Pursuing My Rejected Luna by Cara Anderson novel Chapter 126

Chapter 126

Nicolai

All I want to do is sweep Skye into my arms and carry her to bed. To spend the rest of the night showing her how happy she makes me and exactly how happy I can make her. But the decision we’ve made is huge, and not without repercussions. What we need to do is talk it through.

We sit up late into the night, discussing our decision from every angle, practical and emotional in equal measure, the way real things are when you take them seriously. Something I’ve never had to do before. At least not with a

woman.

“What does it look like, day to day?” she asks.

“Like any other day. Like what we already do.” I think about it. “Mornings. Appointments when you want me there. The middle-of-the-night things, because those are going to happen and I’d like to be involved in the exhaustion equally.”

She smiles at that. “You say that now.”

“I mean it now. Ask me again at 3 AM.” I tease her.

“I will.” She narrows her eyes at me playfully. She’s quiet for a moment before adding, “When he’s old enough to understand how do we explain it?”

She sounds so lost, like she truly thought she’d have to do this alone and doesn’t know what to do with the realization she doesn’t now. Lucky for her, I’ve thought about this. A lot.

“Honestly. He has a father named Jaxon who loves him and visits and is part of his life. He also has me, who is here every day. Some families look like this. We explain it when he asks in the language he can understand at that age and we revisit it as he grows.”

“He’ll ask hard questions. I hate that sometimes the answers might hurt him.”

“They might.” I meet her eyes, hating the pain and uncertainty I see in them. “But he’ll never doubt he has three parents that love him and that will go a long way toward making him feel safe. We can’t protect him from the truth. But we can give him the tools to understand it.”

I can tell by the look in her eye she’s about to ask another hard question. “What if Jaxon pushes back? Formally. Legally,”

I’ve considered this possibility too. I’d like to tell her I’ll handle it my way if that day comes. But I know she wouldn’t approve so I agree to handle it her way instead.

“Then we manage it. Legally, if necessary. But I think Jaxon is-slowly, painfully-becoming someone who will understand that this arrangement is better for Benji than any alternative.” I pause. “And I think he knows that the worst thing he could do for his son is to make his mother’s life harder.”

“You think very clearly about things that would make most people emotional.” She observes.

“It makes me emotional,” I admit. “I just think clearly anyway. I’ve had years of practice ensuring no one knows what I’m thinking by the look on my face or the tone of my voice.”

She tilts her head. “Is that a Woolf family trait?”

“It’s a survival trait. The Woolf family made it hereditary.” I mutter the last part under my breath.

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She laughs-small, warm, the kind that appears when she’s not expecting to.

ve run a pack for fifteen years,” I continue. “I’ve stood in a room full of men with guns aimed at my head and managed to walk out alive. More than once. I’ve negotiated alliances with people when the second-best outcome was a lawsuit and the worst was considerably less pleasant.” I look at her. “I think I can manage a co-parenting arrangement with a man who’s slowly figuring out how to be less of an idiot.”

“That’s generous.” she chuckles.

“Maybe. But I find an idiot who’s trying is better than one who isn’t.”

She considers this. “He is trying. Genuinely.”

“I know. I told him so.”

She looks at me sharply. “When?”

“When he was leaving today. I told him to stop showing up with apologies and start being someone you can trust.”

The look on her face is difficult to read. Something between surprised and-not grateful, exactly. More like relieved that someone else said the true thing so she didn’t have to.

“He listened?” She sounds doubtful.

“I’m not sure. But he stood on the steps for a long time before he got in his car. Whether he heard it is a different question. I guess time will tell.”

As the conversation winds down, I find we’re still at the kitchen table but somehow the distance between our chairs is less than it was when I sat down. I’m not sure when that happened.

“I’m fine-” She argues but her face says otherwise.

“I know you are. Come sit down anyway.” I move to her, take her free hand, and walk her to the sitting room, that’s become ours over these months. “I’m going to make the calls and rub your back. You’re going to breathe.”

“You’re not going to panic,” she observes.

“No.” I’m totally panicking but refuse to admit it.

“Good.” She lowers herself onto the sofa. Looks up at me. “Call Jaxon.”

I pause for just a fraction of a second. “Yes,” I agree. “I will.”

Because this is what we agreed to. What we built together at the kitchen table-a version of this that includes him, that makes room for him, that gives Benji a father who arrives as well as one who stays. So I’ll do it. For her.

I find Jaxon’s number.

And I make the call.

Cara Anderson Author

Thank you for reading!

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