I stuck my hand into my pocket and wrapped my fingers around the fabric. “I’ve never been more afraid of anything in my life.”
Inside my pocket, I brushed my fingers over the letters printed on the front.
“Afraid of having kids. You talked about a family.”
“We talked about it.”
“Talks and reality are two very different things.”
“Who’s Monica?” Her voice stalled almost losing the end of Monica’s name. She’d moved closer. Now she was standing at the end of the couch, no longer half a plane away from me.
“My therapist.” I kicked myself thinking of how it all sounded to her. Not only did she think I’d run out on her while she was pregnant with my child, but that I’d run straight to another woman.
The despair at how incredibly screwed I was was only slightly edged out by the regret that I had come to her as a man who was still a work in progress, the kind who wasn’t whole enough to be perfect for her. But I didn’t look away, needing her to know it was true without a doubt or hesitation that there could never be another woman for me.
“You left to go see your therapist.” Her head tilted and she dropped to the edge of the couch.
I nodded, shame burning in my chest that I’d walked out on the mother of my child the way I had because my head was still a fucking mess. All the work and self-talk and thinking I had it handled, and during a moment when most guys who loved the woman they were with and wanted to spend the rest of their lives with would’ve been jumping in the air pumping their fists. I’d left under the cover of darkness. “I was afraid of becoming him.” A burning set in, deep in my nostrils.
“Your father? Keyton…” Her voice lost some of its razor’s sharp edge. The leather cushions shifted and she slid closer. “You could never, never be like him.” Fierceness and vehemence ripped through her words. “The worries and fear I had about us, they were never that you’d turn into him.”
“Whenever I see a little kid now, especially of someone I know or someone I’m close to—hell, even Felicia when she came to my door with her little baby strapped to her chest—all I can think of is that he looked at me when I was that small and vulnerable and he hurt me.” I squeezed my eyes shut and clenched my fists, jamming them against my thighs before I took a shaky breath and released my grip.
“And it scares me to know anyone would be capable of that. It scares me to know I could be capable of that.”
She shot forward and took my hands in hers. “You’re not." Tugging me forward, she wouldn’t let me evade her gaze. “You’re not. I can’t know what it was like to go through what you went through. I can’t ever know that or truly understand what you’ve been through. No matter what happens here tonight, I need you to know I don’t hate you. And I don’t ever want you to think for a second that I believe you could hurt me like that or ever hurt your child.” Her voice broke and she sniffled.
Setting my hands down, her lips pinched tight. “But what you did. How you just left the second you were freaked out…how can we have a relationship if you won’t talk to me? If you run from me and don’t even let me know what’s happening? I thought we’d gotten past that and were finally able to trust one another. And then the news breaks that you’re going to Wisconsin.” Accusatory eyes sliced through me. “You didn’t mention it once.”
I hadn’t. I’d shoved it to the recesses of my mind, not wanting to be disappointed again. My words to Ernie to go for it, no matter what, without checking with me, rang in my ears. I’d finally gotten the one thing I’d been striving for in my career, and it might cost me the one person who made my life worth living. “It was supposed to be a dead deal.”
“Even if it was a deal to begin with, you should’ve told me. You should’ve been there for me. You should’ve let me be there for you.”
36
Bay
The pounding in my head wouldn’t go away. I wanted to throw my arms around him and him to hold me close. I wanted to kick him off the plane and tell him I couldn’t do this anymore. Letting him in invited this soul-shredding pain I couldn’t escape.
My heart ached for the boy who thought he could be capable of what he’d been subjected to, and I hated his father for ever pushing him to doubt himself, but there were no words from me to fix this. If he didn’t believe it, he’d be scared of being that man forever; and I’d always have the fear in the back of my mind that one day it would all be too much for him and he’d leave to find an easier, less complicated life without the reminders of his past—without me.
“But you weren’t there for me. You left me to deal with everything on my own. I get being afraid.” Tears swam in my eyes again and I hated my treacherous tear ducts. My voice pitched higher, straining. “Hell, I’m scared shitless half the time of my life and who I’m leaving behind and what mistakes I’ve made, but I shared that with you.”
My anger built again, making me fist my hands in my lap.
“All the talk about wanting our lives to be together and figure it out, but you were making plans before me and you didn’t tell me what was happening. I started making plans for next year after the tour to be close to you, and you won’t even be here. I talked to Maddy about stepping back from everything, winding things down over the next eighteen months, and you couldn’t even tell me there was a chance, Dare.” I gasped, my fingers flying to my lips.
He jerked.
Shit.
He dropped his head. “No, you’re right. You’re right about everything.”
I looked up at him, seeing the anguish radiating from his gaze.
“And what kind of life would we have if you still have to be afraid of slipping up and calling me Dare? I never want you to be scared of me. In any way.”
The tightness in my chest lessened. “Sometimes it’s hard for me to remember.”
“Sometimes it’s hard for me to forget. Forgetting that part of my life, trying to leave Dare behind—I could never do it. I see that now and I accept it. It’s part of who I am and I wouldn’t have you without it.”
He scrubbed his hands down over his face.
“I want to be there for you and the baby. My head is finally on straight and I’m okay.” His lips tightened. “On my way to okay. I know what I did was screwed up. But I want to be here for you—you and the baby.”
I scooted away. “If that’s why you came back, then you’re off the hook.” I squeezed my hands between my thighs. The least funny laugh ever escaped my lips. “If you’d waited a few more hours, you’d have known you were in the clear. I took a pregnancy test and it came back negative and if that weren’t enough confirmation, I got my period.” I threw in a sweeping arm flourish that sent cramps punching at my stomach.
The hot water bottle sat on the couch beside me. I’d be sitting with it resting against me until I had to move again. It signaled that I wasn’t going to become a mother. Keyton and I weren’t bound together for the rest of our lives by a mini-version of him or me, or maybe the perfect combo of both.