Memphis sniffed. “I knew this was all too good to be true. I spend my whole life being the good guy. Always the good guy. I have one…” He exhaled a sharp breath before continuing, a humorless laugh getting stuck on his next word. “Onetiny blowup, and I’m out. Suddenly the jackass who abandoned you both is the better option.”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Then get rid of him!”
“Ican’t!”
A flock of birds took flight as Ty’s shrill reply echoed over the trees. Ty spotted a family exiting a minivan by the cabin a few dozen yards away. They probably heard her too. This wasn’t what Eric needed to witness. This didn’t reflect the environment she’d provided for Lucas all these years. Memphis wasn’t himself right now, and all Eric needed was one more outburst to prove his point and get his way in court.
Panic pushed through her so hard it hurt. Ty’s worst nightmare threatened to unfold right before her eyes: she really could lose Lucas—not in the way she feared as he cried in a colicky fit or to some terrible disease, but to a man who was legally his father. A man who’d paid child support from the very start. Eric had money. He had connections. And if he couldn’t get Ty to join him, he’d do everything he could to beat her.
But in this moment, the power was inherhands. With a few short words, she could stop the very thing that threatened to take her son. Only this time, it reallywouldcost Ty her heart.
With that heavy truth sinking soil-deep, she summoned the words that would put all of this to rest.
“I think we should end this.”
Memphis sat on the top step of Ty’s townhome, the phone pasted to his ear.
I think we should end this?The words were poison, and already, they were racing through his blood. She wanted to end it. Ty wanted to end things between them.
“If you care about me and Lucas at all, you willnotretaliate,” she hissed. “Don’t look at, talk to, or lay a hand on Eric while he’s still here, do you understand me?”
Retaliate?Didn’t she know him at all? It was as if Ty was talking to a monster. Is that how she saw him now? After one little outburst?
“I won’t,” he managed, desperate to prove, in what might be their last conversation, that he wasn’ta monster at all. He was a nice guy. The good guy that…
“I’ll give Andie my two weeks tomorrow.”
Memphis sucked in a breath. First the poison, now the final blow. He nodded, not like she could see him, but there was no way for him to form words.
“Goodbye, Memphis.”
The sound of silence that followed was deafening. The absence of her voice. The absence of her in his life.
The phone slipped from his grip.
A shattered sigh tore from his throat as it tumbled down the stairs.
Just how had everything gone so wrong?
