Page 104 of Worth the Wait
“This could be a turning point. For Alfie. For me. Forus. If we do this right, if we back each other for once instead of tearing each other down, we get to help him build something better. We get to protect him. Not the wayyouprotected me. Not with fear. But by showing up.” He paused, heart in his throat. “You said the Army made me a man. Maybe. But now I want to be afather. And I can’t do that if I’m always trying to surviveyou.”
Ron fixed his gaze somewhere far beyond the garage walls, staring down a memory only he could see. Nathan didn’t press. He knew that look. Had worn it himself. It was the burden of past trauma. Of things never said. Unprocessed.Inherited.
The spiral never stopped on its own.
Someone had to break it.
Nathan had spent years believing his dadwouldn’t. But maybe the truth was simpler. Maybe Roncouldn’t. Maybe this was his way of letting Nathan do what he never could.
After a long moment, Ron turned his back on him. “Go sort that Polo. It’s got a misfire and an owner with all the patience of a bomb with the pin half-out.”
What more could Nathan expect?
* * * *
Later, after having sorted that Polo, Nathan sat in the driver’s seat of his car, engine off, waiting for Alfie to emerge from the school gates. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, watching the tide of kids trickling out, some in noisy packs, others hunched and solo, and he scanned their faces automatically, as if his body remembered this routine from a lifetime ago.
Then he stopped at one.
A figure leant against the iron fence to the left of the entrance, half-hidden behind the row of recycling bins. Hoodie up, baggy jeans, shoulders hunched. And still.Toostill.
Nathan honed in on him.
That wasn’t a kid waiting for a mate. Too tense. So he followed the boy’s gaze to the school gates. Nathan’s training kicked in.Target. Waiting. Planning.
He gripped the steering wheel. He knew that stance. It was the same tension he’d seen in ambushes. In alleys and compounds. The kid wasn’t loitering. He wasbracing. Then the crowd shifted, and Alfie stepped out. Alone. Hood up. A teacher came running after him, stopped him before he got to the gates. Mr Ellison. Jude. He spoke to him, tapped him on the back, and handed him a piece of paper, then scurried off. Then Alfie turned back towards the gates.
The figure moved.
Nathan was out of the car before the door even fully opened, slamming his steel toe caps onto the tarmac. The kid broke from the gate in a blur. Fast, focused, pulling something from his coat.
Blade.
Years of military training fired through Nathan’s limbs on instinct. Assess, act, intercept. He pushed off the pavement and ran, weaving between clumps of parents and kids lingering by the gates, dodging a toddler, shoulder-checking a teenage boy who cursed at him. He didn’t stop. He narrowed his focus on the figure sprinting towards Alfie. Fast. Blade drawn. Shoulder low. Intent in every step.
He ain’t here to scare him. He’s here to hurt him. Warning or ending.
Alfie stepped clear of the crowd, head down, reading through the letter, oblivious. The wind caught his hood, tugged it back, and only then did he look up.
Nathan slammed into him with an outstretched arm, shoving Alfie sideways, and knocked him off balance, sending him sprawling onto the grass verge. Nathan then pivoted, turning his body in mid-air, positioning himself in the boy’s path.
Pain flared. Hot and immediate. Searing a line across Nathan’s side as the blade tore through fabric and found skin. Shallow, but brutal. Enough to send him crashing to one knee on the gritty tarmac.
The attacker faltered.
His eyes blew wide. He couldn’t have been much older than Alfie, barely past childhood, face still smooth beneath the hoodie. And for a flicker of a moment, Nathan wasn’t sure what hit harder—the pain, or the sick twist of sympathy.
But the boy stumbled, panicked, then turned, and bolted for the alley behind the shops, vanishing.
Behind them, the school gate erupted. Screams. Shouts. A whistle blew. Someone yelled,“Call an ambulance!”
Nathan stayed upright long enough to scan for Alfie, curled on the ground, wide-eyed and shaking, but unhurt.
That’s all that matters.
Then Nathan checked his ribs.
Blood.
