Page 60 of Xavier

This horrible situation, however long it had been going on for Dexter, only seemed to encourage his reserved nature. Not that I could really blame him for wanting to shut himself off from the rest of the world at this point.

What good was any of it to him when all it seemed to throw at him was fucking nightmares?

“I’m sorry, dad.”

Wait, what the fuck?

“Dex, no, you have nothing to be sorry for! None of this is your fault.”

“But we cut the trip short because I?—”

“Son, no. No.”

I waved a hand at him, holding my arm up to beckon him over until he finally peeled himself away from the side of my car to shuffle over to me. His body practically sagged into mine when he reached me, allowing me to wrap a tight arm around him as I guided him up to the front steps leading into the house.

I hadn’t bothered to call Kate ahead of time about any of this, mainly out of pure avoidance. There was no doubt in my mind that as soon as I called or even texted her that we were coming home earlier than she’d anticipated, I would’ve had a slew of calls and texts popping up on my notification bar the second we landed.

Call me selfish but I really wasn’t in the mood to be dealing with any of that.

Even now, standing there as I rang the doorbell, I felt a headache coming on.

After a minute of us waiting, the lock on the other side of the door clicked as it was shoved back from the dead bolt, the door opening a moment later. A man, tall, with glasses and a large forehead, stood in front of the glass storm door with a confused expression on his face.

Both of us stepped back so he could push the door open. “Dexter? I thought you were coming home later this week?”

“Dan, right?” I shoved a hand in the gap separating the door from the frame. “I’m Xavier. It’s nice to meet you.”

He glanced down at my hand with very obvious disdain; the wrinkles forming on his forehead were prominent while his face pinched into a sour look. I held my hand there, plastering a pleasant smile on my face when he finally looked up at me again.

When he slowly took my hand, I squeezed his back, giving it a hard shake. “We had some things come up on the trip. I’ve got Dex’s bag if you want to take it.”

Ripping my hand away from his, I used it to push the storm door open further while wiggling the strap of Dexter’s bag off my shoulder and passed it between us. Dan’s eyes widened and quickly, he took the bag in his arms.

While he was momentarily distracted with that, I nodded to Dexter while continuing to hold the door open. Taking my hint, he ducked under my arm to head inside, disappearing beyond the foyer and hopefully, up to his room where he could lock himself in for the rest of the morning to decompress.

I was damn worried about my kid but I also knew that it was important to give yourself the time to come down from the spike in stress hormones. Fuck, I knew I’d needed plenty of that when I was discharged.

“Is there a reason you brought him back so early?” Dan asked.

While he didn’t exactly sound annoyed, he certainly didn’t look too happy.

Was that from the lack of planning on our end, not communicating, or something else?

Such as him not wanting my kid around in general.

I wanted to believe the best in this man, having stepped up where I couldn’t, in raising Dexter, no matter what my pride and ego said about some other man raising my son. Yet, I also knew the statistics of men treating their step kids like pariahs due to that very reason.

Would Kate bring a man like that around to help raise Dexter?

I certainly hoped not.

“Kate around?” I asked instead of answering him, leaning around him to look deeper into the house.

He huffed at me, sliding the bag down to the floor while saying, “Look, I don’t know what your game is, but?—”

“Dan?” Kate called. “Did I just see Dexter going upstairs?”

Before either of us could answer her, she appeared in the doorway looking shocked to see me. Her dirty blonde hair was wrapped up in a tight ponytail, the long lengths hanging down behind her. Even though it was early in the morning, she had her makeup down and a nice outfit on.

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