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Ryder’s jaw clenched and I knew he was debating how far to take this. “He’s my son.” He snarled, cornering me in the house.
I glanced around, wondering what he would do if I took off for the backyard where my rock was getting ready to grill steaks with our passel of equally protective friends. “H-he doesn’t know w-who you are.” My stupid nervous stutter returned.
“I’ll just bring the food out back.” Taylor touched my shoulder, and I knew she was going to get the guys as soon as she left.
“Thanks, I appreciate it.” I could have asked her to stay and she would have, but this meeting had been a long time coming. I looked down at my son and back at the man I thought I knew. He wore fancy sneakers that could have paid my rent or a month’s worth of baby supplies before Evan came along.
“I sent a package. Did you get it?”
“I did.” The last thing I wanted was anything from Ryder West. We didn’t rate high on his radar before. I was damn well not going to be beholden to him now or at any point in the future.
A bunch of signed football items wouldn’t pay Ethan’s health insurance or child support. I hadn’t asked him to, but it was the principle of it all. I asked him for nothing and nothing was pretty much what he gave me.
“What the hell is going on?” Evan barged in and crowded me from behind, his hands wrapping around my waist to remove me from the doorway. He was my anchor through it all.
“Whoa, Evan.” Hunter pulled up behind us with Taylor close behind him. We were a train, pummeling toward the door into the mess of my past life.
Everyone filled the hall entryway like a bunch of security guards. As former high school football stars they puffed out their chests as if Ryder was the opposing team about to steal their mascot or at the very least minutes of my time.
For a moment, I felt electrified with their eyes all trained on Ryder, ready to assist. Some of their faces looked ready to tear him apart limb from limb. The best part was that they were all there backing up Evan who was ready to lead the charge.
“Is this how it’s going to be?” Ryder eyed them up, and I wondered if he was calculating on tackling each one of them or something stupid. He put on a good show doing the right thing and advancing his career, but at the core he would always be an overgrown frat boy throwing temper tantrums when he didn’t get his way.
“You don’t get to pick and choose when you want to see your son like this. You left us, Ryder. I accepted that. I asked nothing of you, and you offered nothing in return.” I didn’t know how to reconcile his visit to the house. It was my son’s first birthday, but he’d been absent for so long that he was truly nothing more than biological DNA.
His face morphed into something terrifying, and I stepped back into Evan’s steady embrace.
“So what, you’re shacking up with this cop?” He huffed, his posture gesticulating aggressively. Ryder seemed angrier than before despite him being the one who abandoned us.
I observed his fists clenching reflexively. I shook, remembering how he used to hold me during those regrettable encounters with the only goal of getting what he wanted with false promises and coercion I wasn’t savvy enough to understand. It was a less than pleasant memory that evoked the urge to vomit.
Evan tried to move around me, tucking me behind him. “You son of a—”
Hunter grabbed Evan by his shoulder. “Hold up, man.”
“I see that fancy ring on your finger. I wonder how a cop can afford something like that, huh?” Ryder’s words kept getting louder and more hurtful by the second. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from getting emotional. This ring was my birthday gift. It was my birthstone and Ethan’s in an alternating band with diamonds. It was crazy beautiful and I loved it. Evan bought me a jewelry box and was slowly filling it with treasures. If Evan saw my tears there would be no stopping him from going ballistic.
“You don’t get a say in what I do with my life.” I was shaking hard and my ring cut into the skin of my hand being fisted so tight.
“Baby,” he cajoled, arms spread wide as if I would go anywhere near him. The tension in the room was thick enough to cut with a knife and Evan’s rigid body was poised to pounce.
Evan growled, “Don’t. Baby. Her.”
I glanced back and the guys were already on it.
Hunter leaned into him, a hand on his shoulder to hold him back. “Easy. We got this.”
Hunter must have had an idea of how bad it would be for Evan to get into a fist fight in his own house and worked extra hard to kept him cool.
“I want to get to know my son.” The man who couldn’t be pulled out of some skank’s bed on the night of his son’s birth suddenly wanted rights. It was a joke.
“I’m not keeping him from you, but you can’t disrupt his life when it’s convenient for you either. You walked away from us and now this is on my terms.” I bobbed up and down, trying to calm myself, but Ethan sensed my distress and started to cry. I hated offering up any part of my son to this guy who couldn’t act like a man.
“What are you saying?”
“That today is not a good day to hash this out, but since you’re here, you can stay for the party.” Defeat welled in my chest and this was all I would ever offer him.
Something shifted and he shook his head, glancing at points past my shoulder, likely to the line of men who barred him from stepping farther into the house. “Nah, I’ll be around this weekend, though.”
