Baby Daddy Roulette

Chapter 11

[Selene’s POV]

I schedule Mateo's acclimatization session for late afternoon, which gives me time to consume three cups of coffee and receive a pep talk from Naomi that consists of "you're a badass" and "if he makes you cry, I'll key his car."

My sister is a terrible influence and the best hype woman on the planet.

By four PM, I'm as ready as I'll ever be—not at all, but at least caffeinated.

Mateo arrives exactly on time, which should've been my first warning because punctuality and Mateo Velasco have a casual relationship at best. He walks in wearing jeans and a Sirens hoodie, and before I can gesture to the chair, he's talking.

“So the apartment we found, me and Axel, it's actually un lindo, two bedrooms, decent kitchen, though the coffee maker is this weird nordic thing that Axel insists makes better espresso but honestly I think it's possessed—and this whole being-traded-mid-season thing is bizarre, right?"

"Mateo—" I try again. Again, it doesn’t work.

"—like one day you're in Philly doing the same drills you've done for three years, and the next you're in Seattle where apparently it rains approximately nine hundred days a year—that's not mathematically possible but it feels true—and mio Dios, did you know the coffee shop next to the facility has like fifteen types of milk alternatives?"

He pauses for exactly half a second to breathe.

"Fifteen, Selene. Quince. That seems excessive. But also kind of great? I've been meaning to try oat milk but Axel says it tastes like cardboard, which feels weird, since you drink it, and—"

"Mateo." I interrupt gently, both frozen that he remembered and concerned, recognizing the spiral for what it is. "Sit down. Breathe."

He does, dropping into the chair like someone cut his strings. His leg immediately starts bouncing—rapid percussion that makes the chair rattle—and his hands find the armrests, fingers drumming.

I pull out my standard form, clicking my pen. "Let's start with the basics. How are you adjusting to the team?"

"Everyone seems great. Really welcoming. Jordan's been showing us around, which is nice because I have zero sense of direction and would probably end up in Canada by accident—por cierto, is Canada north or south of here? See, this is the problem—"

"Good. And concerns about performance expectations?"

"I mean, sure, there's pressure, pero that's normal, right? Three first-rounders is a lot to live up to, but I've dealt with pressure before—though not in a new city where I don't know where anything is, which is why the Canada thing is a legitimate concern—oh, and I'm sorry."

The abrupt shift makes me blink. "Sorry for what?"

"For the office ambush. Ese día. Walking in and—" He runs a hand through his curls. "We didn't know you were in Seattle. Didn't know about the kids. Dios, if we'd known, we would've—"

He stops. Doesn't finish. Starts about how Seattle has really good bagels, he found this place, do I like bagels, he could bring me one tomorrow, they have everything bagels that are actually everything, not like those fake everything bagels that are really just sesame and poppy seeds pretending to be comprehensive—

I set down my pen. This nervous energy in the room makes me nauseous, and despite my complicated feelings towards him…

My chest constricts when I watch him struggle like that.

"Mateo, what are you afraid of?"

The bouncing leg freezes. The finger-drumming stops. For the first time since he walked in, he goes completely still.

The silence stretches. Ten seconds. Twenty. I wait—sitting with discomfort until truth finds its way out is my job.

"I'm afraid you hate us," he finally says, voice quiet. Raw. "Por leaving. For that stupid note that said 'yeah' like we were rating a movie instead of—" He swallows hard. "Tengo miedo de que you think we're like Cassian. That we used you and disappeared. That we've already lost any chance before we even started."

My professional mask—the one that's been holding steady for two days—cracks.

"I don't hate you," I say, and hear how my voice has gone soft. Vulnerable. "But I don't know what to do with you either. With this. With any of it."

"That's fair." He's staring at his hands now, knuckles white. "No merecemos—we don't deserve—"

"Did I have help?" The question comes out before I can stop it. "Is that what you were going to ask? When the babies were born?"

He looks up, eyes wide. "Yeah. Did you?"

"Just Naomi. My sister. She took family leave from her nursing job to be there for the delivery and the first few weeks. After that, it was just us. Me and the babies and her when she could be."

Mateo's face does something complicated—grief, guilt, anger all fighting for dominance.

"I wish you'd told us," he says finally. "Ojalá—I wish we could've been there. I wish—fuck, Selene, I wish we hadn't left that morning like cowards."

"You left before I woke up." The memory tastes bitter even now. "With a note that said 'last night was yeah' and nothing else. What was I supposed to do with that?"

"I know. Lo sé, and I'm—we panicked, okay? We'd just slept with our therapist. Our friend. Someone we actually—" He stops, restarts, words coming faster now, panic edging back in.

"We thought we'd ruined everything. Crossed a line we couldn't uncross. Entonces we ran because running was easier than facing what we'd done and hearing you say it was a mistake."

"Was it?" I ask. "A mistake?"

"No." His answer is immediate, certain, no Spanish needed for that one word. "But we thought you'd think it was. Thought you'd regret it. So we left before you could tell us to leave."

The honesty lands like stones in still water. Heavy. True. Uncomfortable.

"I don't know how to do this, Mateo. How to be your psychologist and also—whatever the other thing is. How to let you near my kids when I don't know if you'll stay."

"I'm staying." He leans forward, elbows on his knees, looking at me with those hazel eyes that are too earnest, too open. "I know you have no reason to believe me. But I'm not going anywhere. Neither is Axel. We didn't know you were here when we got traded, pero now that we do? Wild horses couldn't drag us away from Seattle."

My brain processes this. "So you're saying..."

"I'm saying the trade brought us here by accident, but staying is a choice. Nuestra elección—our choice." He laughs, but it's not a happy sound. "Probably sounds crazy. Probably shouldn't admit that in a professional session, huh? But I'm done lying to you. Ya no más mentiras. Done pretending this is anything other than what it is."

"Which is?"

"A second chance we don't deserve but are going to fight like hell for anyway."

The alarm buzzes silently. Fifty minutes have passed. The session is done. And Mateo is not waiting for me to escort him out.

He stands to leave, pausing at the door. "For what it's worth? The bagel offer stands. Sin condiciones—no strings attached. Just—if you want a good bagel, I know where to get one."

After he's gone, I sit in my office staring at the photo on my desk. Three babies who have no idea their existence just detonated twenty-two months of carefully constructed distance.

My coffee's gone cold. My professional boundaries are in tatters.

And somewhere in this building, Mateo Velasco is probably spiraling about oat milk again while I try to figure out what the hell comes next.