Chapter 13

Conner looked at me with pure shock, "These are custody papers."

I winced. Did he have to say that so bluntly? "They are joint custody papers. I talked to my lawyer on the phone earlier and had him write those up."

"We're going to have to tell David who I am," he said sounding dazed and amazed.

Conner looked like he loved the idea and he terrified by it at the same time. I guess he didn't want to see how David would react to the news that Conner was his father. I could feel his pain because I didn't want to know either. Our reasons were for two different reasons I was sure. Conner was worried that David would hate him and I was worried that David would love him more then his mother. I didn't kid myself into believing that I could give him a better home, because I didn't have money like Teddy did and I didn't have Conner sense of adventure.

"Conner, I never told David anything negative about you. He's at that age where he does wonder and I never let him think that you're a bad person. I just let him believe that you're misunderstood. He knows you're a good person. At this age he'll just be happy to have a dad."

What I didn't say was that while David would be thankful to have Conner there was a chance that he would hate me. He was young, but he was smart to. I didn't think David would hate me for keeping his father from him, but you never know. He could hate me. I didn't like that idea.

"He could hate me."

Well at least we were thinking around the same lines. I was honest, "He could turn around and hate me. I just don't know how he'll take the news Conner, but we'll find out soon enough."

Conner went behind my old desk and sat down. I looked around the room again. It was the same color walls, the same bed, the desk was the same. The only thing that was really different was the bedspread. Now it was a plane purple when before it had flowers on it. I sat in this room and it was like reliving the past. I had gone into that bathroom door and I walked in on Conner showering. I sat at that desk and wrote Conner's name one thousand times while he played his guitar for hours on end.

I was curious, "Do you still play the guitar?"

He shook his head, "Not really. Once in awhile but I've sort of grown out of it. Before I met Teddy I didn't have the time because every time I moved I had to get like three jobs just to pay the rent and I didn't have time and now I have other things to do."

I smiled wistfully, "It sucks to grow up."

"Do you still write?"

I could have sworn that I told him, "Yeah, I work as a columnist for a small magazine and I write for the town paper a bit."

"I know that. I want to know if you really write."

"No. I don't have the time. I spend most of my time taking care of David and the other half working. This has actually been my first vacation in a long time," I explained.

"It's strange how much things change. I never would have thought that I would give up music but I barely think about it any more."

I resented Conner for saying that. He made it sound like we had both given up the things we loved because of the hardships in life and the truth was that I had given up writing stories because I didn't have time to breathe much less write and he had just gotten bored with it. He could have done something with his music because he had talent, but he just didn't have the passion for it. I could understand that, but I was still mad at him and it wasn't his fault. I was just pissed that he would be spending time with my son doing all the things with him that I wanted to do and I would be at home working my ass off.

"You have that look on your face again."

"Why do you get to do things with my son and I have to work all of the time."

Conner looked confused, "What?"

"I want to do things with him and I can't. You can give him anything. He's going to love you more then me. I'm going to be a bad mother. I am a bad mother. I don't want to share him. I carried him for nine months and watched him grow up and now you'll be his favorite."

"For the life of me I will never understand women," Conner looked exasperated.

"Don't make fun of me."

"You're mad at me for something I haven't even done yet. Something, I would never do by the way. You're making a big deal out of nothing."

"He's going to love you more then me!" I whined.

Conner came over and hugged me. It felt nice and I had to try really hard not to sink into that hug because I liked it more then I should have and I didn't want to let him go even though I know that I was a bad person to even be thinking these things because he was going to be getting married soon. Oh god, he was going to be getting married. I stepped back so fast that I almost tripped.

"Liz, I am not going to take your son away from you. He's going to love you just as much as before I came into the picture."

I wished I could believe him but I couldn't but I ignored it anyway because it wasn't Conner's fault if his son liked him more then he did me. That was just something that I was going to have to get over.

"We should go out there and tell him now. The longer we wait the worse it's going to be," I was resigned.

Conner looked at me with an expression that I couldn't read, "Come on then. Let's go tell him the news."

We sat David down and we told him what was going on. We didn't go into a lot of detail, but he understood that Conner was his dad and that Conner wanted to be a part of his life. To my obvious relief, he didn't hate me. He loved the idea that he had a dad and that the rest he really didn't mind. I almost sagged against the couch.

"So I have a dad now?" David repeated again.

I gave him a true smile, "Yeah, he's your dad."

"That's so cool!"

Conner looked like he was on top of the world and I was happy for him. I would miss seeing Conner turn red in the face every time David called him Uncle Conner, but I wasn't mad at any longer. I figured I would get a bigger kick out of seeing his face light up every time David called him Dad.

I knew that the moment that we told David the whole truth that everything would change. That still scared that crap out of me, but it was okay to because I knew that even though I might not always like it, David would love having a father there. He needed that. Even though this wasn't the normal way of doing things I knew that it would work out.

Later the night when everyone was either gone or sleeping, Conner and I stayed back and talked about what we were going to do about custody. I knew that most of this would be done through lawyers, but we didn't want any surprises because we didn't want any fights over David so we were planning this out first. It was not as easy as I thought it would be.

"Why do you get Christmas? I want to share the holidays with my son," Conner said looking at the dates that I had written down.

I sighed. "You get Thanksgiving and Easter."

"I want to spend our first Christmas together."

I glared because this was getting old really fast, "I know that this is going to be hard for you, but if you really want to spend Christmas with him you're going to have to come to us. I already am going to spend Thanksgiving and Easter alone, give me a break Conner."

He suddenly had nothing to say to that and looked a little guilty, "I didn't think of that I'm sorry."

I ignored the apology and went back to the list of date that we had both made, "We can't switch off homes every year. Even if it did work for us it wouldn't work for David. He would never be able to have roots anywhere," I disputed when I saw that was what Conner wanted to do.

"Your right, I didn't think of that."

"I figure you can get Easter vacation and part of Christmas vacation and then half of summer," I negotiated.

"Half of the summer," he acted as if I had slid that in.

I had about had it with all the planning and the fighting. I leaned back against the kitchen chair and closed my eyes for a second, "You have to stop thinking of this as a war. I am not trying to keep you from him. All I'm saying is that he should have a little time after school lets out and before he goes back so he can have time with his friends. He's going to have two sets of friends Conner," I reminded him.

"Okay. I can see your point. So he comes at the end of June and comes back in the middle of August."

I got up and got a cup of coffee, "Yeah."

"You mentioned rules on here."

The hard thing about working with Conner was that he didn't think like a parent yet. Everything that was obvious to me wasn't to him because he had never had to worry about things like this. It was making this a very long process. I knew that he would get the handle of it and I had faith in him, but right now I wanted to kill him, because he had no idea what he was doing, he was slowing killing me. I wanted sleep.

"We can't have two sets of rules. I can't say that he has to go to bed at one hour and you can't turn around and change that. He'll not only get confused but eventually he'll start rebelling against the idea-"

Conner sighed and stopped me before I could go on. He got the idea. Did this all have to be done in one night? No. We're we doing it? Yes. I still wasn't really sure why, but I think it had something to with the fact that if we did it now we didn't have to put it off later. With my planning Teddy's wedding we could let go of time and then we would be in hell when it came to plan this through our lawyers.

In the end it was another night with no sleep.

"I think this might actually work." I said sinking into my chair.

"Do you plan to check out the bottom of the table?" Conner was amused.

I opened my eyes and saw that I was literally sliding off my chair. I laughed and got up, "I'm so out of it."

"We both are."

"I really hope that the next time I do this, I do it right."

"Do you plan to get knocked up again?" he said again amused.

I laughed, I could have taken that wrong but at this point I was just to tired to care, "No, but I do want more kids."

"You'll find someone," he assured as he cleared up the papers and I got up and cleaned up the coffee cups.

"I hope your right."

"You're an amazing women Liz. You won't have a shortage of men waiting for you," he flattered.

I laughed, "That lack of sleep is really getting to you."

"It's true."

"For my sake I hope it is. I'm going to have more kids."

"Can you do that without a guy?"

Men never saw the bigger picture, "Artificial insemination," I simply said.

We both looked at each other and broke out laughing.

As we both cleaned up I couldn't help noticing the small things on Conner, like how he had filled out in the past years or how his jeans showed off his butt. Through his black t-shirt I could see that he had a six pack under there. I couldn't believe that I was checking out a taken man, but I was only human and it had been a very very long time. I could look at him. I just couldn't touch.