Baby Daddy Roulette

Chapter 53

Axel’s POV

I don't know how to fix this.

That admission costs something. I'm the one who plans, who strategizes, who finds solutions to problems through analysis and preparation. But Mateo isn't a problem to be solved. He's a person in pain, and every tool I have feels useless against that.

I try what worked for me. Quiet presence. Practical support. Being there without demanding anything in return. When I was struggling after my father's visit, they sat with me in the dark until I cracked open. Maybe the same will work for him.

It doesn't.

He flinches when I sit beside him on the couch. Turns away when I offer food. Answers my questions with monosyllables that feel like doors slamming shut. Every attempt at connection bounces off whatever wall he's built around himself.

"Physical therapy went well today," I try one evening. "The therapist said you're ahead of schedule on mobility."

"Great."

"That's good news. Means you might be back on the court sooner than—"

"Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't talk about the court. Don't talk about basketball. Don't talk about how I'm 'ahead of schedule' like this is a race I'm winning." His voice is flat, but there's something underneath. Something building. "I know what you're doing. You're trying to be positive. Trying to make me feel better. It's not working."

"Then tell me what would work."

"Nothing. Nothing works. That's the point."

The silence stretches between us. I want to push—want to force the conversation, make him see that we're still here, still waiting, still loving him even when he's like this. But every time I push, he retreats further.

So I do what I know. I go to the gym.

Training has always been my escape. The physical exertion, the measurable progress, the simple clarity of muscles and movement. When everything else is chaos, the weight room makes sense.

But now my escape feels like betrayal.

I'm still playing. Still practicing. Still able to do the thing that defined us both. And every time I come home from training, I see it in his eyes—the awareness of what I still have that he's lost.

"Good practice?" he asks one afternoon, and there's something acidic in his tone.

"It was fine."

"Just fine? I saw the highlights. Twenty-three points, twelve rebounds. You're having the best playoff run of your career."

"Mateo—"

"Must feel good. Being the star." He's looking at me now, really looking, and his eyes are blazing. "Being the one everyone's talking about. 'Axel Nielsen carrying the Sirens to the finals.' Very impressive."

"That's not—I didn't ask for this."

"You didn't have to ask. You just showed up. Did your job. While I lie here watching you succeed without me."

The accusation lands like a punch. "You think I want this? You think I enjoy winning games while you're suffering at home? Every basket I score, every stat I put up—I'd trade all of it to have you back on that court."

"But you can't trade it. That's not how this works." He struggles to sit up, wincing at the movement. "You get to be the hero. I get to be the cautionary tale. The guy who had potential until his knee exploded."

"Your knee didn't explode. It's healing. You're going to come back—"

"You don't know that." His voice cracks, the first real vulnerability I've heard in weeks. "Nobody knows that. They say I'll recover, but careers end over injuries like this. Athletes come back and they're never the same. They're slower, weaker, more careful. The thing that made them special—the fearlessness, the explosiveness—gets ground down by fear and caution and the memory of what it felt like to fall."

"That's not going to happen to you."

"You don't know that!"

The shout echoes in the room. We stare at each other, both breathing hard, the distance between us feeling like miles.

"You don't get it," he says, quieter now but no less devastating. "You're still you. You're still Axel Nielsen, elite power forward, playoff hero. Your identity is intact. But me? I'm nothing. I'm a body on a couch that used to be something and might never be something again."

The words hit somewhere deep. I want to argue, to tell him he's wrong, to list all the reasons he's more than basketball. But I know how hollow that would sound. I know because I've been where he is—not with injury, but with my father's disapproval. Believing I was worthless because the thing I valued most was taken away.

"I'm sorry," I say instead. "I don't know how to help you."

"You can't help me." He lies back down, staring at the ceiling. "No one can. I just have to get through this."

"Not alone. You don't have to do this alone."

"Yes, I do. Because being around you—" He stops. Swallows. "Being around you reminds me of what I've lost. Every time you come home from practice, every time you talk about the team, every time you just exist being successful while I'm broken—it makes it worse."

The rejection lands like a knife. I don't know what to say. Don't know how to process the idea that my presence is hurting him, that being myself is causing him pain.

"I'll give you space," I manage.

"Thank you."

I retreat to the bedroom. Close the door. Stand in the darkness trying to figure out what just happened.

He doesn't want me around. He can't stand looking at me because I remind him of everything he's lost. The success I'm having is salt in a wound I didn't know I was making worse.

I should have seen it. Should have realized that my continued playing, my playoff run, my fucking career still being intact—all of it was hurting him. I was so focused on being supportive, on being present, on doing what I thought partners do, that I missed how my very presence was a constant reminder of his failure.

The irony cuts deep. I tried to help. Made everything worse.

Selene finds me an hour later, still standing in the dark.

"I heard," she says quietly.

"I'm making it worse."

"You're not—"

"I am. He said it. Being around me reminds him of what he's lost." I run a hand through my hair. "I don't know how to be less successful. I don't know how to shrink myself so he doesn't hurt."

"That's not the answer."

"Then what is?"

She doesn't respond. Because there isn't an answer. There's just this—two people who love him, unable to reach him, watching him drown while he pushes away every life preserver we throw.

"He needs time," Selene says finally.

"What if time isn't enough?"

"Then we figure out what comes next. As we do."

But as I lie in bed that night, Selene's warmth beside me, I can feel myself retreating too. Building walls the way I always do when I don't know how to handle emotion. Going cold because cold is safe, because glaciers don't feel the way raw nerves do.

Two men withdrawing into themselves.

One woman stretched impossibly thin between us.

And three babies who need stability in a house that's forgotten what that means.

Something has to break.

I just don't know if it will be us or the situation.

Or both.