Heartbroken.
Afraid.
Nothing about that kiss was normal.
Everything about it burned with the ache of goodbye.
If any kiss we shared had one thing in common, it was that they were always done with love. Whether it was our first kiss, or our last, one thing would always be true—I’d forever be guilty in love with Spencer Russo.
For the firsttime in forty years, I was watching the only woman I’d ever cared this deeply for walk away. When someone said they,“neededtime to think,”there were always words unspoken attached to the end of that sentence.
Avery stepped into the elevator, and since I’d met her, I had never felt like I did in this moment. She was taking my heart and the key to my happiness with her. As if time stood still, and nothing else around us mattered, Avery locked her teary eyes with mine before the doors closed. I could read Avery like a book, and her eyes told me that as much as she loved me, as strong as this bond between us was, she had to protect her peace, and with Jackson mixing into our lives, this was no longer her safe space.
The doors closed and the elevator whisked her away. With every second that flew by without her here, my anger brewed to the surface, waiting to erupt.
My eyes veered away from the elevator doors, catching Jackson slumped on the couch with his head tipped back.
How could this young man who’d done so many fucked up things be my son?
Out of all the kids in the world that could have been given to me later in life, why this one?
My mind went back to Avery fleeing from the bathroom, the rage I felt burning through every inch of my body as I felt her shaking in my hands, and the fear in her eyes being branded into my memories.
I’d done my best to tame my anger and push it down with my best efforts to mediate the three of us talking. But after I watched the woman I love walk away, I scolded myself for going so easy on Jackson. If he refused to be a good son, and a decent human being, he didn’t deserve the side of me that was doing my best to attempt to be a good father.
It was time we had a conversation. Man to man.
Without looking back, I straightened my shoulders, opening the balcony door.
“Get the fuck up.” I slammed the door behind me, surprised when the glass didn’t shatter.
“What the fuck?”
Jackson jolted from the couch like a child in trouble.
“Avery’s gone and I’m done holding back.” I gripped the back of the couch, needing to hold tight onto something that wasn’t my son’s neck.
“Give me your worst,Spencer,” he spat.
“So, what? It’sDadwhen you want something from me, butSpencerwhen you can’t find it in yourself to fucking respect me?” A manic laugh ripped from the deepest parts of my chest.
“Oh, you thinkDadever felt normal to me? Maybe you’re right. Maybe I forced that word into my vocabulary when Ineededsomething from you.”
“Unbelievable.” I shook my head, trying to find the right words. “What were you fucking thinking, Jackson? Do youunderstand that I could snap my fingers right now and have you arrested?”
“What are you waiting for then?!” he belted before raising his hands in the air.
He was my fucking son, dammit.
Why couldn’t he see that I was hanging on by a thread here? That I wanted to disown him with every inch of my being but couldn’t commit to cutting the cord because he was my own flesh and blood?
“You’re an ungrateful bastard, you know that?”
“Yeah, Spencer, I’m aware.”
His eyes rolled into the back of his head so dramatically that it almost felt like I was turning back time and seeing him in his teenage years, grounding him for staying out after curfew. Instead, it was much, much worse than that.
Jackson shook his head, walking toward the elevator.
