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Please, God, let her not mind. He needed her to be on his side, or Zach would never believe he wasn’t the bad guy. Wasn’t the enemy.
Brianna nodded. “That’s fine.”
“I don’t want to go with him.” He raised his head and shot his mother a desperate look. “Mom, I’m not going with him.”
“You’ll go because I told you to.” Brianna slipped back into the kitchen, calling over her shoulder, “See you two soon. Pick out a dessert, too.”
“Thomas, can we play more when you come back?” Cody asked.
“Sure thing, kiddo.” Thomas smiled, then offered a hand to Zach. “Let’s go.”
Zach ignored his hand and thrust himself to his feet. With a seething glance, he stalked to the front door. Thomas shook his head and followed.
At least it was progress.
In the truck, they buckled up in tense silence. Zach glared mutinously out the window. Thomas waited until they were on the highway to speak.
“Look, I know I’m not your dad, and I don’t want to be.”
“No, you just want her.” What Thomas could see of Zach’s profile was stiff, his jaw a hard line. “You’ll probably get rid of us. Send us all to boarding school or something. Have your own kids. We’ll end up sleeping in the basement. Or in the cupboard under the stairs.”
Was that what this was all about? Zach was afraid of being replaced?
“You watch too much TV,” Thomas said gently. “I’m not going to send you away. First of all, your mother would never do that to you, and she’d never allow someone in your lives who would. She loves you too much for that. And second of all? You’r
e not Harry Potter. You have a perfectly good room upstairs.”
“You don’t know that she wouldn’t send us away if you asked.” Zach curled his fingers around his seat-belt strap, his knuckles white. “I never thought she’d replace Dad, either, but she did. You’re here all the time. In his house. Sitting on his couch. With his wife.”
“Do you think your dad would want your mom to be alone? Or do you think he’d want her to be happy? Think about that.” He turned into the parking lot at Meijer and killed the engine. “She has a good man taking care of her already. You. I’m not there to take her away from you or from Cody or Katelyn. I’m not trying to pull her away from your family. I…I’d just like to be a part of it.”
Zach’s shoulders straightened. “But she doesn’t need you. You’re right. She has me.”
“No, she doesn’t need me. But I like her, Zach. I want to make her smile and laugh. And I like you guys, too.”
“Us?” The boy blinked. “Why?”
“Why not?”
“Because we don’t like you.” Zach’s eyes narrowed. “At least…I don’t like you.”
“Well, I like you. You remind me a lot of myself at your age.”
“I’m nothing like you!” But after a moment, Zach’s hunched shoulders relaxed and he darted Thomas a wary look. “What about when you go back to California? She’s worrying about it. I see her every night after you leave. She looks sad.”
Thomas took a shaky breath and gripped the steering wheel. “I have a plan for that.”
“If you hurt her…” Zach said after a few moments of tense silence.
“You can send me packing with another black eye. I promise.” Thomas offered a hand. “Temporary truce?”
Zach studied Thomas’s hand, squinting, mouth tight. Thomas held his breath. Would he be accepted or rejected? He felt like his entire future with Brianna hinged on this moment.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, Zach shook his hand. “Truce. But I still don’t like you. I won’t moon you or kick a ball at your face, but I won’t go out of my way to be nice to you, either. Not yet.”
He could handle that. “You don’t have to like me. I’m only asking that you give me a chance. If I screw up, send me on my way.”
“I will. And I’ll like it.”
