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“I’m working on it,” I promise, thinking about the meeting scheduled on my calendar first thing on Monday morning. I’m trying not to get my hopes up, but it’s impossible not to.
He raises his brow. “Good. You’re good for her, for all three of them. And you’ve both been through the wringer lately. You deserve to be happy with each other.”
Though we’re past Landon’s initial distrust of me, and he’s been friendlier since the day we watched the game together, this is the first time he’s given his implicit approval of Scarlett and me. And as a big brother, I know how hard that approval is to get. I’ve liked most of Fallon’s partners, but the only one I ever really loved broke her heart, and I’ve watched every partner since warily. Ronan has only had one serious girlfriend, his old ballroom dancing partner, and they were too young for me to take them seriously. For Landon to be okay with Scarlett and me, to be happy about it, is huge.
“Thanks, Landon.”
He lifts his coffee cup. “Hurt her, and I’ll hurt you,” he says with an easy smile.
“As you should.” It doesn’t intimidate me, because I’m not going to hurt her. I’m never going to give Landon a reason to think his trust in me was misplaced.
The screen door opens, and we both look over. I expect Scarlett, since she mentioned she would come out once she and Piper had “debriefed”, but it’s my dad. Landon grumbles something under his breath that sounds a lot like “fucker”.
He’s wearing a jacket, but it’s not thick enough for the freezing temperatures so he’s rubbing his arms, clearly trying to keep himself warm. The porch creaks beneath him as he steps forward and leans on the railing, staring out at Fallon and the kids. It looks like they’re having some kind of debate over using a rock or a carrot for a nose.
After a few moments’ silence, my dad looks over his shoulder at me and clears his throat. “I was hoping we could talk.”
Talking to him is the last thing I want to do, but I know I’ll at least keep my temper in check, since the kids are within earshot. I gesture as if to say “go ahead”, but my dad glances past me to Landon. Landon sighs and puts his coffee cup down.
“I suppose I’ll go help with the snowmen.” Honey cracks an eye when he stands up and she slowly hops up into his vacated chair.
My dad takes the seat opposite me, rubbing his hands together. “Cold,” he says, and I hum in reply. He says, “I wish you’d talked to me, Killian. Instead of coming all this way to … what? Catch me out?”
“I didn’t care about catching you. You were already caught. I just wanted you to be there to support your wife while she got treatment for fucking cancer. We were all terrified.”
“Your mom’s fine,” he says, waving a dismissive hand.
“Yeah. No thanks to you. She was going to doctor’s appointments, and you were spending time with a married woman in New York. What happened? Did Sally want to spend Christmas with her actual husband instead of you?”
A split-second look of surprise crosses his face. Clearly, he didn’t expect us to know about Sally.
“Sally and I are done. It was never serious. And you … You’re right,” he says, finally. “I’ve been a bad husband. And a worse dad. Parenting always seemed to come so easily to your mom—to Scarlett, too.” His words make me see red. Easy? He has to be fucking kidding me.
“But none one of this has ever been easy for me,” he continues. “I wanted to be better, I want to be better. I know I’ve been awful.” He’s injecting so much into the words, clearly trying to make them believable, but I know him too well, so they just sound outlandish. I don’t believe him for a second.
And he must see it on my face, because his faux-pathetic expression hardens. “Look, Killian. What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t really care what you have to say,” I answer honestly. “For as long as I can remember, I’ve made excuses for you. We all have. I’m not going to do that anymore. We’ve spent so long forgiving how you’ve treated Mom and what a shitty dad you were to us growing up. And we probably could’ve gone on like that forever. But do you really think any of us will ever be okay with you getting Scarlett pregnant when she was eighteen, then leaving her to raise the kids alone, without even paying child support? Do you have any idea how hard things have been for her?”
“She’s never told me.” As if that makes it okay.
“Of course she hasn’t. She was terrified you would try and take the kids away, and she’s been blaming herself for years for not being able to give them—the kids you made, for the record—the life she wants them to have.”
He tilts his head, considering me with narrowed eyes. “You’ve certainly gotten to know her well in just a few weeks.” I don’t bother responding; he’s trying to bait me, and I’m not biting. It clearly pisses him off, if his furrowed brow is anything to go by. “What’s going on between you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You and Scarlett. Do you have feelings for her?” he asks bluntly.
“Yes.” I don’t hesitate. He’s going to react, whether I skirt around it or not, and I just have to hope that it being Christmas is enough to stop him from blowing up at me.
He sucks in a breath, his nostrils flaring. “And what exactly do you hope is going to come of that? You can’t date my ex, for fuck’s sake.”
“It’s not up to you who I date. It’s up to Scar.”
“Her kids are your half-brother and sister,” he seethes. “Her” kids. Not “our”. That says it all, really. He doesn’t care about the kids, not really. I don’t think he even really cares about Scarlett. He just likes having power over her.
“We know it’s complicated. We still have to figure out the best way to tell the kids that we’re their half-siblings. After that, Scarlett and I will figure out how to explain our relationship. And before you ask, yes: I’m serious about her. About them. I know you’re not going to like it. I know you’re probably never going to be okay with Scarlett and me, but I truly couldn’t care less. For the kids’ sake, if you actually show up for them, I’ll be civil. But you and me—our relationship? It’s done. I’ll never forgive you for how you’ve treated Mom and Scarlett. How you’ve treated my siblings—all of them.”
