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But he was going to rewrite his own damn story and if his father didn’t like it, too damn bad.
Maybe they were alike, but it was time for him to take his own stand.
1
Clean Cut
Fifteen Years Later
Ren parkedhis SUV in the driveway of his childhood home. Man, he hated this place.
No matter how much his mother had tried to get him and his father to get along, he couldn’t get away fast enough. That summer before he left for college was both the best and worst of his life.
The best because of what he had with Zara Wolfe. The worst because he broke her heart with his need to escape the man that he’d never be good enough for.
He’d left for college and came home for the first summer because he had to see Zara again. But he’d worked his ass off at the marina and listened to his father give him shit about wasting his time on computers. If he thought the time away would change things, he’d been wrong.
It’d been a slim hope he had. That he could have the best of it all. Zara and a career he wanted.
Nope. It didn’t happen and he didn’t see it ever getting better, only worse. Like a festering wound that no amount of care could ever get the pus out of.
He swore it was his last summer there after that. He’d told Zara that and she hadn’t believed him.
They’d made their relationship work that first year of college and he’d been so thrilled to be able to do it. He’d only been two hours away from home, her an hour from him. It was easy enough to see each other on the weekends when they could.
She still talked about returning to Mystic and didn’t understand he wasn’t going to. He’d told her enough, but she either had clouds in her eyes or thought his father would change. She knew the man. Nothing would ever change with him.
Yet something seemed to because when he was younger there were some good memories.
Ones that filled his brain in the past month and choked him, making him wonder what the hell went wrong or shifted in his father’s eyes.
A week before he and Zara were getting ready to return to college, Ren broke it off with her. A clean cut was what he said he needed.He couldn’t do it again; he couldn’t come home and be treated the way he was. He couldn’t work his ass off and stress over trying to be someone he wasn’t.
He was a man of his word and it killed him to say what he had to her.
They’d had no communication since.
All that was going to change. There was no way around it.
His life was in a tailspin out of control and he needed to regain his footing on the ice after a dizzying spin.
That meant being in Mystic for a few months...if not more.
He took a deep breath, turned his head to look in the backseat to see it all quiet and then got out. Shit was going to hit the fan, he knew, but he had to man up and do it.
He opened the back door and unbuckled his sleeping son. Six-month-old Max and he were fumbling this father-son thing together as best they could.
He released the seatbelt and picked the carrier up, his son passed out cold. He’d planned the trip around Max’s naptime after he’d eaten and was thankful for the quiet drive.
The fact his SUV was loaded up for not just him but also his son for a few months hadn’t been fun. He knew he’d forgotten things, but figured it might be easier to buy it here anyway. He’d make a few trips home at some point he was sure too.
His mother opened the front door for him and stood there shocked.
“Ren,” she said. “Who is that?”
“This is my son, Max,” he said.
His mother moved back and let him in. Her mouth opened and closed a few times and then she finally said, “You were here last month and never said a word. I’ve got so many questions and don’t know where to start.”
