Baby Daddy Roulette

Chapter 55

Mateo’s POV

Rock bottom, it turns out, has a sound.

It's not the crash of weights or the roar of a crowd or even the sickening pop of a knee giving way. It's smaller than that. Quieter.

It's a toddler saying "No Teo" and walking away.

Elio does it on a Tuesday afternoon. Selene's at work, Axel's at practice, and Naomi's watching all three kids while I lie on my couch and contribute nothing. I hear them in the playroom—all together, never leaving each other’s sight. Making an absolute chaos.

Then Naomi brings them to say goodbye before naptime. A daily ritual I used to love, used to participate in, used to matter for.

"Say bye to Teo," Naomi prompts.

Aria waves enthusiastically. Sören offers a solemn nod. But Elio—Elio who used to crawl into my lap, who used to follow me around the house, who used to light up when I walked into a room—

"No Teo." He shakes his head. Turns away. Walks toward the nursery without looking back.

Two words. Two syllables. The complete summary of everything I've become.

Naomi's face falls. "He doesn't mean—"

"Yes he does." My voice sounds distant. Foreign. "He knows I'm not... He knows."

She takes the kids to bed. I stare at the ceiling until the plaster blurs.

Elio knows. My son—whichever one is mine, all of them are mine, that's what we decided—knows that I've checked out. That the person who used to play with him, hold him, make him laugh until he couldn't breathe, has been replaced by a body on a couch that doesn't do anything except take up space.

He's protecting himself. Smart kid. He learned from me, probably—watching me push away Selene and Axel, watching me reject anyone who got too close. Now he's doing the same thing. Rejecting me before I can disappoint him again.

The thought should devastate me. It does devastate me. But underneath the devastation, something else stirs.

Anger.

Not at Elio. At myself. At the weeks I've spent wallowing, the opportunities I've wasted, the people I've hurt while convincing myself I was the only one suffering.

I've been so focused on what I lost that I didn't see what I was losing.

My kids. My partners. My family. The things I chose, the people who chose me, the life I built from nothing—all of it slipping away while I stared at the ceiling feeling sorry for myself.

¿Qué estás haciendo, Mateo?

My mother's voice. The one I hear when I'm being an idiot, when I need someone to shake sense into me. She died when I was sixteen, but her voice stayed. Her disappointment when I wasted potential. Her fierce pride when I pushed through hardship.

What would she say if she could see me now?

She'd say get up. She'd say stop being a pendejo. She'd say you didn't survive poverty in Puerto Rico, didn't fight your way to the NBA, didn't build a family from scratch, just to give up because your knee hurts.

She'd be right.

The anger grows. Feeds on itself. Not the destructive rage I've been feeling—the kind that made me push away Axel, snap at Selene, retreat into silence. This is different. Cleaner. The anger of someone who finally sees the enemy clearly.

The enemy isn't my knee. Isn't the injury. Isn't even the fear of never playing again.

The enemy is me. The version of me that decided basketball was all I had to offer. The version that forgot about everything else—the voices, the jokes, the way I make people feel when I'm actually present.

Elio doesn't care if I can run or jump or score thirty points. He cares if I'm there. If I see him. If I show up.

And I haven't been showing up.

I sit up. The movement sends pain through my knee—still healing, still fragile—but I ignore it. Swing my legs over the edge of the bed. Grab my crutches.

Naomi finds me in the nursery doorway, watching the babies sleep.

"You're up," she says, surprised.

"I need to be up."

"Mateo, the doctor said rest—"

"I've been resting for six weeks. I've been resting so much I forgot how to do anything else." I don't take my eyes off Elio, curled in his crib with his stuffed elephant. "He said 'No Teo.' My son looked at me and decided I wasn't worth the effort anymore."

"He's a baby. He doesn't—"

"He's right." The words come out steady. Certain. "I haven't been worth the effort. I've been so busy grieving my career that I forgot I have a family. That I have people who need me to be more than a body that used to play basketball."

Naomi's quiet for a moment. When she speaks, her voice is gentle. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know yet. But something." I finally look at her. "I can't keep being this person. I don't like him. He's not who I want my kids to remember."

"Then don't let them remember him." She puts a hand on my arm. "The Mateo I know is still in there. The one who makes everyone feel like the most important person in the room. You just... lost him for a while."

"Time to find him again."

I don't know how. Don't have a plan, a strategy, a twelve-step program for rebuilding yourself after you've demolished everything that mattered. But I have something I didn't have an hour ago.

Motivation. The real kind. Not the performative optimism I've been faking, but actual burning needs to be better than this.

When Selene gets home, I'm in the kitchen. Standing. Making dinner—badly, but making it.

She stops in the doorway. Takes in the scene. I see her trying to calibrate her response, trying not to spook me back into retreat.

"You're cooking," she says carefully.

"I'm burning things while pretending it's cooking. There's a difference." I gesture at the smoke rising from the pan. "Pretty sure this was supposed to be chicken."

A smile flickers across her face. The first real one I've seen in weeks.

"Can I help?"

"Please. Before I set off the fire alarm."

She crosses to me. Takes the spatula. Doesn't comment on the state of the chicken or the mess I've made or the fact that I'm standing when I should be resting. Just works beside me, close enough to touch if I want, not pushing.

"Elio said something today," I tell her. "Something that made me realize I've been an idiot."

"You're not an idiot."

"I've been acting like one. Pushing everyone away. Making this injury about my identity instead of just... a thing that happened." I watch her rescue the chicken from certain doom. "I'm not fixed. I don't know if I'll ever be all the way fixed. But I want to try. I want to be here. Actually here. Not just physically present while mentally checked out."

She sets down the spatula. Turns to face me. Her eyes are wet.

"That's all I wanted," she says. "That's all any of us wanted. Just for you to try."

"I'm going to disappoint you. I'm going to have bad days, setbacks, moments where I want to crawl back into that bed and never leave."

"We'll handle it."

"We will." The word feels different now. Not a burden. A lifeline.

She hugs me. Carefully, mindful of my balance on the crutches. I let her. Let myself feel held instead of pulling away.

The crack in my armor isn't a weakness.

It's where the light gets in.