Page 51 of Diary from an Inked Throne

Lynx glanced over at me, and something passed in his eyes. The same something that had been there when he’d told me he loved me. Beneath the table, he put his hand on my leg, and I dropped mine to cover it.

Not to hide it from anyone. I had never wanted to hide what we were, I’d just had no choice because the world I’d grown up in, my father, my uncle, none of them would have accepted the two of us being together.

I just wanted to keep his hand there, no matter who saw.

Lynx answered the reporter’s question. “I couldn’t just stay behind. Because he’s my son as well.”

Well, didn’t that just blow up the room like nothing else we’d said. French did a double take, but then his gaze dropped to where Lynx’s hand gripped mine, and a little of his anger faded.

“Who’s the mother? Who’s the biological father? How long have you two been a couple?”

Fuck. Sweat broke out across the back of my neck. This wasn’t what I had intended at all. I definitely hadn’t called a press conference to confess to the world that I was in some sort of poly quad. Fuck. Is that what this was?

And yet, it felt weird to let them all think it was just me and Lynx in this relationship. When we both knew full well we didn’t work without Nyah, and that she couldn’t be with us without Dax.

Dax, who was the biological father of this baby I already loved so fucking much I’d blown up my entire life for him.

I didn’t dare look at Nyah for fear that if this wasn’t what she wanted, the entire room would know just from that one glimpse.

I didn’t have to. She stepped forward, her fingers wrapped around Dax’s. “I’m his mother.”

Dax lifted his chin. “I’m also his father.”

I expected another round of shouted questions and chaos.

And yet, Dax’s words seemed to have shocked them all into silence. They just stared at us.

X adjusted his microphone. “For legal reasons, I’d just like to clarify I’m not one of the fathers. I barely remember to feed my duck.”

The entire room laughed, and there was an easing of the pressure I felt weighing down on my shoulders. X was actually a terrific father, and his duck was fat enough for me to think, if anything, he overfed it. But I appreciated his white lies and drawing the attention away from us for the minute it took for me to compose myself.

I raised my hands. “Listen, this isn’t what we came here to say. I know you all probably have a lot of questions, and I swear, we’ll answer as many of them as we can.”

I looked down the line at French and Devenish and X. “I know we’ve let you guys down. And I’m really fucking sorry about that. But our son…”

French shook his head. “You don’t have to say anything else. You should have told us there was more to you going AWOL than we knew. He’s your kid. How can we help?”

The corner of Lynx’s mouth flickered up.

The reporters all took their lead from French. One by one, they all turned back to me, each of them nodding. There was a ripple of words, each of them repeating the sentiment. “Yes. How can we help?”

I swallowed hard. Because this is what I’d called this conference for. I’d asked them all to come here with the intention of storming in, making demands, telling them exactly how it was going to be.

And instead, in the last few minutes, I’d let myself be vulnerable. I’d shown the world something real.

And now people wanted to help.

Not because they’d been blackmailed or threatened. Not because they were scared of the Guerra name I’d never be able to escape.

But because they cared about a family that had lost their child.

For some reason, I focused on Randall again. “Can I make a statement? About the baby? I promise, after that, we’ll actually talk about hockey.”

Randall and all the others nodded. Their silence suddenly respectful and hushed, like they honestly wanted to know what I was going to say.

I couldn’t look at all of them at once, but my gaze kept drawing back to the man in the back row.

He leaned in to whisper something to the camera guy he’d brought with him, and then he nodded at me.