The Accidental Donor

16

Theodore

When I came home early to surprise Oliver the last thing I expected to see when I opened the front door was to find him asleep on the sofa with a toddler in his arms.

I was supposed to arrive tomorrow but I cut the meetings short and came home.

My first instinct was to wake Oliver and figure out what the next is going on because I know the boy asleep next to him is not Isaiah and we don't know anyone else with a child around that age.

As I dropped my carry on bag on the dining room table I saw a Manila envelope addressed to me with the letter head of a lawyers office.

I knew this offices name because this was the firm representing intext sperm bank.

My first thought was that it had something to do with the case Ben and his firm are creating against them.

When I opened the envelope I was confused. The front page had information for Lewis' parents.

Why would they be contacting me?

As I flipped through the document I couldn't help but feel more and more uneasy. It wasn't until I got to page 8 when I felt the air escape my lungs and my eyes scanned over key information

Disillusion of custody

Transfer of parental rights

Birth Certificate

Notice of paternity

As I flipped through the rest of the document I felt sick.

How could Lewis and his family not tell me that I had a child. A son.

I looked back over to Oliver and the toddler.

After reading the documents I could only assume that the toddler asleep and cuddled up against Oliver was my child.

I felt so angry. So damn angry.

I missed out on so much of his life. Why didn't they tell me? Why didn't Oliver contact me to tell me they dropped off my kid?

I need to go.

I have to cool off before I take this angry out on Oliver. The last thing he needs is for me to yell at him.

I didn't even change my clothes before grabbing the documents and my keys and leaving.

I immediately drove to Ben's.

When I got to his apartment I banged on the door. Sure it's late but I need to talk to him. He needs to go over these papers.

I have a son. There's no way in hell I'm going to let Lewis attempt to walk back in my life and try to take him from me.

When Ben opened the door he looked at me with distain.

"Is there a reason your slamming on my door at 10 o'clock at night?" He growled

"I need to talk to you" I said as I walked passed him

"Sure come in" he said sarcastically

I raided his liquor cabinet and took out the scotch. I definitely side eyed the bottle. I bought this for Ben before I left for my work trip and it was still sealed. I was sure that he would have opened it by now seeing as how his nightly routine included a glass.

"Yes by all means drink everything I own" he said as he got me a glass

"Should I even ask why this is still closed?" I laughed

And that's when I noticed that he had his hand protectively covering his stomach.

I've seen Oliver do that hundreds of times.

"No fucking way" I said

"Yeah. It's still pretty recent and I have no idea what to do. Don't tell anyone okay, especially your mom. Half of New York will know by midnight." Ben asked 

"Fine I won't say a thing. But how did cowboy react?" I asked as I poured myself some scotch

"He doesn't know and I don't think he'll care" Ben said with tears in his eyes

"What do you mean he won't care?" I asked

"We broke up" he said full blown crying

"What the hell happened?" I asked

"Everything was fine. I was over at his house and I was playing with Isaiah. Levi was in the kitchen cooking and when the food was done Izzy pulled me along and said "come on daddy. We eat" I smiled because he called me dad. But when I looked at Levi's face he was pissed like royally pissed. He refused to talk to me while we ate. When I tried to help Isaiah get ready for bed he told me to back off. Then when the baby was down for the night Levi told me that he couldn't continue to be with me. He said that hearing his son call another name other than Noah daddy brought up all these memories and he needed to raise his son. He kicked me out the apartment" I've never seen Ben this emotional. It made my worries seem like nothing. I rubbed his back and he cried into my chest

"I found out the next day that I was pregnant and I tried to call him but he blocked my number. I tried to show up at his apartment but the door man threatened to have me arrested for trespassing and when I showed up at his work they called security on me. I even sent 2 letters and they were sent back with a huge red stamp that said "return to sender" and he blocked me on Instagram. I just I don't get what I did wrong? How could he treat me this way?" Ben continued to cry

"Do you want me to kick his ass? I'll even hire you as my lawyer to bail me out of jail." Thankfully that made him laugh.

"You're an idiot you know, also by the way congrats on Julian. It was fucked up what Lewis did. Oliver called me the next morning. He spoke to Lewis' parents and they weren't sure who Julian's dad was but Oliver said that they were sorry. We tried to contact you but I assumed you lost your phone or something because there was no way that you wouldn't pick up" Ben explained

"Shit. My phone fell in a fountain. I still haven't gotten a new one." I explained

So that's why Oliver didn't tell me. Well I guess he tried to but I didn't have a phone.

"I brought the documents they sent me" I said handing them over to him

"Let me take a look. Hell I'll probably ended up having to have form of custody agreement soon anyway. Might as well brush up on my family law." He said in an attempt to make a joke.

"I'm sorry. You don't deserve that shit" I said

"I know. God it's heartbreaking but there's nothing I can do. If he doesn't want to talk to me then I guess it's over between us. I won't keep him from the baby but I don't think I can be with him anymore if he decides that he wants me in his life again."

"I could have Oliver tell him?" I offered

"No. I should have to ask my best friends slash cousin to tell his baby daddy to tell my baby daddy that I'm pregnant. If Levi wants to reach out and unblock me then I tell him. But honestly I'm done with him. I even started looking for a bigger apartment. This place may be 4,000 square feet but it's only got one bed room and I don't want my baby to sleep in the living room or the sun room." He said

"Well Levi's an idiot" I said

"Yeah he is. But before we go over these documents let me order some food. The Chinese restaurant down the block is open until 1 am and if I call now I'll make it in time before their 11:30 pm delivery cut off" Ben said as he went to his bedroom where I'm assuming he left his cell phone.

Today was definitely not going how I expected it to go. I have another kid and Ben is pregnant. I can't even begin to wrap my head around everything that happened within the last hour.