April's face went blank. Perfectly, terrifyingly blank.
"Join the club," she said quietly. "It's hardly exclusive."
Kevin slammed his foot against the floor of the truck again, then threw his door open and pulled his backpack and duffel bag out. He dragged his feet walking to the front door. April was already out of the truck and on the porch unlocking it for him by the time he got there. Kevin disappeared inside without looking back.
Shane followed them inside, Pete trotting at his side for once, instead of Kevin’s. April stood in the front room, arms wrapped around herself. Down the hall, Kevin's bedroom door slammed hard enough to rattle the pictures on the wall.
April waited for the sound to fade before pinching the bridge of her nose in a futile effort to keep the tears from falling.
"It doesn't matter whether I left Vegas or not. It doesn’t matter that they never met each other," she whispered. "He sounds just like his father."
The first tear fell.
Shane moved toward her, slowly and carefully, like approaching a wounded animal. "April?—"
"Don't." She held up a hand. "Just... don't tell me I'm overreacting."
"I wasn't going to."
She looked at him then, and the pain in her eyes hit him like a fist. "I love my boy so much. No matter what. But I hate seeing that man inside him. What if I can't change Kevin? What if it's in him already, that cruelty? And he grows up to be a real bastard and hurt everyone around him and it's all my fault that I couldn't counter it?"
Shane kept his voice steady, though fury at Vince Romano was a hot coal in his chest. "April, that's not gonna happen. Kevin's not cruel. He's a good kid. But when he's angry it comes out in cruel ways sometimes. He's hardly the first kid who's ever yelled 'I hate you' to his momma. Doesn't excuse it, not at all. Totally unacceptable. But it doesn't mean he's a bad seed or whatever."
"So what am I supposed to do?" April's voice broke. " I try reasoning with him, he doesn't listen because he's off in a daydream. I try to punish him, he lashes out. Thing is, he's not wrong about being the best at everything." She laughed bitterly. "But I hate seeing that arrogance about it."
Shane guided her toward the couch, and she let him. They sat, and he angled himself to face her.
"Is it arrogance?" he asked carefully. "'Cause I don't see it. I see a kid who's confident. He doesn't lord his skills over the other kids."
"No, but he will. He will if I don't change it."
"April, I've never once seen Kevin win at something and be an ass about it. He just told us that at camp he helped Oliver twice. He helped Regis when he got lost—Regis, the kid who's been tormenting him all year. I watched him clap for other kids when they did their speeches at the graduation. I've?—"
"Are you saying I don't know my own kid?"
"I'm not saying that at all." Shane reached for her hand, and after a moment, she let him take it. "Actually, what I'm saying is that you don't know yourself."
April reared back, a look of total confusion on her face. "I don't know myself? What's that supposed to mean?"
"You don't see how you're projecting Vince onto your son when they are two completely different people. Kevin is smart and good at sports, yeah. Hell, good at everything he puts his mind to, and he knows it. That's not arrogance. It's confidence. He's just stating fact, not being a dick about it."
"Not yet. That's what I keep telling you. I'm not projecting anything. It's going to turn into arrogance if he keeps doing it. If I don't fix it."
"That's another place where you don't know yourself."
"What? What don't I know about myself?" She threw her arms up, exasperated. "That I can't fix it?"
Shane waited until she was looking at him again. Really looking.
"That there's nothing to fix because you are an amazing mother. I'll repeat—there is nothing to fix because you. Are. Amazing." Shane paused, his mouth tilting into a smile despite the weight of the moment. "You. You're amazing, April Taylor. Amazing."
He took her face in his hands, thumbs brushing away the tears on her cheeks.
"And I love you."
The words hung in the air between them. Shane had said them before, whispered them in the dark, breathed them against her skin. But never like this. Never in the middle of the day in her living room with her son down the hall and fear written all over her face.
April's breath caught. "Shane?—"
