Page 13 of Needing You

My eyes shut against the brutality of those words. I exhaled slowly so I wouldn’t shoot out of my seat and start ranting again. Mercifully, for once, I found a piece of calm and spoke as slowly and clearly as I could. “I want to help.”

“You don’t need to, though. That’s what I want you to know. We’re—”

“Kate.”

The sharp edge in my voice made her blink and a slight tremor of awareness filled the space between us. Not fear, but a volatile tension, like this would all blow up in our faces if we couldn’t listen to each other.

“He’s my son. I’m going to help. I have the means, and I’m not asking you. I’m telling you. I’m going to help, and all I need is for you to tell me how best to do that.”

She pressed her lips together, drawing my attention to her mouth. It was fucked ten ways to Sunday to feel a wash of need fill me as I looked at the arch of her cupid’s bow, but this whole situation was messed up, so why should that shock me? I’d always been weak for her. From the moment I met her, I was a goner. Sitting next to her now clearly showed me that nothing had changed in that regard.

“Fine,” she said quietly. “We’ll figure that out.”

“Good. And I need to meet him. As soon as possible. I get that we’re not about to be some big happy family, and he’s not about to call me Dad, but I’m not going to wait anymore.”

“Okay. Yes. That makes sense.” She stood and stepped away from me.

My eyes tracked her every step. “So? When can I meet him?”

She turned, keys in hand. “He’s got football tomorrow until three. I’ll need to give him a heads-up, so maybe you can come sometime after four?”

Anticipation and something like hope filled my chest. “I’ll be there.”

7

KATE

One time when Jackson was seven, he’d fallen out of a tree. It was the first of several broken bones, but it was the memory that stuck out most clearly because of the conversation we had while we were waiting for them to put on his cast.

“Brady Thompson’s dad taught him to climb a tree,” young Jackson had said, his big brown eyes—eyes that matched his own father’s—round and filled with tears. His bottom lip quivered with the effort of holding them back, and it made my heart ache.

“How nice of him,” I’d replied with a wry smile.

I’d slid my fingers through his thick hair, sticky and coarse from running around in the hot sun. He smelled like sweat and summer and adrenaline from his fall, and as gross as I’d usually found that typical outside smell, right then it filled me with gratitude. My son was hurting, but he was a typical boy getting his first cast, and he was going to be okay.

Jackson sniffed and looked down at his arm. Then he looked up at me and delivered the fatal blow. “I bet if I had a dad to show me how to climb, this wouldn’t have happened.”

I’ll never forget the flavor of pain that sliced through me at the tremor in my son’s voice that day. I’d leaned on the side of his hospital bed and let my hand wander over his bony shoulders, giving him a tight squeeze. “I’m sorry. If you want, maybe I can teach you.”

“Do you know how to climb a tree?”

“Well, no. Not really. I’ve never done it.”

I’d almost laughed picturing how ridiculous that would’ve been. My family had plenty of trees on our property that would have been great for climbing, but since my dad had been either working his way into the world of politics or actually being the mayor, there was no way they’d have their daughter climbing trees like a wildling. Instead, I’d spent most of my summers inside, learning to play piano or studying with a tutor because the mayor’s daughter had to maintain perfect grades.

It was no wonder I’d eventually rebelled against them. It was no wonder Will Walker had caught my eye with his dark ones that promised all kinds of mischief. And it was no wonder I’d been naïve enough to think there’d be no consequences to my actions.

“I don’t think you could teach me what to do if you don’t even know,” Jackson had said, his face squishing up like he didn’t want to hurt my feelings. “Brady said it’s all about knowing where to put your feet.”

“Oh, honey. That’s not true. Anyone can lose their footing and fall at any time. Even if theythinkthey know what they’re doing.”

I had no idea when I’d said that to him how relevant those words were to our situation in general. I’d thought I knew what I was doing back then, too, but it struck me now, roughly eight years later, as I sat watching Jackson process the truth about his father—I was dead wrong. This was what it felt like to suffer the fall. His eyes were bigger now, but the pain in them was the same, and it hurt like nothing else to know it was all my fault.

“So… his family. The Walkers,” Jackson said, apparently too busy processing the whole sordid tale to form a complete sentence. “Sammy and Jake and Eric from the brewery. They’re my uncles?”

We didn’t go to Walker’s Brewery often, but it was a staple in Granite Springs. Jackson had been there countless times in the last ten years. He’d meet his friends there for burgers, the coach would hold team dinners in their party room, and they even let his Pop Warner team do a car wash fundraiser in their parking lot when he was ten. Everybody knew the Walker family—including Jackson. He just hadn’t known he was one of them.

“Yep, they’re your uncles,” I replied, hoping my voice didn’t sound too unsteady. “And Jenna Walker is your grandmother.”

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