Kale took a step forward, angling his head. “Really? You’re really going to stand there and act like it doesn’t have everything to do with every damned decision you’ve made since it happened? Are you really going to act like it didn’t have everything to do with Janel in the first place?”
I blanched, attention swinging back to him, anger filling the words. “What? I’m not seeing how the two relate.”
“You settled, man. You settled because you thought you didn’t deserve to be happy. Because you thought you shouldn’t ever get to love again. And then Frankie, that sweet baby girl, came into your life, and you didn’t know hownotto love anymore. So you gave in, opened your heart, loved. You loved, man, and then Janel destroyed it all over again. And now she’s back and you’re settling again.”
He edged forward, voice dropping low. “You really think Rynna’s not worth the fight?”
Anguish fisted my heart. “Of course, she’s worth the fight.”
“Then fight for her, Rex. Fight for her and fight for Frankie, and for goddamned once, fight for yourself.”
Every muscle in my body recoiled. “What if I don’t deserve it, man?” I swam against all the emotions that came rushing in. “I fuck everything up. Every single time. Lose the people I love. I thought this time...I thought this time with Rynna I’d finally outrun it. That I’d gotten a second chance. And the next thing I know, she’s gone, too. She doesn’t want me, man. She doesn’t want me, and I don’t know how to stop it. I don’t know how to stop it.”
The last left me on a wheeze, and I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes.
Fuck.
I didn’t know how to stop it.
I drove back home in a blaze of pain. I’d sat in my truck for two fucking hours, letting the booze run their course, before I forced myself to move. I pulled into my drive, trying not to look behind me to Rynna’s place. Maybe if I blocked it all, I wouldn’t feel it anymore.
Frankie and Rynna.
Maybe if I managed to go numb, it’d erase all the pain. Maybe then I could float right through the days.
I heaved out a couple of breaths before I forced myself from the cab. Footsteps dragging, I made my way up the porch and to the door.
I was in a daze when I walked through it, and I squinted when I stepped inside and let the door fall shut behind me. Like I was watching the scene through a dream. Everything distorted.
Janel was in the kitchen.
Cooking dinner.
Frankie and Rynna.
The smell of pork chops hung heavy in the air. But it felt all off. A knot formed in my throat, and I tried to swallow.
Her blonde hair swished around her shoulders when she turned to look at me, taken by surprise. She quickly tucked her phone in her back pocket, hands shaking. “Oh, you’re here early.”
She dipped into the fridge and grabbed a beer. “Here. You look like you could use this.”
She was all care and concern when she sauntered over to me, twisting the cap from the beer, leading me to the couch.
“Did you have a bad day?” she asked, sinking to her knees on the floor, staring up at me.
I choked out a laugh. A bad day. She had no clue what her returning had done to me. Had done to Rynna. The toll it was taking on Frankie.
And I still had no idea if this was right, letting her into our lives, giving her a chance to be a mother.
She’d gone to dance with Frankie twice, done everything I’d let her, taking her to the park, playing with her every chance she got, even though every time they were in the same room, I wanted to rip my hair out.
But she was trying.
Shouldn’t I?
“You might say that,” I told her.
She pressed both her hands on my knees and leaned up, her voice going quiet when she reached for the fly of my jeans. “Then let me take the bad away. Let me take care of you. Please, Rex, let me take care of you.”
