Clare's POV:

My gosh, Imogen has a knack for coming in at the wrong time! If the kid is tired, take him home and put him to bed! You don't hand him off to his father and then disappear back to the arcade! As dumb as Imogen was, the sight of Eli settling the 2 year old on his lap and holding him close made my heart melt.

"Eli, I've wanted to tell you about her, but I was so worried you wouldn't want to be a part of it. There were somany times I wished I had told you that I was pregnant; so many times I day dreamed about you and the baby being as close as you and Aiden are, but then I'd come back to the reality that if you wanted nothing to do with me, what would you want to do with a baby? Let alone a baby I was the mother of. "

He sighed, glancing down at Aiden, who was now fast asleep.

"Everything, Clare. I'd want everything to do with her; it's not good for a child to grow up without both parents. I've never even met her, for crying out loud. I've missed 10 years of her life, and I can't do anything about it!" He exclaimed, slamming a fist down on the table, startling Aiden from his slumber.

"I know, and like I said, I'm sorry. I made a mistake. I was stupid, and I'll admit that." I was on the verge of tears.

"Clare…don't cry…please?" he pleaded.

"I'm sorry. It's just that I never thought you'd take this as well as you have. If you want to maybe spend time with her, it'd be fine. I'm sure she'd enjoy spending some time with her father. She asks about you all the time you know?" I said, giving him smile.

"She does?" he asked, his eyes widening, a small smile spread across his face, "She doesn't, like, hate me for not being there or anything, does she?" he added quickly his, smile fading.

I rolled my eyes and grinned. "Oh please, Eli! She'd never hate you for that. She knows you didn't know about her. If anything she wants to know as much about you as she can. She almost died the day she found a picture of us back in high school," I still remembered that day..

"Aunt Alli, who's this kid with my mom?" An eight-year-old Willow asked, looking up from my old scrapbook she'd found in my closet. I glanced up from my laptop, where I was writing my latest story, and gasped. Willow had found the Eli scrapbook. I kept everything in there, old assignments we'd done together, photos of us, the tickets to the author's reading we went to on our first date.

Alli shot me a worried, look knowing how much I hated bringing up the topic of Eli.

"Willow, let me see," Alli said as Willow clambered onto the couch, the scrapbook in hand. She pointed to the boy with emerald green eyes, and a smirk plastered to his face. "Willow, that boy is your dad," said quietly, waiting for Willow's response.

"That's Daddy, Mom?" she asked looking up from the book, her face expressionless. I nodded, ready for her water works to come.

She smiled. "Is that his car in the background?" she asked, pointing to Morty. I grinned and nodded.

From that day forward, talking to Willow about Eli became easier and easier.

"How did she react?"

"The first thing she did was ask if Morty was your car."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. She didn't seem very afraid, like most people would be."

"You weren't afraid of him." He smiled.

I automatically blushed, but I knew right away that he did not mean it in the sense that I was thinking. I'd lost my virginity to Eli in the back of Morty. Of course it's a little different, but back then, that wasn't what mattered. I cleared my throat to draw his attention away from the possible memories that may have also came into his mind. "What happened to Morty?"

"I couldn't bear to sell him, so I gave him to my dad. I thought that maybe he could do something with him, maybe give him to someone else." He smiled sadly, glancing down at his phone. "Wow, it's kinda late. I think I should get going. ...Um, I'm not doing anything tomorrow. Can I take Willow to the park or something?"

"Sure. Stop by my apartment tomorrow at around noon, if that's good for you." He nodded, so I wrote my address down on a piece of paper and handed it to him. "Bye," I waved, as he, Imogen, and Aiden left the ice cream shop.

We left not much later. After getting back to my apartment, Willow got ready for bed and Jake and I decided to watch a movie. He was acting a little weird, but I didn't want to say anything. Maybe he's just a little surprised that I'd told Eli?