Page 12 of Needing You

My stomach clutched, and emotion tightened around my throat like a vise.

Her eyes widened. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I shouldn’t have said—”

“Just keep going. I get that your parents kept you from telling me. I even understand that you didn’t talk to me for a bit after since you thought I didn’t want anything to do with you, but you also know your mom didn’t tell me.”

She nodded once. “Jackson was five when I finally moved back, so that’s how long I thought you knew but didn’t care. I went to the bar and saw Jake working, and I chatted with him. He had no idea who I was, and I realized there was no way your family would’ve stood for not knowing one of their own. So I went home and confronted her. I forced the issue, and she finally admitted what she did.”

I unleashed a chain of expletives foul enough to wilt the geraniums in the little hanging pot next to me and paced away. She wasn’t deterred. If anything, she pressed on a little faster, like she needed to get through this before I lost my shit or ran away. But she would figure it out sooner than later. I wasn’t going anywhere.

“So, yeah. Going back to when I was still in Georgia, when I told my parents I wasn’t giving him up for adoption, they all but disowned me. They told me I couldn’t come back—at least not on their dime. So I saved everything they did give me until I had enough. It took just shy of five years, and I finally got back here. Once I heard my mom had lied to me foryears, I worked my butt off to save for flights to New York. I’d heard enough from your brothers to know where you worked.”

I reared back. “You came to New York? When? Why didn’t you talk to me?”

“We went, yes. And we walked into your restaurant. And… it didn’t seem like being a dad would’ve been on your list of things to do that night.” She averted her eyes and fiddled with a button on the front of her dress.

Five years after she’d left, I’d been at the height of my assholery. I didn’t blame people for sleeping around. I’d had a great time… some of the time. And I didn’t treat women poorly—they were after the same thing I was. Feeling good. Feeling free. Distraction. Whatever.

What had she seen that’d made her leave without speaking to me? Shit, my gut was in a knot, and I couldn’t wait for the details. “What happened?”

“You were busy. With two women.”

I stared at her until she lifted her head to meet my gaze. Pain, regret, and maybe even disappointment shone back at me.

Well, fuck that. She wanted to know about disappointment? I could tell her a little something about that right now. So I pressed her, needing to know the full truth. “And that was reason enough not to tell me about my own son? The fact that I was fucking around with some consenting women, hurting no one?”

She straightened. “You were doing body shots off one girl’s chest while groping another one’s ass. Did you expect me to come toddling up with my kindergartener and introduce him to his father at that moment?”

I stormed away, the energy from the fury—at her, at myself, at this whole goddamn situation—making me restless. “Fuck. No. Maybe not at that moment. But then you left?”

“Was I supposed to wait around outside? Or follow you to your apartment and leave a note?”

I raked a hand through my hair, then let it drop. “I don’t know, Kate. Maybe? Yes? Anything other than just not telling me for fifteen goddamn years!”

She laughed bitterly. “I can’t go back and change what happened. All I can say is that at the time, it felt like a confirmation of everything my parents had said about you.”

“Oh perfect. Your saintly parents who fuckingliedto you for years? Those same assholes?”

“I’m sorry.” Her voice came out hard—almost angry.

Join the motherfucking club. “Are you? Sorry? Because from where I’m standing, it seems like you made all the decisions for our son, keeping me from him and him from me, and you just don’t want to feel guilty for it. News flash, Kate—I’m not okay with this. I get that I was acting like an idiot back then, but I didn’t owe anyone anything at that point. I didn’t know I was a dad. I wasn’t your boyfriend or husband. I was single and living it up, doing what I could to deal with my own shit.”

Her eyes were glassy with tears, and even in the midst of my tirade, the sight knifed me in the side.Shit, I didn’t want to hurt her. I didn’t want to be this angry asshole. I’d worked a long time not to have this be my default setting, and here I was, rampaging through, blaming her for doing what she thought was right.

I slumped into a chair across from her and put my head in my hands. “Shit, I’m sorry. I’m not trying to make this worse. I’m pissed, and I think that’s understandable, but—”

“It is. Absolutely.”

I sat back to study her. She’d folded in on herself, her arms crossed, shoulders hunched in. But those words—she meant them.

“I’m glad you see that. I guess what I’m trying to say is that Ihatethat you saw me like that and thought it meant anything about how I’d feel about …Jackson.” Saying his name was yet another gut punch. “And I hate that I’ve missed his entire childhood.” And sayingthatdrove it home yet again. I’d missed fifteen years, and no matter how angry I got or how wrong it felt, we couldn’t go back.

She took a seat next to me and set a hand on my wrist. Our first contact in over fifteen years. Lightning coursed through my veins, and the intensity of such a simple touch had me searching her gaze. Her eyes were wet, and she looked pained. Pained because she felt it too?

“I’m truly sorry, Will. I can’t take back any of my choices in the past, but wecanmake better choices going forward.”

I nodded, still rocked by the feel of her hand on my arm. It sent me barreling into the past, into the mire of feelings I’d had for her and how hard I’d crashed and burned when she left.

Her hand fell away before she spoke again. “As I was saying earlier … it’s important to me that you know we don’t need anything from you. I didn’t want you to think I was about to ask you for child support or something.”

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