the biggest smile I could muster.

Sharon made a noncommittal grunt. “Right. In the three years I’ve known you, you haven’t gone out on a single date. Why is that?”

“I don’t like dating.”

“You don’t like dating…or is it because of something else?”

I felt my forehead scrunched into a frown. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Does it have to do with Jared?”

Ice filled my veins at her words and rapidly spread throughout my body. “Jared? He’s just a friend. We knew each other growing up and he used to date my sister, but I haven’t seen him in years.”

“How come?” Sharon sipped her water.

“I moved to San Francisco to pursue my art degree in animation.” The words slipped out before I realized what I was saying.

“Animation? So not graphic arts?”

Shit.
“I started out in animation, but then realized I needed a career with a more solid future.” For Logan’s sake.

Sharon locked her gaze on mine, as if preparing to read my soul with the next question. “Did you and Jared remain friends while you were away?”

I squirmed. “No. We had our own lives. He was working hard at his music and I was busy with my studies.” While this might have all been true, my silence when it came to Jared had also been partly out of fear…fear that I would have inadvertently blurted out the truth about Logan. I hadn’t always agreed with Alexis’s choice to keep Jared from knowing about his son, but I had loved my sister and would’ve done anything she’d asked.

“And today was the first time you’ve seen him since then?” Sharon asked.

I squirmed again, suddenly feeling like I was being interrogated—on the train tracks, and unable to stop the train rapidly heading in my direction.

“Well, not really. He’s in a popular rock band. I’ve seen him on their music videos.” I might have checked him out online, but nothing that would be considered stalking…much. “The band’s debut album did well on the charts, and they’re supposed to have a new album out soon. I wouldn’t be surprised if it does even better than the last one. The band’s super-talented.”

Sharon smiled as the words gushed from my mouth. I slammed my lips shut before anything else tumbled out unrestrained.

“So he’s on the road a lot?”

“Yes. They toured for about a year with the first album, opening for different bands.”

“Not a great job to have if you’re a father, I would suspect.”

I shrugged. “None of them have kids. Only the lead singer has a serious girlfriend.” That had been big news a few months ago.

“Really? So Logan isn’t Jared’s son?”

I shook my head a little too fast to be convincing. “Jared and I were just friends. We’ve never had sex. I mean, we haven’t had sex together. I’m sure he’s had sex before, what with all those groupies who hang out around the band.”
Palm, meet face
.

Sharon’s eyebrows rose. Not in surprise—more like she didn’t believe me and was calling me out on my clumsy attempt to hid the truth. But I wasn’t lying. As much as I had occasionally fantasized about kissing Jared and having sex with him, fantasy and reality lived at different ends of the universe.

“I could have sworn they were father and son,” she said. “The similarities between them are astounding. Same wavy brown hair. Same dimples. Same face. The only difference is the eyes. Logan has your eyes.” The color Alexis and I had inherited from our mother.

I bit my lip, but then released it. I wasn’t good at lying. Not once since becoming Logan’s mother had I worried about anyone figuring out the truth. Without the side-by-side comparison of Logan and Jared, it would’ve been nearly impossible to randomly piece it together.

But if Sharon had figured it out, what about Jared? Had he spotted the similarities between himself and Logan, but because he knew he and I had never slept together, he never considered for a second that Logan was his?

I shook my head. “It’s just a fluke.”

She studied me for a long moment, then her gaze darted to the photo on the wall with Alexis in it. My rapidly beating heart climbed into my throat. I tried to swallow it back down.

“Logan isn’t your son, is he?” Sharon said, then looked back at me.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Of course he’s mine.” The lump in my throat made it hard to speak. The last word came out cracked.

But was he mine? Yes, I was his legal guardian, but I wasn’t officially his mother. I had never bothered to adopt Logan because there hadn’t been a reason to. As far as I was concerned, Logan was my son.

The smile on Sharon’s face was sad and full of understanding, but what she understood was anyone’s guess.

“Callie, I was a teacher and a very good one, I might add. My favorite subject was math, and something about your story doesn’t add up.” When I didn’t say anything, she continued. “You went to San Francisco, but it wasn’t you who became pregnant, was it? You and your sister share the same blue eyes. The same blue eyes Logan also has.” My hesitation was all she needed. “My guess is that Jared has no idea Logan is his son.”

My shoulders sagged. I was too exhausted to keep up with the lies. “My…my sister didn’t want him to know. She predicted he would one day become famous, and she didn’t want their child to be dragged into his lifestyle.”

“Don’t you think he has the right to know?”

“It wasn’t what my sister wanted, and I promised her I would never tell him.”

“What happened to her?” The words were soft, like Sharon had an idea but was afraid to go there. For my sake.

“She, Logan, and my parents were driving up to San Francisco to visit me. Logan was a baby at the time. A cement truck ran a red light.” I paused, the words like thistles, leaving my throat raw and scratched. “Only Logan survived,” I whispered, and coughed to clear my throat. It only aggravated the pain further. “He was called a miracle baby because when the firefighters first saw the wreck, they thought there was no way anyone could’ve survived it.”

I pulled my feet onto the chair and wrapped my arms around my legs, keeping myself together for Logan’s sake.

I let out a long breath. “Logan is all I have left after I lost everything.” Including the future I had dreamed about for so long.

“And you’re afraid you’ll lose him if you tell Jared the truth?”

I nodded. “If he finds out Logan is his son, I could lose Logan and eventually another woman will replace me as his mother. Or Jared might decide it’s too difficult raising a son, especially a son who’s deaf. What will that do to Logan? Besides, Jared isn’t like most fathers who go away for short business trips. His touring means he’ll be gone for months instead of a few days.” No matter from which angle I looked at it, no one would win if Jared found out the truth—least of all me and Logan. “No, it’s best that Jared never finds out.” My voice rang with certainty. If only my heart wasn’t so unsure about my decision.

“But what about Logan? Doesn’t he deserve to have a father? If you deprive him of his biological father and you won’t date, what does that mean for him? It would be great for him to have a man in his life who can be a positive role model.”

I shook my head. “What he needs is not to be hurt. And it’s not like guys my age want to settle down with someone who has a child.”

“How do you know?”