Page 41 of Watch Me

I can see the suspicion forming in his eyes, the shocked whirlwind of his thoughts trying to make sense of what I’m doing here. What my involvement is in all of this.

Even I don’t know. Am I trying to keep him away from Zoë out of sheer protectiveness, or am I trying to manage the narrative?

Maybe both.

“Let’s go outside,” I suggest, wrestling with myself to stay calm. “We can talk in private.”

“The fuck we will. None of this,” he indicates himself, Zoë, the booth, “is any of your fucking business, old man.”

Old man.

The fury that I’d just managed to get under control leaps up again like an uncontrollable fire.

Tate is a big guy, six feet and broad, but not as tall as me. When I step towards him, I still tower over him by three inches.

“You don’t want to make this my business,” I threaten, in a tone that surprises even me.

This is my son, after all, but on a base, instinctive level, he feels like a competitor.

Fuck.

We’re interrupted before he can reply by a big bald man with a goatee, dressed in a t-shirt that says Security across the front.

“Excuse me,” he barks. “What’s happening here?”

“I’m escorting my son off your premises,” I snap, turning to meet the man chest to chest. While tall, he, too, is shorter than I am.

“Holy fucking shit,” Tate exclaims, with all the exasperation of a spoiled teenager.

He steps into the hall with no fear of the security guard. It’s the alcohol, maybe, making him belligerent, but still, it’s such a contrast to the shy little boy I remember. He’s a man now.

“I will see myself fucking out,” he snarls, striding past both of us.

“You okay, Zoë?” asks the security guard.

“I’m fine,” she answers, and I realize she’s right behind me. My attention tears away from Tate, and I look over my shoulder at her for the first time.

She looks unthinkably vulnerable, barely dressed in only a skimpy bikini, towering high heels giving her the long, skinny legs of a newborn fawn, and I just want to wrap her in my arms and bury myself in her like I did earlier today when she told me she loved me.

But I can’t do anything for this exact reason right here. Because Tate could show up in our lives at any moment, like he just did.

“This is all bullshit!” I hear him holler from a distance, sounding like a crazy person, a drunk throwing a tantrum in public. I wrench my eyes away from Zoë and walk down the corridor, followed by the burly, baldheaded man, who storms past me down the stairs and takes my son by the elbow, swiveling him towards the door.

Another man, short and fat, turns in my direction and shouts past my shoulder.

“Zoë! Head home!”

* * *

I know this is a pivotal moment, one that will define my relationship with my son.

I should be driving him home. I should be dragging all this mess and chaos up to the surface and sorting through it, painful though it might be, just so that he and I can clean it up and repair things.

But instead, I’m standing in the parking lot when Zoë walks out the back door with her giant bag slung over her shoulder, waiting for her. She doesn’t look surprised to see me.

I give her a crooked smile, the kind that doesn’t reach my eyes, because I’m so regretful about everything. I would do anything to take back what I said today, the way I ended things, except that I can’t. We can’t go on, and, clumsy and shitty though it may have been, I’ve ripped the bandaid off now. We have to find our way from here.

She gives me a regretful look back, eyes big and baleful, and when I hold out an arm, she falls into it, leaning her body against mine, her temple on my chest.

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