Maybe if you stop lying to him, he’ll stop asking.
“I’m fine,” I snap, hating that he’s a witness to my internal struggle.
“What are you doing?” He looks around the room, no doubt judging the lack of things filling the trash bag at my side.
“Going through her things.”
“You don’t have to do this so soon.”
“Don’t I? Cooper is hell-bent on selling the house. I’m not going to be able to afford a three bedroom just to house her things. This has to be done.”
Besides, I promised her during one of our many conversation I didn’t want to have after she found out that the treatments were no longer working that I’d move on as quickly as possible. As quickly, thank God is relative, so I don’t feel like I’m breaking that promise I made to her just yet.
She assured me she was going to be happy because where she was going, she’d be welcomed back into the loving arms of my dad. She told me more than once that she was ready. She missed him on top of being so tired and in constant pain. She didn’t want to leave us, but she didn’t see dying as a punishment.
Leaving Alex and I here alone feels like the worst thing she could’ve ever done, and that brings on wave after wave of guilt for my selfishness.
“What are you doing here?” I ask instead of arguing further.
“I came to—”
“I mean in the house. Do you think because we share a son that you have the right to just walk in and make yourself at home?”
If you didn’t leave every night, it would be different, but you do so…
“I knocked.” He hitches a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the front door. “You didn’t answer, and your car was out front. I got worried.”
“Worried?” I huff a humorless laugh. “I don’t need you to worry about me. The door was locked. Did you break it? Is that just one more thing I’m going to have to fix around here? Cooper already messed up the—”
“I didn’t break the door, Tin.” He frowns down at me.
I haven’t made a move to get up from the middle of my mother’s bedroom floor. Her clothes are scattered all around me, and he’s interrupting my pity party. I grow angrier by the second.
“A window then?” I snap. “How did you get in my house, and if you tell me you made yourself a key, know that I’m going to lose my shit.”
“I jimmied the lock,” he says with a shrug.
“You jimmi—” I hold my hand up. “You know what? It doesn’t even matter. Alex is at school, and I have shit to do. Lock it back up on your way out.”
His lips form a flat line as he takes a deep breath. It’s the same way my boss acted when I told her that I needed a little more time to get things in order. I hate people who don’t just say what they’re thinking, and despite biting my own tongue where this man is concerned, him doing it to me makes me want to scream.
“I have to go,” he says, his voice maddeningly calm.
“Bye.”
“No, Tin. I have to leave. Houston. Texas.”
My throat threatens to close.
What is it about me that makes me not good enough to stick around for?
My dad, my mom, him now for the second damn time.
“Okay,” I say, one simple word that feels like my entire life story wrapped in one.
Accepting instead of begging is always a better choice. I tried begging once with him and it didn’t work. I won’t do it again.
Honestly, I’m surprised he stuck around this long.
His absence is going to break Alex’s heart. It was the reason I begged him not to get involved in the first place. A child is a huge commitment, and he couldn’t love me long enough for me to tell him about our son. Why did I let myself start believing he had changed?
“I’ll be back,” he says, and I barely hold back a snort.
“Okay.”
“Tin, will you look at me?”
It takes a long moment, four deep breaths, before I’m able to look up at the man, and I hate the sympathy on his face. It feels as fake as the way he touched me that night at the hotel before making his position known.
“I’m coming back. I have a job that I can’t turn down. The guys at work need me.”
We need you.
“I understand.”
He sighs again before turning around and leaving. I wonder if it’ll be another thirteen years before he pops back into our lives just long enough to turn them upside down before ducking out again.
Chapter 25
Ignacio
“He’s been okay,” Mike Branford assures me while I wait for Alex to come to the office. “He’s a little quieter, but it’s worked in his favor. Being on a winning baseball team helps as well. Overall, school spirit is up.”
Tired lines mark his face when he smiles.
“That’s good to hear.” I cup the back of my neck, trying to rub away the tension building with knowing I have to head back to St. Louis, but nothing seems to help. “I have to go back to work for a while, and I’m hoping you can still keep an eye on him.”
I won’t go into detail much about Alex’s homelife, but Mike seems to understand that Alex is still in need of a little extra attention.
“I’ll keep a look out,” he agrees. “Do you know how long you’ll be gone?”
“You’re leaving?”
The question comes from behind me, and I want to call Deacon and quit my job on the spot when I turn around to see Alex’s sad face.
I guess I can count it as a win that he isn’t glaring at me like his mother did an hour ago. She doesn’t believe I’ll come back. She didn’t have to say the words. The accusation was written all over her pretty face.
“You guys can use my office to chat,” Mike says before stepping out of the way.
Alex drags his feet, taking his sweet time to go inside, his unhappiness with the news in each slow shuffle of his feet.
I grin at the sight of the new shoes I bought him. I don’t know when he caved and started wearing them, and that’s just evidence that I haven’t been as attentive to him as I should’ve been lately.
“You’re leaving?” There’s more anger in his voice with the repeat of his question.
“I have to go to work for a while,” I tell him as I close us into the principal’s office.
“How long?” Long, stubborn arms cross over his chest, his mouth set in an obstinate scowl.
“A week, maybe two?”
“So not forever?”
“What?” I look at him, like truly look at my son. “No. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I told you I’m not going away.”
“Just for work?”
“That’s it. I’m the only one on the team that’s multilingual. They won’t be able to clear the case without me.”
“Maybe,” he begins, looking down and digging the toe of his shoes into the worn industrial carpet at his feet. “Maybe Mom will let me go with you?”
“I’m headed to St. Louis, but then we’re flying out to a different country.”
It sucks not being able to discuss details with him. It makes me feel like I’m keeping secrets rather than upholding confidentiality rules set in my contract with Blackbridge.